Two Mandriva Questions
 

Hi. The most I’ve done with Linux is using a liveCD. Now, I want to install Mandriva onto my HP laptop. But I have a few concerns.

1. I want to keep my windows on the computer. Mandriva has an installation option that says “use free space on windows partion” – will this allow me to keep my windows? And will it be easy to boot windows or is it going to be hard to figure out?
2. I have concerns with my wireless. I have the broadcom 802.11g WLAN. And I don’t know how to get the required drivers. On the Mandriva One disc – I can’t get wireless.



And information is a help.

Thanks.

I can't answer your question on wireless, but there's a lot of threads here on how to install and set up Wireless on a Linux desktop, so my guess is its probably a little on the difficult side.

Yes, you can keep Windows on your computer. You may want to manually partition the hard drive however. because if you use all the free space, Windows won't be able to save anything else. I'd use a minimum of 10gigs for your Linux install. Even easier, is look online at Tigerdirect, Newegg, maybe even Ebay etc, and find a cheap hard drive on clearance. Use the secondary drive for your Linux install.

As for booting, when you install Mandriva, it will give you the option of installing a "Bootloader", either Lilo or Grub. I'm almost positive Mandriva uses Lilo. When the installer installs Lilo, when you turn on your machine, as it boots, you'll get a Menu, asking which Operating system you want to boot, Mandriva or Windows XP.

IGF

Once you get Mandriva installed - as long as it's Mandriva Free 2007 - you start Mandriva Control Centre and click on network/internet
Then click on Wireless connection. It will see what drivers are needed and then will look for them on your windows partition. Answer the rest of the questions it asks to get wireless set up.
best wishes.

Mandriva will prompt you to use ndiswrapper
that can use the Zinblows driver (inf file)
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...index.php/List
if the kernel does not support your card