Ok downloaded and installed mandrake and its awesome. I like the look of it and the open office stuff is great, love the math writer too.

Couple of questions, My KDE seems to be loading in desktop mode and I don't know how to tell it to do a laptop, I want the battery icon in the system tray. How do I do this?

Also I was wondering what the "My Computer" equivilant is in mandrake.

Also I read somewhere that I could use my windows driver for my netgear wg511 802.11g pcima card, if I can do this how?

I apologize, I am new to the linux stuff but I like it very much. I hope to learn as much as I can from it. Is there an extensive manual that I can reference off of while learning mandrake?

Couple of questions, My KDE seems to be loading in desktop mode and I don't know how to tell it to do a laptop, I want the battery icon in the system tray. How do I do this?

Linux doesn't have a "Laptop/Desktop/Server" install type, that was a Red Hat ploy back in the 7 - 8 days. You simply need to add the battery monitoring applet for KDE. I'd give you more info on how but I'm a Gnome man.

Also I was wondering what the "My Computer" equivilant is in mandrake.

Depends on specifically what you're trying to get to. To navigate the drives use a link to "Home" and you can typically go from there.

Also I read somewhere that I could use my windows driver for my netgear wg511 802.11g pcima card, if I can do this how?

First try to get your card to load with Linux drivers. Looks like it's nearly always supported (90.27% success rate) with the prism54 driver:
http://prism54.org/supported_cards.php

If not, check out the following:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/ (Mandrake 10 comes with this pre-installed if it will support your card)
http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/ (Not free, but may support more cards)

I apologize, I am new to the linux stuff but I like it very much. I hope to learn as much as I can from it. Is there an extensive manual that I can reference off of while learning mandrake?

There is no better Linux manual than http://www.google.com/linux/ Good luck and happy computing!

I have kde and gnome running on mine and I switch between the two, where do I get the battery applet for that?

On my Latitud D600 I did it like this...

Do you know the website called PLF? Or Easy URPMI? Google it.
Once you are there, fill the banks, is very easy.
I picked the mirror sites from France and for PLF I used Club Internet from France.
It will show after you push the "go to step 3" a grey box with a bunch of commands.
Highligh them and open the console, if you use KDE will be on your lower left corner, it looks like a black screened PC monitor.
Type su and will ask for a password, use the root "admin" password.
On top of the window will say Edit, choose paste or use Shift+Insert keys.

All the commands that you highlighted it will be on there, just seat and watch until is done. All sites will be contacted and will crate a data base for the Packet Manager on the Install Software and Updates.

Once is finish, go to System>Configuration>Packaging. Choose what you need, Update or Install or Remove if you want to remove software.

On Install will check on the data base on each sever and will list a truck load of applications.

Take your time and find the Battery monitor, once found, check the box and click install. Is amazing how easy is all dependancies are covered, all the software comes to you and you do not have to go web hunting for them.

Once you install the battery monitor, got to System>Configuration>Hardware>Configure Your Computer Choose Boot and check the the 1st box that says ACPI on boot. Close nd reboot the Laptop.

The Battery Icon should be on the system tray...


Happy Linuxing...!