Well I have Installed Mandrake 10.1 on a 2nd 300GB HDD..../dev/sda2
with two Partitions, 10GB ext3 "/dev/sda2"
and the rest NTFS "/dev/sda1"

And I have XP Pro on the first HDD............./dev/hda1

Now my question is.............I'm new to Linux have been using it for about a week.

Would Fedora be better than Mandrake ???
Just thought since it is the successor to Red Hat and that beeing used everywhere.

The system is dual boot...........would Fedora continue to be able to use something like Lilo or Lilo ?

Generaly is Fedora better than Mandrake............. + and - for both.

Thanks a lot

You need to try them both and make your own mind up. Usually if you ask such a question you will get biased answers.

Personally I steer well clear from Fedora Core. The reason or that, simply put, is that Fedora Core is, according to RedHat, their testbed for products before they're released into the RedHat Enterprise distro : "A proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products," and is used for "Developer or highly technical enthusiast using Linux in non-critical computing environments".

That means, essentially, you're testing potentially unstable products for RedHat. Some people like this, and it certainly has its advantages and is of great benefit to the Linux community at large, but it's not a great idea for a production machine. RedHat even says so on their web site:http://www.redhat.com/software/rhelorfedora/ read down the rightmost column, representing FC.

Of course the argument can be made that ALL Linux distributions are like that at least in some way...

Mandriva (the Linux formerly known as Mandrake) is dead easy to install and use. If you're new to Linux I'd suggest Mandriva.

I can say that at least slightly unbiased because I don't use either, I'm a Slacker.

Thanks for the answers.

Well what about Red Hat 9 "shrike".................OK I know it old.........."2003" but hey xp is from 2001.

I have both Red Hat and Fedora........

You could even triple-boot Fedora, Mandrake, and Windows. That way you get the full experience. I triple-boot Mepis, Ubuntu, and Windows.

OK...........but how would I go about that..........create another ext3 partition and install fedora to that..........then how would the bootmanager handle that..........Lilo.

And also how do I change what is in the boot manager.......

List:

Linux
Linux...nob or something
Fail safe
Windows
Windows safe mode

How do I change the order of what starts up first and what Items are there............would like to have

Windows
Mandrake
Red Hat "Fedora"

???

Thanks

I don't know much about Lilo. Both Mepis and Ubuntu use Grub.
In fact, even when I installed Mandriva, I used Grub.
Basically, I resized my Windows partition with QTParted.
Then, I created a partition for Mepis and a partition for Ubuntu.
I installed Mepis on one partition, installing Grub to that partition instead of the Master Boot Record.
Then, I installed Ubuntu, which recognized both my Mepis and Windows partitions, and I installed Grub on the MBR.
Then, the Grub menu had Ubuntu as the default OS, Mepis as the second, and Windows as the third.
To edit the boot order or the default OS, I would edit (as root) the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and change default from 0 to 1 (or 0 to 2).

(Well, that's what I did originally. Since then, I've done considerably resizing and repartitioning, but that's another story.)

That's Grub, though. I don't know much about Lilo. I would imagine it's something similar.

I also have the option of using Grub..........it just used Lilo by default.

So basically what you are saying is that "creat another partition and install the 3rd OS and use the boot loader from that OS, it will see the two other automatically........and thats it triple booting" ?? or did I miss something

Thanks

OK.......Installed Fedora Core 4.....installation goes fine etc......

First boot-up......Grub is fine but selecting Fedora gives me a Kernel Panic

What do I do to correct it........re-install ???

Thanks

Well now only windows will boot.

So I re-installed mandrake and they both boot fine trough lilo...........

Should I now then install Fedora but without a boot loader and configure the lilo file after the insatll

Thanks

Yes thats what you should do.

OK will do...........thanks

Ok did the Install of Fedora without the bootloader.

This is how the lilo config file looks like.

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=200
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/sda2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/sda2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/sda2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/sda1
label="windows1"
table=/dev/sda
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

So to make it work with fedora as well what do I have to do ?

Fedora is installed on sda3.

Also the Lables..........can I change them and do I need these three..........would like to just have Windows and Mandrake and Red Hat "Fedora"

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/sda2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/sda2
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht"
read-only
other=/dev/sda1
label="windows1"
table=/dev/sda
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80


Thanks

Edit: it says I have to run lilo after the changes have been made............how do I do that ?

Well now I get another Kernel Panic;

Kernel Panic: No init found. Try passing init=option to kernel.


What does that mean..............and how do I do that