Looking for dual booting advice

Hi
I'm going to dual boot WinXP and Linux (?) from a single HD.
Although I've researched this quite thoroughly, I'm surprised that
there is no simple step-by-step instruction available. In addition,
there seems to be two distinct schools of thought as to whether Linux
should be installed BEFORE or AFTER Windows.
In any event, my intention is to install Linux after WinXP (which is
already there).

I would appreciate if somebody can direct me to a link which might
clarify some of the issues involved in this. I would particularly like
to understand a little more about the whole boot loader/MBR thing. For
example, it seems to be stressed in many of the articles I read to
avoid the Linux boot loader installing into the MBR. OK, but how?

Although I have tried a few of the Linux LiveCDs, I'm still unclear as
to which Linux flavor to install on the HD.
My needs are very simple (OOo, Media Player and Internet are the only
essentials) and I would appreciate advice as to which is likely to suit
my situation as outlined above.

TIA
Paul

Dell 4550 Desktop
WinXP Home SP2
CPU P4, 2.53 GHz
1.0 GB RAM
Int HD 80 GB ntfs, non-partitioned
Ext HD 160 GB ntfs, 3 partitions
Ext HD 250 GB ntfs, 4 partitions

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Microsoft stranglehold on its users....
    ... loadlin to boot up linux manually by hand from DOS. ... LILO had bugs and it was a trap because to uninstall LILO you had to get a successful boot into Linux and uninstall it from the utility. ... The latest Red Hat Workstation Linux just loads everything on your box with little or no choices and then around version 7 they started to include CDROM drivers for the new, not the old CDROM drives. ... And, I tried the trick of using the old Linux install to mount the new OS software CDROM disk, copy the whole disk to a different partition, then run the install and that would not work either. ...
    (sci.research.careers)
  • Re: Anyone tried basiclinux?
    ... Don't want to see the dos prompt anymore. ... You are not prepared to use linux yet. ... and wiped out the entire install. ... Boot floppies are a legacy thing nowadays, ...
    (alt.linux)
  • Re: Grub Read Error on 1st boot after install
    ... > I'm new to Linux. ... > won't boot now. ... > install Linux on. ... use a second hard disk rather than just different partitions on ...
    (linux.redhat.install)
  • Re: Can someone else help? Was changing partition size.
    ... I tried the supposed fix to make Windows 98SE boot up with more ... than a gig of memory but that has not worked either. ... The last time I did that set of changes, it was done by using a Linux LiveCD ... and finish the Win98 install. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Fedora 9 install/boot problem (? Graphics Card / Mainboard drivers problem)
    ... For FC9 install: ... OS to boot through the BIOS). ... first partition of which I installed Linux, ... get & how to install them, esp as Fedora simply won't boot up & there is ...
    (alt.os.linux)