Mandrake 8.1 & Win XP Dual Boot? How?

[misle]

What is the best method of dual booting with Mandrake 8.1 and Win XP?
Should I install Mandrake first or WinXP first?
Should I use Lilo or WinXP's bootmanager?
How much room should I allow for Mandrake 8.1? I still don't quite understand the best way to partition a drive for Linux.

Any and all help is appreciated.

ps. I already know about LinuxNewbie.org, thanks.

 

[Koeppster]

If I set up dual boot boxes, I usually partition the drive first using Linux fdisk, then I install Windows on the first primary partition, finally I install Linux on the remaining partitions.

Decide how much space you want to give to Windows, then leave the rest for Linux. If you choose, you can install Linux onto a single partition, but you should consider splitting the installation into a couple of partititions....one for / (the root of the install), one for /home (home directories), maybe one for /usr (base system). And you'll need to reserve one partition for the Linux swap space.

At home, I have:

/
/usr
/var
/home
/usr/local

There's no right or wrong way to do it, though.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What I like to do if I have to dualboot between Windows and Linux (which I might do soon if I dont want just XP on my system for a while ) is install Windows on say a 3-5GB partition. This gives you room for the OS and if you have to download service packs. Then install linux. I personally have
$ df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/wd0a 197919 33302 154722 18% /
/dev/wd0b 14872178 5253583 8874987 37% /usr
/dev/wd0e 3352377 2315964 868795 73% /home
/dev/wd2a 2974290 16429 2809147 1% /var
/dev/wd2b 2478387 779624 1574844 33% /usr/src
/dev/wd2d 2773578 1220130 1414770 46% /usr/ports
on my OpenBSD install, but a /usr/local would be perfect for my next install.

Then I would create atleast 1 more partition for Windows (FAT would give me the option of using that partition in linux too) programs and data. Although an NTFS partition for most stuff and then a "Shared" FAT partition wouldnt be a bad idea, but I dont know how many primary partitions Windows can handle (I dont bother with other partitions if I can help it).