originally i had a slight interest in linux, but did not have any real need to learn more about it or hardrive partioning. now however i DO have a real need for linux. i use to play americas army on windows and got a hardware ban. i hear that my hardware ban can not be seen running linux. all i really want to do is run linux for the sole purpose of being able to play this game, nothing else for now. linux from a cd sounds nice and easy, but i still have to download this americas army game on linux. will i need a harddrive partition anyways so this download can go somewhere? im not entirely sure how this works. if i do need to partition my harddrive for linux, there are plenty of resources on the net (and this site) that i can use to teach myself. if that is the case (needing a partition), what do you recommend as a good version that is quite simple and will run my game: Or, if they are all simple enough, maybe i should just go with something that i will still love after learning all about linux this summer (when i have lots of free time). thank you!

first of all that whole thing about hardware doesnt make sense since it is probably your IP that they are banning but that is not my problem.
If you want to install americas army you are probably going to have to put it on your harddrive which will require some partitioning. Most distros will do that for you or at least lead you through the steps. I would recommend using ubuntu which is a very simple and straightforward install.
as for installing the game youj need to use a windows emulator like VMWare or WINE inorder to run the program

if you want to change your IP use no-ip

no they are definitely banning you from ever playing again on that hardrive. i would need to buy a new HD and a new lan card to play again on this computer with windows. are you saying that by downloading ubuntu, it will show me how to partition my harddrive? this confuses me because i thought you would have to have a partition first and then dowload linux directly to that partition or something. i do know that the game has a linux version. does this mean i wont need an emulator?

download ubuntu and you get an iso file which will be approx 700MB. Then you burn that to a cd. Put the cd in the cd drive and get into BIOS. Set your BIOS to boot from your cd drive and reboot your computer again. This will boot from the ubuntu disk and enter you into setup. The setup will walk you through all the steps including partitioning

Who is banning you? Why?

hmm im not sure what i did wrong. it opened through winrar after downloading to a very strange place. in winrar it says 6,934,500 is the file size, im not sure if thats bytes or kb or what but if i find the same file on C;/ its only 6.7 MB? so i think i will download it again and see if i can override this stupid download-in-your-browser downloader and put it all on my desktop.

well i was using a hack, so that might be why. the odd thing is, i wasnt even banned while using the hack, but randomly almost a month after stopping use. im banned from punkbuster on this hardware on this OS.

im sort of scared to do this out of ignorance. i want to make sure before doing this that it will just boot automatically into windows xp as it does now since i will be using windows primarily. how will this work? is booting by putting the ubuntu cd in and rebooting just a one time deal or will i do it each time i want to run ubuntu. can i switch between linux and windows without any other users of this computer even knowing that linux is on this computer? how do i switch back and forth, but leave windows as my primary OS?

Unless you're using the Live CD, it's just a one-time install. Ubuntu should automatically recognize your Windows partition and allow it to boot, (It will use the GRUB bootloader which will ask you which OS you wish to boot) but make sure you don't delete your Windows partition when you repartition the drive. Just follow the instructions and ask for help if you're not sure.
P.S. I didn't know there was a Linux version of America's Army? Or is there?

you will need to resize the partition and install a bootloader like sumguy231 said. After this no cd will be necessary. When you boot you will be given the choice of running ubuntu or linux. once you choose to boot your OS no one will be able to see the other OS since it is on a seperate partition

When you put "hack" and "punkbuster" in the same post, it lead's me to believe you were circumventing the normal processes or some other illegal and unethical activity. I hope I'm just misunderstanding your post, but if I'm not, I doubt you were randomly banned.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

there usually is, although version 2.6 for linux has not been released yet. unfortunately for me, it might be because punkbuster recognizes HW bans dont carry over to linux and is doing something about it.

i assume the disk will show me how to do all this safely?

but when someone else is running windows, and needs to reboot for whatever reason, will they be confronted with a screen asking them to choose which OS. if the answer is yes, is there any way to always boot into xp unless i have the cd in or do something. reason is, i dont need to bother the other users thinking their OS has crashed or something, when i just need to occasionaly boot into linux to play games. i wouldnt mind a little extra work every time i need ubuntu.

it wasnt exactly random per se, but unusual in the respect that punkbuster always makes its bans while a hack is occurring. usually if you hack and get away with it, youve gotten away with it, but punkbuster was able to go back in time and see that i had been hacking, something that their software couldnt see at the time. Also, what is the purpose of your link?

The disk will tell you the basics of what to do, but if you are unsure at that point in the installation, I'd suggest you ask someone.
By default, yes, but you can configure it to hide the prompt unless you press Escape with hiddenmenu.
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...tml#hiddenmenu
(Add to your /boot/grub/menu.lst)

the disk will safely do it and as for booting linux only when you want to. I guess you could install the bootloader on a floppy and set the BIOS to boot from a floppy if it is available otherwise just boot from the main partition on the harddrive(windows). Then when you want to boot linux just pop your floppy in the computer and reboot. But i wouldnt be worried about someone seeing a linux OS. You should actually be proud of your linux distro not afraid of it. It isnt like someone will assume you are hacking and up to no good if they see linux.

Follow it, read what you see, and take it to heart. You weren't hacking, you were cracking. I also believe that when PunkBuster does a hardware ban, it does so by hardware serial number. Linux isn't going to help you with that.