I have a dual boot system with Unbuntu and Windows XP and I want to try out openSUSE 10. I was palnning to use Partition Magic to create a new Linux partition and install SUSe on that. However, I have read you shouldnt use PM to create Linux partitions (though it has worked for me before).

Should I use PM or let the SUSE install take care of the partitioning? I don't want to lose either Ubuntu or XP just yet.

Any advice gratefullly appreciated.

I have an Athlon 64 system with a 200GB SATA HD

It doesn't really matter. YaST is easier to handle with empty space on the drive. Usually you can accept the default suggestion without manual interference. If you create a Linux partition with PM, you may need to use the advanced partitioner in YaST to be able to use it. This is why I suggest to let YaST use empty space.

Thanks for that reply. One thing else has just occured to me. Ubuntu uses Grub so will the SUSE install be automatically be added to the Grub loader?

SUSE may not recognize the Ubuntu installation. I suggest you do not allow SUSE to write grub to the MBR and use a floppy instead (should be one of the options). Then you boot from that floppy and look at SUSE's /boot/grub/menu.lst and copy the entry to the file on your Ubuntu system. You may do it the other way round: backup Ubuntu's menu.lst and let SUSE write the MBR, then copy the Ubuntu entry into SUSE's menu.lst. It doesn't really matter which way you do it.

EDIT: Actually, reaging this again, I would prefer the second option myself. It doesn't require booting from floppy.

EDIT2: ... and SUSE will recognize the Windows installation, so no worries about that.

Thanks for the tip, it is going to be next week before I get around to doing it but i will let you know how i get on.

Well I have openSUSE 10 installed and it went fairly smoothly. In the end I decided to overwrite Ubuntu as the SUSE installer could not resize my windows partition. I did consider using Partition Magic to create a new Linux partition but in the end decided go the whole hog and replace Ubuntu. So far I have few regrets although there were some issues as follows:

1. When I first tried to carry out the install I got an "Could not find kernel image: Linux64" error. Now I correctly assumed that was because I had the 32 version on the install disk but was trying to install it on an Athlon 64. It didnt take long to find the option to install the 32 bit version but it wasnt obvious. It would have been nice if instead of basic error method with just an 'ok' option it had said "Could not find kernel image: Linux64. Do you want to install 32 bit version? Yes/No?" Many people would be totally stumped by an error message like that.

2. I decided to install the upgrades manually after I had completed the installation, not during. This proved to be a mistake! The initial install proceeded ok but after I had completed the online updates and rebooted it wouldnt find my hard drive. I couldnt be bothered messing around by this time and so decided to install again (after trying a repair without success), this time doing the online update as part of the install process but not updating the kernel.

3. So far, I cannot get my Epson C86 printer to work despite it working fin in Ubuntu.

Apart from the above issues i must say that so far I am very, very impressed with SUSE 10. I think at last there is a Linux distro that I can recommend to my newbie friends with a clear conscience.