Ok, this question is probably answered somewhere else but I couldn't find it exactly.

Having just upgraded my computer with 512MB RAM and AMD 64 processor I want to be able to dual boot linux on it with Windows XP on a 120GB HD.

The version of linux that I have decided on is the free download of Mandriva 2006 64-bit.

I am going to do a reformat anyway so I guess what I need to do is to create two partitions, put Mandriva on one, GRUB in the MBR, and then XP in the other, however I have read that Linux cannot work well with NTFS, does Mandriva have this problem? And if so will I be able to access the Windows partition (NTFS) from linux?

Thanks
Phil

Yes, you will be able to access the NTFS drive from Linux. Read-only support works out of the box with most Linux distros. There is a project called Captive-NTFS that gives you full read-write access using Windows drivers.

cool, thanks, as long as I can access documents and play music between the two partitions thats great!! I had a look at Captive-NTFS but I am putting linux on the computer for stability and so Read-Only will be fine.

Why don't you give a shot to Suse Linux 10.0 - there is a community supported free version of it, so don't get deterred by the fact that Novell is selling this distro... and of course they do have a 64-bit version. I think Suse when it comes to stability + you get all the commercial packages with it, namely: Java, Adobe Acrobat Reader etc. Last but not least - NTFS support is flawless - I'm running a set-up very similar to yours 160GB HDD - GRUB in MBR, one partition used for Windows XP SP2, 1 partition Linux Swap file, 1 partition - main Linux partition - /.
Another distro that you should take a look at is Ubuntu: http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/ubuntu-releases/5.10/
The interesting part of Ubuntu distro is that they provide LiveCD version - don't have to install it to check it out, just boot it directly off CD.

Good luck!

Yeah, I had heard of Suse but I hadn't checked up on it, that seems to be a good option as NTFS support would be useful, but does it use NTFS for its own installation partition? or does it still prefer FAT??

is linux really that good?

and would i love it and how hard is it to adapt to?

Suse's disk partitioning utility will resize your NTFS partition first, given that you have some space left on your hard drive. In its default configuration it will create 2 extra partionions in the free space:
- Linux Swap type partition - for swap file purposes
- Reiserfs type partition - main Linux partition /

You can choose to craete more partitions but it's not required if you will be running desktop Linux; linux does not use NTFS, nor FAT for its file system. You have a choice of ext3fs, reiserfs and others. Suse uses reiserfs by default.

How good do you think it is? SInce you are asking the question, then the answer is probably no.

That really depends on you, doesn't it? And since you are asking the question, the adaptation probably won't be easy.

You never know unless you try it. Give it a shot and let me know what you think about Linux. For the starters install a user/desktop friendly distribution of Linux, e.g. Suse, Ubuntu, Mandriva etc.
... or actually in your case I would download LiveCD distribution of Linux so you can try before you commit to it. LiveCD distros allow you to boot Linux from CD-ROM without installing it on your hard drive, so you can get a taste of what this operating system can do for you.

LiveCD version of Ubuntu Linux 5.10 for PC: http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/ubuntu-...-live-i386.iso

LiveDVD version of Suse 10.0:
http://www.mirrors.net.ar/pub/suse/i....0-LiveDVD.iso

Mandriva LiveCD version Free 2006:
ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/ma...06-CD.i586.iso

ok then, i shall put suse on and see how things go, but not for a while yet as the brand-new bits for my pc (mobo, cpu, mem, gpu) are still in parcels at home!!

Don't forget to include the 4.x Knoppix distros - those are decent also

DSL(Damn Small Linux) Linux supports NTFS,

i know that for sure it saved my life once :P its a good boot CD / USB stick distro, not of any use really for a PC like yours.

Knoppix is good as you said LNCPapa,
What is whith this Ubantu crowd? i never tryed it but please tell me whats so good about it? :P lol

Always keep UNIX in mind not the same as Linux but similar i like it very nice setup of NetBSD(3.0) With Fluxbox on my old PII Laptop.

i dunno enough about 64-bit as my next project is an awsome PC with a 939 :P gonna be expensive...

Jim,

UBUNTU/KUBUNTU/EDUBUNTU is a 'just works' linux distro. Any windows user should be able to use it.