Hi gang, I have just bought a new cheap PC with a 80gb HD. I have installed XP Pro and have got the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on CD from the Linux shop and am unsure how to install it as a dual boot OS. I know that a partition has to be made but not sure how to carry out that or does the Ubuntu automatically makes its own partition. This is my second PC as am doing to start the A+ technicians course and did not want to revert to XP as I have Vista on my main machine but wanted to experiment with different OS and play around with the hardware.

P.S. I am a complete virgin as faras Linux is concerned just thought I would try it, and see if I liked it.

Ideally you would have partitioned while installing XP. Then it would have been easy to just install Ubuntu on the next partition.

Ubuntu contains GParted which is a Linux Partition editor.

Boot the CD into GParted and see if you get the option to create a new partition.

Some GParted guides here:

GParted -- Documentation

If you want to make easy put it on it's own hard drive. That way xp should be ok. You will be able to boot to xp or linux with the boot loader. Hard drives are not too costly.

I see the logic in that so have bought a 80 gog hard drive, but hav not got round to downloading or installing the drive yet.