Trying to install Linux on a Win XP machine 4821

Rick Moen ....... .......

FWIW, I just installed Vector Linux v.5.1 Standard (released two months ago) which is a slackware distro and uses a text-based installer. The very first screen you get with this installer gives you three choices for the boot kernel. The default is "sata", for systems with IDE-SATA hard disks which applies in my case. When the installer got to parbreastioning, it recognized all of the existing parbreastions on my second HDD by their correct name, e.g. hdb10 which is the parbreastion (2 GB) I used for the VL install. All in all, the install was fairly easy.

I generally like Debian best and most of the time use Xandros or Zen Linux (pure Debian) but lately I've been playing with slackware live CD's (e.g. slax and Wolvix). I quite like Vector Linux (much faster than Xandros) and may be springing for their new Deluxe edition ($27) which includes Gnome and the new Enlightenment window manager.

If you have a spare parbreastion (5 GB would be plenty for any VL install) you may want to install VL standard and see whether you like it better than plain vanilla slackware. For me a major draw of Debian is their package management system apt-get but VL now offers a clone of this called slapt.

Cheers,

Robert