Step 9: Try it out

The LILO bootloader appears shortly after you reboot. With Mandrakelinux, you'll see a few options for booting Linux and at least one item for booting Windows. Of the Linux options, the first, default choice will most likely produce the best results.

If you can bear to wait a few minutes to try Linux, choose Windows first, just to satisfy yourself that you haven't lost Windows and all of your applications and data. Then reboot as you normally would but let the system boot into Linux.

Once Linux has booted, do some exploring. With Mandrakelinux and KDE, click the yellow star at the lower corner to enter the Main Menu, which is a lot like Windows XP's Start menu. With most distributions, you'll find powerful office suites, image editors, Web browsers, and other software. Choose the Documentation item of the Welcome to Mandrakelinux screen for an excellent introduction.