I have had good results installing either antiX_M11 or Swift Linux 0_1_1, not installing GRUB to MBR, and using EasyBCD to access Linux install via the Windows Boot Manager in either Vista or Win7. Cannot say whether this will positively work with XP/W2K, however.

10 was an obvious exaggeration, but the point is the debian installer i tried is a royal royal pain in the assholes with a slow connection.

I am gonna try the CD though. I missed earlier the line that said "the first line CD is enough to get a standard debian install" .So this should work

okay tried debian again and again.Everything went nicely, but it didn't work for some reason..

need another distro to try. suggestions please.

If you are worried about touching the MBR, i.e. the host, then perhaps the best solution would be to run Linux in a virtual machine.

ok well some of this may have been answered but hey: i like to put things in my own words

1'st
install without touching mbr? easy.
any distro should ask where to install/ if to install grub; usually in an advanced tab. you simply have to install grub to the same partition as / partition or dont install it at all and use another distro (liveusb livecd) to install it.
then use easybcd to point windows bootloader to it!
this is exactly what i always do and i never have any problems with it

2nd
ok: distro's that 'just work' are something i used to want (tricky wifi on my laptop) and the best ones are superOS (ubuntu with some goodies) pardus (dont be scared by the turkish website: there is an english option and the OS is english too) pinguyOS (another ubuntu knockoff).
i am also told that PClinuxOS is fantastic for easy install/use, but i've never used it myself

good luck!