installing mandriva
 

can I install madriva 2006 on a fat32 partition ?
I suppose ntfs is out of the question.

No.

Linux needs to be on a Linux-type partition: ext2, ext3, Reiserfs, XFS, etc.

But when you install Mandriva, it can reformat the partition for you. :)

NTFS is out of the question. It has read support only. Any write support is still experimental. As stated above, reformat the partition you want to install it to during the installation process.

Mandriva can safely resize your existing fat32 or NTFS partitions and create its own partition, it can even do it automatically if you select that option in the install process. Backup your data first though because nothing's certain with repartitioning.

Defrag windows drives before you begin, to be sure, to be sure.

thanks.
Mandriva was installed on ext3 but I wanted to know if I can change the partition type in order to be visible for windows.
Another question:
I know ntfs partitions are read-only. fat32 is read-only as well ?
And mandriva 2006.1 supports ntfs without recompiling the kernel?

Linux filesystems are not readable in Windows without third party software. You cannot install to a fat32 partition, but you can read from and write to fat32 from linux. NTFS has read support only (write support is possible using a program called captive ntfs, but it's dangerous and experimental). ReiserFS is a much better filesystem to use to install Mandriva, pick that if you re-install.

All versions of Mandriva/Mandrake have supported NTFS for reading out of the box for years now.