> My question is: What should I buy?
>
> 1.) I could buy a Win98 box, then use Caldera's linux
> distribution that
> will repartition and install linux without trashing the Win98
> partition.
> (Does Mandrake do this for you? I really am a newbie.) But I
> would pay the
> MS tax, and risk buying hardware that is incompatible with linux.
>
> 2.) I could by a linux box from VA research or the Linux
> store with Linux
> preinstalled, and repartition it. Can I repartition without
> losing the
> contents of the drive?
Win98 overwrites the master boot record, so if you install win after
installing linux you need to redo LILO, which I have no idea about (I'm a
newbie too - 4 days old!).
I built a machine (another first), put Win 98 on a partition and then put
Mandrake on it and the whole dual-boot thing worked fine first go. When it
boots, I type in "win" for windows or "linux" (or just wait) for linux. If
you want win '98 at all, then you will be paying the MS tax if you want to
do it honestly. I got an OEM copy. They are not allowed to sell them without
hardware, so I bought a mouse mat for $1.
So short anser: Option (1) worked for me.
_Now_ I want to get Dos 6.22 booting off /dev/hdc1 so that I can run ultima
7,8 and underworld 1 & 2, which I always needed a boot floppy for when I ran
windows alone. I've formatted the partition and put the system on it, but am
not sure what is supposed to go in /etc/lilo.conf
