Sorry, I didn't mean to start a war over distros.  But just for the record, 
I did try Red Hat first and it wouldn't install.  I also have SuSE 7.1 and 
every time I try to install it, it just freezes at the partitioning 
level.  It's was probably me but Mandrake was the only one I have been able 
to install and actually use.  (started with 7.0)  I was planning on putting 
SuSE on as well as Mandrake.  I have a 40GB drive and winblows only gets 
6.  I did use Mandrake to do the partitioning and only made three primary 
partitions (something about only having 4).
I am using a 1st Mainborad AZ11E  with an 850MHz AMD - I reflashed the bios 
due to the problem with the VIA VT686B.   I double checked my bios and I 
have plug n play to no plug n play system installed.  (winblows still 
boots, surprise number one).   I don't have the complete set of disks, only 
the install and extensions that I bought from Linux Central store.  I did 
have trouble getting the extensions disk to work.
After initial install I downloaded the security updates, and then played 
around with it a bit, (just checking out some of the programs, spredsheet, 
Kword, and some of the games).  I then had to reboot the machine and fix 
something for my fiance in winblows.  When I finished I rebooted and It 
wouldn't let me go any farther than the Linuxconf hooks:  I used the boot 
disk I made at the install and did the fsck on the file system and then 
rebooted and it stopped again at Linuxconf hooks:
Since I am a newbie I am at a loss, but I have been thinking and maybe 
because I put the user partition on /dev/hdb5 and var on /dev/hdb6 with the 
rest of the partitions, root, boot, and home on /dev/hda5, 7, and 8 and 
swap on 6.  Maybe this is the real problem?  I never used partitioning 
before and am still not knowledgeable enough in this area.
Sorry this is so long.  TIA Moe
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