Ok I have a comp with win98 installed and would like to make a 2nd partition to install linux. The hdd is a 8 gig one so I will partition about 3 gig of that for linux. Now when I do this should I only make one partition or should I make 3? One for boot, root and swap? Or will the install program sort that out? Also should I make the partitions fat 32 or xtn2 (or whatever its called)

If your drive consists of one large Windows partition, and you don't want to lose your Win98 installation, you will have to use a non-destructive repartitioning program (such as Partition Magic or fips) to resize your current partition and create a second DOS partition. The Linux installation should then see this partition and allow you to create your Linux (ext2) partitions in it. How many partitions you create is up to you; there are pros and cons to both the "minimal-partitions" and "multiple-partitions" methods. Read this article for more info: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/installation/partition/multi_partition.html.