Mandrake Linux and my 8890

Install XP first, then Mandrake

Mandrake will read fat32 and ntfs but I wouldn't recomend writing to it.

When you boot from the Mandrake CD you'll prolly need to type linux noauto for the install to work

Now theres multiple ways to setup dual boot during the Mandrake install.
You can just install LILO to your main harddrive and everytime you boot you'll get a nice screen to choose XP or mandrake.

The only prob with this is if you want to get rid of Mandrake and/or LILO later on it's a big pain in the azz.

This is what I did when you install LILO it will give you the option of which drive to install to choose dev/fd0 thats the floppy drive.
This way if you want use XP just boot normaly
If you want to use Mandrake put in the LILO floppy and boot.

Also you don't need to dedicate 1 drive to XP and the other to Mandrake.
Give XP about 10-20 Gigs and mandrake around 5-10 Gigs.
Then use you second drive to back up all your data no need to use it for anything else.

On the 8890 a Mandrake install requires booting with the option

# Linux noauto

this prevents the firewire probe from happening which hangs the install. You try without at first it may just hang with a screen saying probing Firewire. If that happens hold down the power button and boot again then use the noauto switch. This may be required for

Always install the Microsoft OS before you install any Linux OS. Microsoft has a nasty habit of overwriting the boot loader without asking and that leaves your Linux abandonned until you repair your boot loader.

I like to install Grub or Lilo in the MBR and then modify the appropriate boot file to see the Microsoft OS.
If you choose to later remove Linux you simply need to boot with your Microsoft media and use the 'fixmbr' command which will remove any boot loaders from the MBR and re-establish the normal Microsoft boot mechanism.

Mandrake can sit on the same Harddrive as XP like DurmaGeorge said, it doesn't have to be on its own drive. I have 3 partitions set up for my Linux install. 50mb for the boot partition to hold my kernels, 400mb for the swap partition and 10gig for the root partition which is plenty to hold all the programs.

Mandrake is usually easy to install. If you want to see what Linux is like before you do an install then burn of copy of Knoppix to a CD. It's a livecd meaning it contains an entire Linux distribution, X windows, KDE, and all the programs you'd ever need. They all run from the CD and don't require you to install anything to your HD. Then once you feel comfortable you reboot and intall Mandrake. The Knoppix also has excellent hardware detection and doesn't suffer from the firewire hangup.

Linux has no problems reading and writting FAT32. Since MS makes changes to NTFS with each release and does not document the "file system", Linux developers are hard pressed to say that the write will not cause a problem within an NTFS system. Reads seem to be okay without a problem.

a better way is to install LInux only and not windows