You'll definately have to repartition. Install Windoze first. Then install Linux. If you've only got one partition, defrag your hard drive then boot from a Win98 startup disk. On the mandrake cd is a dir called "dostools" You'll find a util there that will split a partition into smaller partitions w/o destroying data. The name of it illudes me at the moment but for some reason I think it starts with a "k" anyhow not a whole lot of dos utils in there so you should be able to find it.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, just imagine what I could do with a mouse.

Correction art, its WInblows, not windoze

umm can I just use partition magic to make a new partition and does the partition have to be NTFS or whatever or can I keep as fat32 to install mandrake 8?

Yes you can use partition magic. The important part is splitting up the partition w/o losing your data, so however you manage to get that done is fine. The default file system for Linux is e2fs (extended 2nd file system) and I believe Partition Magic can create that file system but it could just as well be fat32 because your install will create and format the e2fs.

As for Fat32 vs NTFS, go w/ Fat32 because while Linux is able to mount both an NTFS partition will be read only.

My advise would be to just jump in and install it. There will be a ton of options and your first install might seem a little overwhelming but don't sweat it because after you get to know a bit about Linux you'll probably want to do a few more installs.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, just imagine what I could do with a mouse.

hum and what would be my major benefit of having linux....

I never have crashes..... security is a-ok....

Does anyone know how much better windows could be if it was opensource? I heard that you could pay like 20 bucks a years and submit modifyed versions of windows, but they probally dont use them.