I got a bare bones kit from Tiger Direct and am literally in the middle of the process of building a dual boot machine with Linux. So far everything is going pretty swimmingly. Thanks to Jeff for his help.

What do we look like on your system, James?

Ah, dual-boot Linux.
Nice.

Squished. I am having trouble getting the resolution I want to take.

Oh, and Windows is completely unbootable at the moment.

Did it turn out ok?

Well, Linux is fine. I have to do a repair install on Windows and I am screwing up my courage to do so.

Welcome!

That's where you need to be careful with the boot loader stuff. I'd make a boot repair disc (if possible) so Linux can fix the multiboot afterwards.

I figure I have to pull the Linux drive out of the machine entirely and then see if I can fix Windows (which is having a boot stroke because of the new MB etc.

Well, so far part one of my plan worked. Pulling the Linux drive out removed the need to repartition the Linux drive which then allowed me to perform an Windows XP repair install. I have been patching Windows up all night to get the OS back to where it was (SP3). Once that's complete (and various software reinstalled, etc.), I'll rehook the Linux drive and see if GRUB can get the job done.

Linux-chan!

Julia now officially dual boots. And I am going to bed...just to get up and go to work on a Saturday...again.

I have a older Dell Dimension with 2GB of memory and am having a very hard time getting Linux installed on it. Constant freezes on the logo, just real annoying.

I'd also love to turn it into a dummy terminal.

What logo? Do you mean the Dell BIOS logo, or something further along? Which Linux distribution are you trying?

I've tried Ubuntu and it fails during installation, and this thin client os called PXE and the logo comes up then nothing (Linux logo). Then installed Pinguy and got it installed but can't click on the menu without it flashing without me being able to click on a menu item.

Try Linux Mint. I had an old laptop that had problems with Ubuntu and Mint ended up working perfectly (even though I think they are both Debian based, so it made no sense).

Will try it now. Thanks

Mint was what I used for my dual boot.

Tried Mint but it was still very Linuxy in terms of complicated. Need this for a pc newbie. I like Zorin OS, so far it's the simplest.

Try JoliOS if it's for a newbie. It's also Ubuntu based but very simplified. Designed for older PCs.

I tried it once. Will take another crack at it

Mint was complicated for them? It's extremely intuitive; I found it far more so than generic Ubuntu. I would say if they have a problem using that, then you should reconsider the entire idea of putting Linux on a system for them.