I currenly running RH9, i getting very frustrating dealing with rpm's not running and it's becoming very hard to get my sys back to the way it was while running Win. I don't want to go back that way but i'd like to peek into some other distros do I have to start adding partitions to install a 2nd or can they both live happily together? If so could one be unistalled if it had to be?

They will need different root partitions at the bare minimum. If you normally just install Linux to 1 partition, then just add one more partition and you are set!

Also, I used to use RedHat, but grew frustrated with it. I'd recommend Mandrake or SuSE to try out as alternates... though those are both RPM-based as well. If you want something with a different type of package management, portage for Gentoo is supposed to work pretty well, and deb packages for Debian are nice too I have heard... Also, archLinux's pacman system looks intriguing...

you can share your home and swap partitions between distros, just watch your user id. I have mdk and suse installed and they both use different default UID's (500 and 501) so you got to set up users manually. I am just working on setting up a boot partition and loading both with the same kernel.
Anyhow if your not happy with Red-Hat try suse 8.2, works almost perfect for me out of the box, exempt for 4 channel sound and DVD playback (encrypted). Also ide-cdrom dma was not on by default...but a lot less work to get going smooth than MDK or Red Hat. Also its fast...KDE is a lot faster for me in Suse. Then if you feel adventurus you could always try Gentoo....Its the Indy of Linux.

To install another distro you will need at least one more partition (that's the easiest way). Swap partition can be shared. No need to "uninstall". After saving whatever files you wish to keep to another media, you delete the partition and install you new distro. Be careful, deleting a partition can rearrange partition desiginations. Check carefully before performing formats and installs.

I recommend trying redhat+debian+slack, those are the 3 majior styles that are newbie safe, redhat is rpm, debian is .deb (thousands of packages available) slackware has all required and a few extras in packages, but is very compile your own friendly, not as many utils but will teach you the most about linux (except start-up scripts which are bsd style) gee guess what I use :-P

I think I will try the RH+DEB+SLACK combo I'm pretty good at RH but having nothing but RPM probs Debian was my next choice anyways..and although I hear Slack is very hard for the newbie I'd like to see what it all about, that way i'd have a better selection and eventually pick 1. now how would I make 2 more /root partitions?

make 3 native linux partitions, one boot partiton and one swap (then if you use windows through that in to)

also slack is said to be hard to learn only by people that:

a) gave up to soon and had a freind using something else

b) used redhat for a long time first then went into slack wich while not much harder is much different.

c) people that want everything done for them.


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you can't just sit down install linux and expect it to do something, work with it people! if you want it to do something install windows and watch it crash when you boot!