what i do is have a stack of 10 drives for the system and then
each drive has a separate os. If you want to run fedora/mandrake/slackware/debian/gentoo/suse you just
power off switch the drive and power on.
All the headaches of partitioning/booting and junk like that go away.
Also, you should make a separate / partition and a separate /home
so if you just want to upgrade from mandrake 9.2 to 10.0 you don't have to backup /home with all you data files ( just remember to not format /home ) you can just upgrade the os and run with the new one with your files you want to save.
In you case, I think suse is better because it has a dvd and you just pop it in pick what you want and you can walk away ( no cd swapping ). Suse has almost everything I need on that dvd. Also, Suse still has the best package adding/searching gui so when you just want to install something you sorta remember the name of it will be easy.
A couple of times you may go back to windumb but when you come back because you miss linux only then you are a jedi.
