Hello,

I'm praparing to move to Suse 8.2, from Mandrake 9.0.

While today I've a Mandrake 9.0 living aside Windows 2000, I'm not clear as how YaST would handle the boot-loader, that Mandrake has put in already.

It is working fine though to route me, to Windows or Linux.

Also, I hope that Suse would recogonize the Linux partitions that I had created to install Mandrake. I want to overwrite the full Linux space for Suse. Likewise I want Suse to takeover my boot-level screens, while not loosing Windows 2000.

Any suggesstions out there, any do's and don'ts.

All those are really appreciated. Thanks.

Kramer.

If you're doing a wholesale replacement of mandrake to SuSE, you shouldn't have any problems. Yast should detect windows and set itself up accordingly. If you're nervous, however, you can always make a bootdisk when you install suse, and skip the bootmanager part of the install. Then, when you've read enough to feel comfortable, install accordingly.

A lot of the time, distros will set up their settings for you, autodetecting windows and any other partitions. SuSE's one of the careful ones, so as long as what they suggest agrees with your intuition, you're probably okay.

Typically in this scenario SUSE will detect any previous Linux and Windows partitions - simply delete the Linux ones and install SUSE in the resulting free space.

You can let SUSE overwrite an exisitng bootloader (with a new one) in whichever boot sector its in - if SUSE doesnt automatically configure the relevant boot options in Lilo.conf or Grub.conf - its simple to modify these to add the relevant entries.

Re-post if there are any problems

You can make a dry run, i.e. just start the installation. In the last step before actually writing to your hd Yast will warn you and you can still back out without changes to your current system.

Thanks guys. Those are invaluable suggesstions. Will update if I'm stuck somewhere.

Got one related question : Does 8.2 have good amount of driver database to support wireless routers( dsl/cable ).

I'm on the verge of buying Netgeat MR814NA. I read today in another discussion forum that 8.1 had some major problems in detecting wireless routers/cards. Is that a fair to say. Has those problems fixed in 8.2 ?

My knowledge is that Suse 8.2 is major enhancement compared to 8.1.

Thanks again.

C. Kramer.

I wouldn't know. If you can read german, SuSE has a reasonably good database on problem solving, try searching their site at www.suse.de ...

Edit: I just had a look, there seems to be an english version as well: http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/de/html/