i have this old pentium 2 / win 98 SE sony vaio.
i would like to put a version of linux on it, to learn how to use the os. is it possible to have linux and win 98 on it at the same time, and what would a good version of linux to start on be?
my programming experience is very minimal.

Dual boot W98 and Slack8, or if you dont feel like goin through the configurations go with Mandrake.

Sites:
http://www.slackware.com
http://www.mandrake.com

both are rather simple to install, but mandrake would be for more of the beginner, slackware would be for more of the elite.

If you'd like to go with BSD, go with either:
OpenBSD http://openbsd.org
FreeBSD http://freebsd.org
NetBSD http://netbsd.org

But you should go with Mandrake since you want the minimal work done for you.

What you'd want to do is take and configure your partitions and then install linux/bsd AFTER you have windows installed, and tell it that you'd like to install Lilo on the Super Block, and it will get evertything working for you pretty easily.

-Gizmo

http://www.linuxnewbie.com http://www.mandrake.com or visit the *nix forum... Start w/ mandrake linux first

i recently re - formatted the hard drive and re - installed win 98. the drive is partitioned into c: 4gb and d:2gb. are you saying intall the mandrake version onto it's own dedicated partition?
i'll just dnld it, and play with it and figure it out eventually.
the monitor driver is missing however, that will improve the res. on the vaio. it looks like it's in perma-safe mode.
i lack the original software, recovery disks, manuals,etc.

Linux on a windows partition is shit... You need a linux partition for it...

i am experiencing technical difficulties with this vaio. it's a PCG-F190 model. i installed win 98 snd edition on it, and lack the driver for the video card? or the screen? so the screen resolution is 16 color and looks like shit. does anyone have a driver they can e - mail me ?
so...i got mandrake 8.2 and burned cd # 1 and # 2, dwnlded the literature, and now can't figure out how to run the iso file or configure the bios.
what windows programs will run an .iso file ?
is there a linux driver available for the fucking screen so i can avoid dealing with microsoft licenced products ?
long winded, that's my steez.... EG

To burn the ISO go and check out http://www.ahead.de and download Nero Burning Rom, and use it as a trial, or snag a key from http://www.astalavista.box.sk and then reg it, and then you open the program choose fil then burn ISO image, then find your image, place a CD ion yoru CDR(w) tray and click burn, should take a few minutes to half an hour depending on the speed of your burner.

After you have that done, you can either go with cd detection or bootdisks, and since its a new system i'd reccommend going with the cd detection.

that route you'd tell yoru bios to boot: cd-rom/hard drive.

hope i was of assistance

i have the cd's burned...ready to go,
i don't know what appliction in win98 will read the file , to get me started....

lol you dont do anything in windows, what you do is you insert your cd #1 in your cd rom drive, and you reboot, if your system is configured to boot from a cd it'll auto run and install whatever...

You need to have your partitions setup first though, i reccomend Partition Magic for that, but theres a lot of others, or if you dont feel like doing that and you don't have too much important data, just reformat and make a 2-3 gig partition for linux and dispence everything else everywhere...

yeah, it's not booting. i went into BIOS, set the plugnplay OS off, and put cd rom at #1 on the boot list, it's still booting right into win 98...thanks for all the input, it's just slow going at this point...

i don't install mandrake lol it should have a bootdisk directory (you better pray that it does) then just use rawrite.exe to write them heh...

Sorry I lost track of this post. Gizmo, can you please move this post in my forum, it is more logical that way. Hmm just POR (Point of Refrence), if you want a dual boot box, WIN and Linux, and you don't want to fuck around with partioning yadada. Then go out and buy or d/l Linux for windows, by mandrake. Yes it is real, it makes life a bit easier. It creates a folder under windows, it has GRUB or Lilo boot up when PC boots for you to pic what to boot. It's like any other kind of mandrake version, can update yadada. It's a good starting distro. http://www.mandrake.com go find it and look into it.