1. Make sure your hardware is compatible. If you use nvidia's graphics and motherboard chipsets then you're in the clear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I can't be over-excited on this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Nvidia ROCKS THE PENGUIN HOUSE and they directly create and maintain Linux drivers for their products. And Nvidia has a reputation for making THE best drivers as well, so I trust them implicitly. But hyperactivity aside, a lot of hardware is supported, you'd be surprised.
www.linuxcompatible.org will help out in determining compatibility.
Out of curiosity, what's the hardware you're using now?
2. Also look for a distro that's inexpensive and comes with a lot of goodies. It's now time for me to hype up SuSE Linux at www.suse.com - they've got some great information, including a semi-confusing hardware compatibility list where it's better to enter vague information and look at the results rather than attempt to be specific. Browse their site, there's a good reason why they're #1 in Europe and seeming to gain ground in the US as Sun has even started using SuSE's products en masse...
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5058545.html Click on "home user" for more!
http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/index.html will take you there!!
3a. Dual-boot, especially if your Winbloat partition is FAT32. SuSE does this like a charm, just let it know how large you want your partitions to be.
3b. Buy a second hard drive and put Linux exclusively on it. This might be a better solution, and 20 GB hard drives are dirt cheap. This is what I did until I bought a new machine dedicated for Linux.
4. Keep an eye peeled for "Linux Format UK Magazine" - it's not a US magazine which means it's informative and useful. Especially their "handbook" which is worth every penny of the $20 they ask. If you can find it, it's now a few months old.
5.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/ This is a great resource, and do ask about improving disk efficiency and let them know your system specs. They can help tune up your system to be whizzy fast. I manually updated my settings and found little improvement and I wasn't bright enough to look at the original settings before overwriting them, so it's possible my settings were already ideal. But they're good.
6. Screen savers! SuSE comes integrated with true delicious gems like EuphoriaGL and Flux (GL) - for these alone you'll be glad to ditch Winbloat, but download FireworksGL if you're curious.
http://www.kdelook.org/content/show.php?content=3129 This will be your first Linux project, to compile a program specifically for your machine. Don't get frustrated, it's just different. It helps if you're even semi-familiar with DOS and file and pathnames. On my system using SuSE, I had to essentially make a new directory called GL and copy over a couple of files, along with downloading one other. It's kind of a pain, I agree, but it's the experience that counts. And not all Linux programs are this pissyfooted. Many apps, like StarOffice or OpenOffice and a lot of games have their own workable installers so
don't get freaked out!7. vmware or win4lin to run old Windows apps if WINE and WINEX do not work out. They cost $ but might be worth it depending on what you need, but SuSE packs a lot, especially in their Pro version.
8. Games. Unreal Tournament shines under Linux, especially if you're using an nvidia-based video card. I can do at 1600x1200 what Winbloat XP cannot ideally do in 1024x768!!!!! Linux is a far better gaming platform than Winbloat because it's more stable, not sloppily written, and just plain faster! That's pretty good for something like an open source entity where anyone can tinker and augment. (What's Microsoft's excuse?) Some games can still be a hassle, but when they work you'll love it all that much more. And, again, look into www.transgaming.com for WINEX - does a decent job of running DirectX games in conjunction with WINE.
Keep us posted!
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