OK i am wanting to reformat my hd and runa dual boot
win2k one first half and linux (of some flavor ) on the other side.
can anyone suggest a good way to do this and what flavor of linux to install?

What? Who said that?
NightOwl 17381225

yes full information, like not to breif.

also is there a way to do it without reformatting on a fat32 file system..... like some way to make a partition that is ntfs format after you already have the whole drive running fat32?

thats easy install win2k then install mandrake 8
wa la you have dualboot with win2k & linux

I had it set up with XP & mandrake 8 but now that box only has mandrake on it

I'd recommend Debian. It's a bit tricky to install, and not as newbie-friendly as mandrake, but excellent in use. In this case, it's better to install win first and then debian (otherwise windows will overwrite debain's boot sector with it's own).

good question. i think in the end it just comes from trying them all and seeing what unix flavor and setup that you end up liking the most.
i've done both dual and triple boots w/ win2k/redhat/and FreeBSD. they are all different and cool. at the moment i'm running Red Hat 7.1 and Win2k on my laptop here. RH7.1 is an amazingly painless install w/ no problems w/ any of the hardware. but i really think all the flavors are on par w/ each other, more of just what you're familiar w/ i would guess. though i'm certainly not a zen master on the subject. just what i took a liking to.
Here is a link to an article that was very helpful in getting the dual boot running w/ win2k an linux w/ the win2k bootloader. it really is quite easy.

How would you do a dualboot of Mandrake 8 and 98se w/o reforamting?

install mandrake it will make the boot screen for you it's very easy

will i have to partition?

yes I would not sure if you have to but I have alway put it on a diffent partition

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.