Hi,
I'm relatively new to Linux.
I'm dual booting (Xp+Suse 9.1 Pro), grub as bootloader installed in MBR.
I'd like to try another distro (like Debian) and I don't know how to mange this .
Where to install the new one? Can I share the swap partition? How to handle the bootloader?
Any help would be appreciated. Also linking to how-to's.

Thx all

Only one distro can boot at time, at least the way you want to do it, so you can use the same swap space.

As for the boot loader, if you look at the settings and look at how it boots SUSE, you should be able to copy the commands to boot Debian. I did that with Mandrake and FC2.

I can't help with where to put it as I don't know how your harddisk(s) are laid out.

Question: when you installed xp and SuSE, did you use all of the hard disk? If so, you'll have to resize one or both to make room to create a partition for Debian. If there is enough unused space, make a partition for Debian.

Both Linux distros can use the same swap space since you can only boot one distro at a time.

Since SuSE's grub already boots xp and SuSE, you have a choice to make. Have Debian install grub to the MBR, or, install Deb to it's own partition and use the SuSE grub to boot all three OS's. If you allow Deb to write to the MBR, I hope it finds the other two OS's and correctly writes the grub.conf and /etc/fstab files so that you can still boot xp and SuSE. To be safe, print those files from SuSE and keep them handy in case you have to manually edit the files in Deb.
As an alternative, you can install Deb and print the files from Deb, then mount the SuSE partition and edit the grub files in Suse to add the Deb info to grub.conf and /etc/fstab in the SuSE partition. That should work.

Thx for these suggestions bigrigdriver!
When I installed SuSE and Xp i used all the available disk space...so I have to resize to make space for the new one.
I think I will run the second way you suggested me, install Debian in its own partition, then mount the SuSE partition and edit the grub files in SuSE to add the Deb info to grub.conf and /etc/fstab in the SuSE partition.
Hoping this will work...cause not so sure grub automatically updates its info. in the first way you indicated me...
Last newbie question: doing this way I'll go to install the Deb bootloader (grub) in the Deb partition? Is it better to create a dedicated /boot partition?

Thanks again

heres a good link

http://www.faqs.org/docs/

lots of stuff there to read
keep you out of mischief for a while

under Linux mini how-to :-
Multiboot with Grub how to
loadlin with win95 98 Me how-to
Linux and Win nt how-to

just some of the titles
also type
Linux How-to
into a search engine like Google
will bring up other sites
such as the Linux doc project and many more
dont overlook tutorials on this site

also http://www.linuxdoc.com/

I have been dual booting Mandrake and Win98 for 2 years, was going to experiment with FreeBSD as a tripple boot
play with FreeBSD on a separate machine first ! It also like to be installed last if you ever try it
good luck

floppywhopper