installed a Lycoris Desktop/LX i got free on the front of a linux mag and it went in nicely but killed windows xp unfortauntely. I did love the way it booted straight onto a nice user friendly interface but as im using windows xp as my main OS it just wont do.

installed a version of SuSE 8.2 i got from a mate but it was so rubbish it crashed on installation when trying to come to terms with the invention of usb and hotplugging.

downloaded SuSE 9.1 and it had no usb problems, GRUB looked great and the general feel was nice. Unfortunately it always booted into a blank black screen. Thanks to help in the forum i was told to press CTRL+ALT+F1 and managed to get some visual. But it wasnt the nice desktop screen i was greeted with, but some DOS style prompt expecting me to put commands and code and stuff in. No good.

So if anyone can recommend a Linux that will co-exist with Windows XP nicely on the same hard drive then im all ears. And it has to boot into a nice desktop like Lycoris did, not a command prompt because i can't deal with that yet.

I tend to suggest mandrake 10 at the moment, tho Suse should have worked fine...

I think you're looking for Mandrake 10

have a look at this

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=20451

good luck.

Well, try Mandrake then... You'll be running out of noob distro's shortly... Maybe you have a hardware issue with your GPU or driver.... Those specs might help as well.....

to the guy who asked for my specs:

Shuttle SN45G barebones
Shuttle FN45 micro-atx motherboard
nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset
AMD Athlon XP 3200+
1024Mb DDR400 Crucial RAM
256Mb ATI Radeon 9600XT graphics
160gb Seagate Barracuda ATA100 hdd
Windows XP Pro SP1

Partitions:

C - Windows Boot 20gig NTFS
D - Windows Programs 40gig NTFS
E - Windows Storage 80gig NTFS
F - 10gig set aside for Linux FAT32

Definately Mandrake. I use Fedora now.. but I started out on Mandrake, everything is pretty much done for you and gets you used to the Linux desktop & way of working.

Once you feel you have a general understanding of Linux, its then you can consider alternatives.

MEPIS is a debian-based live-evaluation CD. Just pop it into the CD drive and away you go. Check it out without installing anything to your hard drive. If you like it, it has an install to hard drive icon righton on the desktop. Easiest installation I've yet encountered (I have installed Mandrake, Red Hat, Fedora, and knoppix). Dual booting is not a problem. Package managment uses apt-get, but the kpackage utility is a great graphical way of doing things.

Autodection of hardware seemed to be as good as knoppix. Everything except the winmodem worked immediately. My cable modem was autodetected and the internet settings were auto-configured. Just started surfing.

Hmm.... Thats an awful new ATI card. Dell wanted to pawn one of those off on me when I bought this thing. Said "no thank you, give me an nvidia".... Knew I would run into problems on Linux with a new ATI card.... That was probably what you needed to do with the other distros maybe... Install ATI's Linux drivers. As long as it atleast throws you to a prompt, that would be feasable. Nvidia backs Linux more than ATI so they put more time and effort into making drivers that are easy to install and work really well.... Lets not start a Linux/GPU flame war everyone.... Just talking to myself actually....

Well, give Mandrake a whirl..... It should work..... We have the same hard drive so I know you'll have to stick with the newer distro's that use 2.6 or atleast a patched 2.4 with libata.... For instance, Slackware will not install on your computer unless you use version 10 with the 2.6.7 kernel under /expiermental..... Fedora, Suse and Drake that use the 2.4 like to patch the hell out of their kernels so those will work as well with that drive.

I'd suggest Slax (live CD) or Knoppix (live CD) or Mandrake

ive started downloading Mandrake 10 but there appears to be 3 downloads all of 700Mb and a forth download that is 450MB

do i need all 3 of these images on disc to install Mandrake 10 or am i ok with just one? I presume the 450Mb is additional programs?

anyone?

Yea, You just need the first 3 disks if you are going to do a Full Install. If your going to trim it down, you could possibly get away with just the first 2....

Mandrake 9.1 - Highly recommended for newbs. Works like a charm for me. If someone tells you to use RedHat, SUSE, Slackware, knoppix, or Debian, then run!!!! Seriously, Mandrake makes it the easiest if you're coming from Windows. A majority will agree with me.

ATI drivers work fine in Mandrake 9.1. Don't listen to the people who can't get it working in Mandrake 9.2 or 10.0. Mandrake 10 is full or problems, as you can tell by looking in the Mandrake forum. Mandrake 9.1 all the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There were a few things on the 4th CD I used... Can't remember exactly tho bzflag was one...