Hello, everybody, this is my first post here
I am new to Linux, although I have a Mandrake linux installed. My basic OS is Windows XP, but I still wish to switch to Linux.
I had some problems with Mandrake ( messed up the xorg.conf, could not get my i-net working ), so I decided to move to Ubuntu 6.10.
Since I've made my decision I've read many articles referred to Ubuntu and I think I could cope with it.
But my problem is I have never installed an OS before, even Windows.
I have a HDD, which is partitioned in this way . There is the Mandrake installed.
My questions is - how to remover Mandrake, without harming Windows or the other local discs, that contain some information, that is valuable to me.
I wonder if ubuntu will auto-detect that there is a Linux installed. And if I manage to replace Mandrake with Ubuntu, what about the boot-loader? I have a LiLo now. Should I install another one, or can I keep it?
And last question - should I configure the xorg.conf by myself or it will be automatically configured?

I know that most of the questions are typical for a newbie, yet I apologize myself. I just seek some knowledge about getting my PC to work in an alternative way ^^

Btw, I am not sure that this is the right place for the topic. If it isn't, please do not delete it, just move it somewhere. Thank you in advance

Well you might actually end up doing something with that partitioning scheme - it looks a bit "untidy" for my liking.

To get you going, you should just be able to boot an Ubuntu install disc, tell it to use the same paritions, but look at the screen about paritions and installing. I would suggest that you tell it that you want to make the smaller of the two linux partitions as the root partition (normally known as the / partition) and the larger one as the /home partition.

Leave the /swap as it is. just remember that linux partitions are named very differently. the windows install is probably seen as "/hda1". There'll probably be no /hda2 as thats the extended one. I'm guessing but the two linux partitions might be seen as /hda5 and /hda6 (last time I had extended ones like that, that was how it named the extended partitions i.e. hda1 to 4 were for primary partitions and hda5 upwards for the logical ones). All you can do is to try to boot the Ubuntu disc and see - Oh and don't forget the graphic environment for Ubuntu is gnome - which you might not like. I found that I felt more at home with kde - if it seems that you are battling with gnome, then you can always open a terminal/console window and enter the command it should then ask you for your password and start installing after you've hit enter.

Then you have the choice of gnome and kde to log into from the main login screen (the choices are listed under sessions).

regards

John

p.s. Oh and if you want the bootloader (grub is the default in Ubuntu I think) to offer the choice of which OS too boot, then you must tell the installer to place it on the first section of the MBR (major boot record) of the first hard drive (if you have more than one that is) and yes, it will overwrite the windows bootloader. If you don't do that, then you might have to mess around to get it too boot the linux as the BIOS will only be seeing the windows bootloader, not the linux one (and yes you can indeed make a windows bootloader boot a linux install, but thats gonna be for another time as it's a "bit of a palaver").

First, be sure that any important data is backed up.

You can simply boot up from a Ubuntu install disk, and then tell it to install on one of the existing ext3 partitions. Since you have Partition Magic, you can also use that to delete all the Linux partitions. Then, when you install Ubuntu, it will simply create new partitions in the empty space.

Before you begin, consider re-sizing that big NTFS partition---to give yourself some future "wiggle room". Again, backup first--and also de-frag before resizing Windows partitions.

Well damn!

I clean forgot that I was looking at a Partition Magic screen shot of the partition scheme there pixellany.

Still your suggestion for squeezing the NTFS partition a bit is an excellent idea.

regards

John