Looking for an OS that is best for me, need advice
 

I'm looking at other options for an OS for my PC besides windows, due to the fact I'm broke and my Windows instalation is really messing up.

I like the look of Ubutu and it's features, but I'm a gamer, which is what I use my PC for mainly, watching videos/listening to music, and learning how to make CGI images and animation.

Is Ubutu good for PC gamers or any other Linux-based OSes good for games? And exactly how to do instal/play games on them?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Linux will not be able to run your games natively. Although it is possible to run some Windows games with Wine on Linux there is no guarantee that it will work. I fiddled with that for some time and came to the conclusion that it is not worth the time doing that. So I keep a Windows installation for gaming, for every thing else I use Linux.

Do you have it as dual-boot with windows? If so how do you do it and can it be done without unistaling windows?

Like taking candy from a baby
 

Make a new install of Windows, but don't use all your hard disk for windows. Just create two partitions. Use the first for Windows. After that, choose a linux distribution and just install it besides windows in the second partition. Most distributions can do this on their own. Just Windows 7 might a little more tricky, but can be done...

Without uninstalling windows, there is a risk of data loss, because you would have to resize your windows partition. That is dangerous. But if your windows is already messed up, why preserve it?

Regards,

Heraton

I recommend repairing your Windows install so you can continue to enjoy your Windows games.
If you are curious about Linux at some later date, it will be less stressful to experiment with it once your computer is repaired. :)

I wouldn't recommend that, this way you will end with a Linux system without swap partition. Just install Windows on one partition and leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned. Almost any of the more mainstream distributions will be able to make partitions as needed automatically in the free space.

OP didnt actually mentioned what games he plays. Sure there is not native support for WOW nor for Call of Duty in linux but there are lots of games in Linux that are fork of old popular games. There are also sites STEAM like that welcome linux users. See this link http://www.desura.com/
Also with the Humble Indie Bundle lots of source code for games were release to the comunity so hopefully some creative developers start porting these games into different distros.
Also here is a site that keep updates about games in the linux world
http://www.linuxgames.com/
http://whdb.com/2008/top-25-linux-games-for-2008/

Here is a distro that is mainly for games you can download the live CD (It comes packed with games) and boot from it each time you want to play.
lglive-0.9.7-i686-hybrid-big.iso
from http://download-gratuito.1unlimited....rs-live-0-9-7/

Good luck to you.

Take a look at:
WindowsDualBoot - Community Ubuntu Documentation : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

http://appdb.winehq.org/

And another attempt to support gaming on Linux:
http://www.playonlinux.com/en/

If your windows computer is the windows xp that you're posting from, you can reinstall xp from within your i386 folder, then install any linux os as dual-boot to play around with or use live-cd.

Thanks to everyone for the tips and ideas. You have given me more options on improving my PC. Thanks to you EDDY1, I knew that there was a way to do that, but couldn't remember how till you posted that, thanks.