ok first of all let me pointout that im a total newbe. i have never seen linux running on any mashine and the only thing i know about it comes from the magasine the install disks were on.

its mandriva limited edition 2006 and the computer is a laptop Dell inspiron 9400.

i installed the linux and tryed to follow the derections (from the magasine) as best a could and now when i startup there first comes a logon screen where i type the name.

then there starts up a blue background a clock and a command line/promt

lilian@localhost: /home/lilian

and nothing else

what have i done wrong ? and how do i fix it??

i forgot to say it was running windows vista before but now that dosent even start

I think you may have 'hosed' your vista installation, you're looking at reinstalling that again. The problem is vista uses the ntfs file format, GNU/Linux does not natively write to this type of partition. Most Distro's will offer to shrink your partition so that you can dual boot between the two operating systems.

Mandriva 2006 is an old distro, I would suggest you download either a 'live' distro such as Mandriva One Spring (32bit): http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/mandrivaone, PClinuxOS: http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?o...tpage&Itemid=1 (this one is based on Mandriva) or the current non-live Mandriva 2007 Spring (32bit): http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free.

The advantage of using a live distro is you can try out GNU/Linux without making any changes to your hard drive, if you later decide to install an icon is provided on the desktop which will launch a wizard to assist you.

Reinstall your vista then choose one of the above options.

BTW: There are other distro's live and otherwise, the above has been suggested because you have already tried to install Mandriva.