Hi I was reading my mail this morning when I noticed someone suggest getting views of what other people thought of the different Linux installs that are about. I,ve now installed Mandrake 7.1 RH, on a Advent P111 450, 128mb memory, Aopen BX mother board, this is sheared with the dreaded Windows 98, as I have just added a seconded 10gb H/Drive I have set things up as follows, Drive A (6gb)____________Partitions hda1 (c drive) Windows 98__3gb hda6 /usr/local___________ 1.3gb hda7 /usr/data____________1.4gb hda8 /usr/spear___________2.0k

Drive B (10gb) hdb1 /root________________1.6gb hdb2 (d drive) Windows 98___4.9gb hdb7 /usr_________________2.7gb You may ask why I only made root 1.6gb for some reason this was the maximum I could go. I found the DiscDrake that came with Mandrake very good and easy to use, which if you have backed up anything you don't want to loose, is then less nerve-racking if things do go wrong. As it happens nothing did. After rebooting with the Mandrake CD still in, you are faced with a very nice Installation screen that guides you through process of installing Linux, from choosing your language right through installing lilo and setting up the x server, the whole process didn't take to long either. you also have the options to upgrade from a previous Mandrake (quicker to reinstall) or selecting a Automated installation if you have never played with Linux or partitions before. As a newbie I would recommend Mandrake to anyone, its very quick and more important the ease of install was very good. As a newbie its hard for me to get more experienced users to understand, that when they talk about command lines, we don't always know what you are talking about, so many Linux users started with bbc basic or similar, we didn't we've started with windows and have grown up with nice user interfaces, so please be patient with us. Cheers And a happy and prosperous new year Kerin.