Hello all...I'm trying dual boot Win98SE and Linux-Mandrake 8.0. I'm not sure what's up with the Linux installation, but maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong. I created a primary dos partition (85% of a 27GB hard drive) with Fdisk and formatted this partition FAT32. The rest of my drive ,15%, is to be used for Linux, so I simply exited out of Fdisk with the one primary dos partition. After Win98se is installed, I try to install Linux-Mandrake 8.0 through the recommended setup. I am asked how Linux should be installed. I select "Use Free Space", but right after that I get this error: "missing basesystem package" Is there something else I need to do in Fdisk? Any help is appreciated.

You can create an extended partition for the 15% - but it sounds more like there's something missing from the Linux CD

I believe you have Linux Mandrake 7.2. Do not use free space for installation. Just try to install using Expert or Customized mode. This will give you option to specify/create/format partitions for Linux. Select empty(15%) partition and create required mount point /, swap and you should be ok. Good Luck