Few Quick Intro noob Questions - partitioning / dual booting

[Lord_Zoltan]

ok gonna start putting linux on, but i have a few questions.
What would be better to use on my comp (sys specs in sig), and dual booting with windows XP, Mandrake 9.1 or mandrake 9.2 ?

Next, how much space should i partition my 40 gig HD. 30 for windows XP 10 for Linux? or 25 windows, 25 linux?

Next my secondary hd, is a 60 gig, and full of WINDOWS applications and stuff, will linux see that when i boot up?

What way should i partition. What would be best? Fdisk or partition magic or XP install cd programmy.

My primary 40 gig HD that everything will be installed on mandrake / windoze xp is NTFS, do i have to convert this to something else?

The secondary is 60gig and fat32 , does that matter?


Next, I really only have Xp to play my games and my programming information is there anything else i should know before i partition and install?


Thanks for all the help,

~Zoltan

 

[fiji]

resize the NTFS partition with partition magic


and then you can format it with fdisk/// have mandrake do it for you



and linux can understand NTFS filesystems, so it will see your partitions



also i don't think theres too much of a difference between mdk9.1 and mdk9.2

but i would go with 9.2 seeing as it has the newest drivers, and applications