XP, on a Linux. I need some OS assistance to anyone experienced in Installing OS's?

Question

I recently found out about Linux, and I'm very interested in exploring it. I only have one major problem holding me back, and that is I'm one of those people who were slaves to windows, which makes it difficult to immediately transfer.
So then researched an found these demonstration videos about using Linux "Ubuntu+Beryl", and one side of the cube actually had a working XP desktop.
**** Vista :)
I was astounded and was more eager to try this alternative. When I researched, I found so many ways to have both OS's on one computer simultaneously with XP on one Cube face, booted separately at startup, switchable during sessions, etc...etc.. which only constituted towards more confusion.
I'm a typical windows user, and all i have is the Ubuntu bootable CD ready. Then I found out about this partitions thing, which only made things even worse. I already went though a laptop, now it has only Linux, but always freezes at startup. Since i dont know the tech, i cant erase the hard drive clean.

Please help me, this is where my days of research has come to a halt. I figured browsing though yahoo answers will give me a clean answer. If I could just learn to configure it to Windows and Linux in one. I want it to look like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py81-HZj9A8
Kind of messy, but you get the idea.
All I could find was stuff on these "partitions" and "swap" partitions and primary partitions etc. In all the tutorials that I have seen, all of them seem to skip though how the partitions/swap partitions and boot-up part, and go strait to the simple Ubuntu installation parts. I thought my computer was already capable of partitioning in "Disk Management" but apparently you need other software to do it?
I intend to use this knowledge and spread Linux to other people and free them from Microsoft Vista. It peaked my interest, and i hope it does the same onto others. If I could just have this It would be a total dream computer. Please help me. I have Gparted, and I'm XP literate.

I believe i have Ubuntu 7.4 from the website. All I need is a safe way to install Beryl effects onto it to spice it up.

Currently, my Dell Latitude D600 is being used as an experimental computer. It had the typical newly installed basic XP-profes. What i did was insert my bootable disk, restarted, hit f12 at the startup, and selected boot from disk. I selected the install icon on the ubuntu desktop, and did the wizard. On the partitions step, I believe i selected Manual. Since my drive was 40, i set the partition to 20 in the beginning. I wasnt really sure what this was, but I had a feeling XP will be overwritten. I'm not sure how partitions work, and why we need software to make it work. (It seems like a logical task that you'd think your computer should be able to do with its basic admin-controls.) Are there different settings to each partition? do they have to be fragmented? how? are there different types of so called "empty space"? Is this different from unused usable space?icons?

In my mindset, I think this is how it goes. Please correct me. Metaphorically speaking, I have the idea that each partition is like this: when you open up multiple (say 3) firefox browsers, Each represents like a piece of the partition when we look at the bottom taskbar, if we imagine from the start button to the clock is HDD space. Say we go to a page on one of them to represent that XP is installed on one of the partitions. Then somehow, we "alt-tab" to the next partition to install Linux. So is there a function in your computer that takes you from partition to partition? Do all partition run a the same time you just dont see them? Is there something like the almighty alt-tab function for programs, only this time its for partitions? Do multiple drives with different letters how up when you hit "My Computer?How do you know which partition you are on/using? Can you store information to another partition using another OS, while you are using a different OS?

I hear some OS's are incompatible with each other like Windos and Apple. So if like, we have windows media player running on one side of the Cube, and we drag it to say, the apple side of the cube, will it look like then, that Mac's OS has windows media? What is a Swap? Is that like the medium Liaison between both worlds/partition OS's? Is a swap thing a fork in the road when choosing OS's at the startup metaphoricaly speaking? How do you know when you have assigned too much partitioned space?Say we have a 40g Hard Disk divided into two partitions and we have XP installed in the first segment. Now we want Ubunto into the second partition: How do you "GO into" literally, the second piece of the hard drive to install ubuntu? Does it figure it out automatically? How do you force it NOT to overwrite the first partition to install itself, and divert the installation data river into the second partition? Does it work like i think it does (Like an Alt-Tab style of switching)?

Answer 1

Linux is a very interesting OS, but hard to switch to when you are a lifetime windows user.

The best way to get started without screwing your pc up is to use a bootable cd and get started with Linux from that cd and then to move on and actually install it.

And concerning your laptop and installing multiple OS on once computer:

A partition is a piece of the same hard drive, you cant install many OS in one partition (ok you can, but its gonna be very messy) so what you have to do in order to have multiple OS in your pc is to make particions on the hard drive.

Example-
You want Windows XP, Linux Ubuntu and Windows Vista on your pc.
What you have to do is to split up your hard drive into 3 pieces or maybe 4.
And then proceed to install the OS in each hard drive.
The best way to do it is to install both Windows then to install Ubuntu(Linux) later.
Ubuntu creates a bootable menu, wich will prompt every time you turn your computer on and here you can choose any OS and modify wich one is the primary OS that will boot up automatically.

To erase your hard drive clean just use any Windows XP cd and before installing it format it.

Answer 2

Linux and Windows are both operating systems. They manage the space between the hardware and the programs you want to run. Its not really possible to get both at once on one computer. That would be like saying you want both automatic and stick shift at the same time in your car.

You can:
A) use a bootable CD to try out linux
B) use a "virtual machine" which sets aside part of memory and treats it as a harddrive running one OS
C) use dual boot which will stop at bootup and ask you which one you want to use
D) use an emulater of various levels to give you most of an operating systems abilities while actually running on another

I have found that Windows is obnoxious and doesnt like to share quite as much as linux does. In other words, it tends to be easier to get linux to allow windows stuff, than to get windows to allow linux stuff.

If you are determined to try linux from a windows machine then you might look into GNUwin32, UnxUtils, or CygWin.

Subnote: it takes FAR less machine to run linux than it does to run windows. An old computer in the closet can run linux better than your new computer runs your windows.