Hi, I have a pentium 600 and want to install linux on my computer. I already have win 98. I was thinking of creating a separate patition for linux and installing it on that. However, a lot of people told me that by having windows and linux on the same computer I'll have a lot of problems. Is this true? And which linux brand is best to install in order to avoid these problems? Thanks

The best way to have double-boot with linux is to install linux on a seperate hard drive. However, I have not had any problems having win** and linux on the same HD for 3 years. You must not use linux that can be booted from windows, instead, linux should be botted with LILO, the linux loader, installed on your boot sector. Unline win** loaders, lilo will know about foreign OSes like win** and let you choose which one to boot. Everybody will have a seperate opinion about which distribution to install, my personal choice is RedHat or 100% RedHat compatibles like Mandrake.

Whoever told you this is full of #$##. Linux and Windows can exist on your system just as you described, a separate, dedicated harddrive is the easiest way, but on a separate partition is fine also. I have been dual booting Linux and Windows for over 6 years now. The only warning I have is do not use Corel Linux (eats the MBR without asking) and do not let Linux touch your MBR during th e install, most variants ask where to install LILO (linux boot manager), do not do the MBR. Hope this helps, good luck.

I run Win98 and Mandrake 6.1 on the same hard drive with no problems whatsoever - I use BootMagic to boot whatever I fancy. Windows can't see Linux but mounting Windows from Linux and dragging your e.g MP3 collection across the partition is too easy for words. I've tried RedHat6.0, 6.1 and Mandrake-all good, currently Mandrake 6.1 with StarOffice does everything I need. Enjoy Linux and good luck... Delboy:-)

Yes Windows and linux can coexist on the same hard drive. Just be very careful if you decide to install a windows upgrade operating system. Before you do a windows upgrade make absolutely certain you copy both your Windows and linux partitions to another hard drive. Partition Magic will do the trick. Works great. I found out the hard way. Microsoft upgrade from Windows 98 1st ed to winddows 98 2nd ed. Totally screwed up my partition table. Wouldn't you know the Windows Partion was fine but the linux partition got totally trashed. My best luck was with using partition magic. 1) Use Partition magic and shrink the windows partition. Both Windows and most linux os require boot sector to be less than 8 Gig. Otherwise they won't boot. 2) Then delete the partition left over from the shrink. Actually will become free space. This is where you will put Linux. Make sure the starting sector of the free space is less than 8 gig otherwise it won't boot. 3)Install linux. Some disk druids with red hat don't recognize disk over 8 gig. Make a bsolutely certain the disk druid "Sees" the entire disk. If it doesn't and you see negative free space numbers DONT DO IT. If you do your disk will be trashed. Hope that helps. back up back up and back up Mike

I use Windows 98 and Linux in different partitions on a 6GB drive, along with Windows 2000. I use a boot disk for Linux, not LILO. I find this is the safest way to guarantee the integrity of your MBR.

I'm very ignorant :-( What does MBR stand for? Thanks in advance. Al