I keep being a Windows 98 user. I was a MS fan until 2001, but since Windows 2000 their products are not the same at all, as many people knows, and I love my personal freedom. In the event that it proved totally impossible to use Windows 98 or Windows 2000 I would no doubt move to Linux. Until now there is no need of it, but nevertheless it would be interesting to know how to make a dual boot Windows98/Linux to begin the learning of the new system in order to be prepared for such a "brilliant" future. Would anybody who has already done it say what's the best way for it? Thank you.

you need to install 98 first and prefereably you need to leave some of the hdd unused so that you can create linux partitions rather then having to resize your fat32 paritions. then you need to pick a linux distrobution eg. ubuntu and in the setup it should allow you to manually create an ext2 or ext3 partition and a linux swap partition. when the setup is finished your system will go into the grub bootloader (i dont think lilo is used much anymore) and you should have the option to boot to linux or windows

I've got the most recent version of Mandriva on a CD (july 2008), and it runs perfect, but AFAIK I am not able to install it in the HD. Is there any possibility of doing it, or the install version is a different one?.

Thank you for your kind answer.

on a single cd? i remeber mandrake 9.2 need 3cds, are you sure this cd you have is not a liveCD without the installer

That's it, thanks!
When I downloaded the image I did not see any other option. I'll seek what you say.
As you see I have not the slightest idea of the Linux OS, but I hope I'll learn it.
Thank you very much.

I think Wubi (Windows Ubuntu installer)is a very easy way to create a dual-boot system. It uses a virtual partition. No need to (re)partition your harddrive. But you wil still have a fully functional OS, not like a live CD!
Downside is that this virtual filesystem is a bit slower. But installing and removing is so easy. So Wubi makes it possible to give you the full Linux/Ubuntu feeling without having to change anything on your existing system. All you need is a few gig's free harddrive space.

Other downside, when talking about a Win98 dualboot, is that these opensource guys and girls claim that (Linux) Ubuntu supports FAT32. But when they roll out a new kernel they don't ever bother to test it with FAT32 volumes. Since 5 kernel updates I only found 1 to be working with FAT32. There are issues with Ubuntu and FAT32. Nothing too serious but still.

I run a Win98/Ubuntu dual boot myself. Just for fun mainly. I have a mp3-player that won't work under Win98 so it's nice that Ubuntu sees it.
But I got more hardware that's working fine under Win98 but not under Linux.

I don't understand why XP and Vista are no options for upgrading but Linux is. What do Win98 and Linux have in common? Nothing, they are both lacking WPA, perhaps that's a reason for some.
If you like Win98 because it's simple clear and open, because you have almost full control over it, because you can backup or restore your system in no time, because you don't need to download 40-50 megs of updates every week and many more reasons like this..........then Linux will disappoint you!

It's nice to have as dual-boot but I personally never considered removing Win98 for more than a few seconds

As Win98SE is still my favourite OS, I've decided some years ago, I will always use a boot manager I can access and control from it and DOS as well.
Also had quite some trouble with LILO in the early years.
And more than once, I've had a Linux CD with bad behaviour, partitions and boot manager related.

So I am using the boot manager, that comes with XFDISK, my favourite partitioner for years.

It resides in the MBR of the first physical HDD, could be removed easily by FDISK MBR.

Linux start routines are advised, to reside in the boot sector of their partition, not the MBR of the harddisk.

Anyway, Win2k and XP can't be handled this way, so they may use their own start menu in the W98 partition. But I can even modify the BOOT.INI from DOS

BTW, all system backups are made with Norton Ghost 7.5 here. Won't misplace or forget the boot files, won't complain about index.dat dirt, and it can as well run on plain DOS. Images can be compressed, and on FAT32 it splits and joins it's big images automatically.

I use Acronis OS Selector...

I believe that Mandriva one can be installed from Live CD.

I'd try out Puppy Linux. It's pretty easy to setup a dualboot with a "frugal install."
A frugal install put's about 5 files on your harddrive. No need to partition. If you don't like it you can just remove the files.
www.puppylinux.org/
Lin-Win Dualboot Guide