Hi peeps!i currently have win vista installed do i need to partition my hard disk before i download linux mint, or can i just find a download mirror and leave it at that and download from there.

If your question is really, "do I need to repartition my hard disk to install Linux?", then yes, you'll need to create a partition for Linux.

If all you're asking is whether you need to partition before downloading, no. You can download the ISO image(s) to your Windows partition, burn them and then repartition your disk prior to installation. Linux Mint may have a tool that lets you resize existing partitions to create space for a Linux one, but I don't know because I don't use it. Look for documentation and see if there are any hints.

welcome to LQ!!

The process can be described as two stages:
1. Download a CD image and burn to CD.
2. Boot from the CD, modify partitions as required, and then install

Before you do any of this, I would back up all data-----also be sure you have a way of re-installing Windows.

If you have a desktop, the easiest and safest way to set up dual-boot could be to simply install another hard drive dedicated to Linux.

Vista and its quirks...

Vista likes to be manipulated with it own partitioner. The procedure is to defragment and shrink the NTFS partition then use a linux partitioning tool to format the empty space for linux. Here is a guide using Ubuntu as the OS.

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vi...lled_first.htm

A frequent and respected contributor recommends this utility for Vista.

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/faq

I like to have this at hand as well.

http://partedmagic.com/

Good Luck

When starting-out with Linux, I suggest that you find an older computer that you can dedicate to it. I frankly despise "dual booting."

As you're getting your feet wet with Linux, you will have plenty of situations where you and then you're and then you have to to find the answer ... which means that "having two computers side-by-side" is a huge help. Even if one of them is running (yee-uck!) Microsoft Windows.

....or a live CD....Live CDs are good.

Haven't seen this option in a while (but I still have my KVM switch.....)
I imagine that the latest VM technology might be almost as good----I have not needed to boot into Windows for over a year, so I have not been motivated to learn how to use VMs.