mandriva 2007 dual boot

[Jason Hayes]

On Monday 16 October 2006 18:25, Josh Coffman wrote:
> Does anyone know if mandriva 2007 install is windows dual boot friendly?
> I figured I'd give 2007 a try while waiting for FC6 to get released, but I
> can't lose my winXp partition.
>
> Also, anyone know if mandriva runs VMWare well? Or any other opinions on
> Mandriva?
>
> -j


I'm typing this reply on a Mandriva '07 system (Acer Aspire 1804) that dual 
boots with Win XP Pro and has a VMware (5.5) XP Pro virtual machine. I just 
upgraded to '07 over the past weekend and everything appears to be working 
flawlessly (best of all - the ndiswrapper/wireless support worked without 
touching it, where '06 had a lot of problems on this machine). I have also 
installed '07 on my other laptop (an Acer Aspire 1705). The wireless appeared 
to set up out of the box. It didn't connect, but I think that I need to rejig 
my router settings to allow 802.11b.

My general feelings on Mandriva are that it is a pretty solid distro. It 
allows you to have the ease of doing things with the gui setup when you need 
something done quickly, but also allows you to get in and muck around when 
you have time to do more in depth work. If you're familiar with FC and 
Redhat-type distros, then Mandriva should be pretty straightforward for you, 
as it uses rpms.

I have used Mandrake/Mandriva since ver. 7.2 and have installed most of the 
releases since 7.2. I could point out some nitpicky things that I don't like 
(like setting up wireless in past versions and getting the graphics drivers 
working). However, I have been happy enough with it to join Mandriva club and 
help them keep up their development and to use it as the main OS on my 
primary workhorse.
-- 
Jason Hayes