Thanks for the instructions on how to post! Now if only I can get the same for cfdisk!
On installing 2003-04-28 my screen shows:
name flags partition type FS type label size MB
hda1 primary lin ext3 [/boot] 106.93
unusable 1414.75
hda3 boot primary Win95 FAT16LBA 2146.80
hda2 primary lin ext3 [/] 24980.18
hda5 logical lin swap 2089.23


These partitions are left over from my attempts to install various flavours of linux.


The bottom of the screen has:
toggle bootable flag of the current partition.

The TLDP has 10 entries for "partition-cfdisk"; but none of them seem to be at the most elementary level.
Other HOWTOs speak of "active partitions", are these related to "bootable"?
I definitely do not want to go through another Windows install , otherwise I could just experiment and keep on redoing the install untill I either succeeded or stopped(hitting my head against a brick wall).
Can you refer me to a _recent_ tutorial, at an elementary level, on cfdisk.
Or just say: "have "boot" on the hdx partition" and whatever other info you think a complete beginner would need to continue the install.
Thanks