I am an extreme newbie and don't know too much about computers. I feel very intimidated by linux, but really don't like Windows XP so I have considered installing fedora/red hat. Is it better for me to partition my HD, or just instal the linux OS on my external hard drive? Thanks in advance.

Hi and welcome!

if you want to be able to fallback to windows you should install on the external drive. if you don't have anything important on windows, you can wipe it from yuor hard drive, so you can't fallback. not being able to fallback to windows is also good because in case you have any problems in linux you just have to solve it...

greetz,
.-=~ iluvatar ~=-.

ps: I like your signature

I just installed it on a seperate hard drive to make sure that I didn't touch any of my Windows data. Its working perfect now and nothing has been deleted but I can always use Win XP for my games and such with no problems. I would recommend a 2nd hard drive.

For a computer novice it might be eaiser to install on the same drive. You will need to resize your existing XP partition. I will assume you just have one. Depending on how big your hard drive is I would allow at least 10 GB for the install. A default workstation requires approx 4 - 6 GB or so. The installer by default will create 3 partitions. /(root), /boot and swap.

With an external drive your motherboard's BIOS needs to have the option to boot from a USB drive. AFAIK you can not boot from a firewire drive. For RH to boot from a USB device you will need to update the initrd (initial ram disk) to include all of the USB modules.

Another option just to check out linux would be a live CD version like Knoppix. It boots from the CD and does not modify the hard drive. You are able to save configuration settings if needed.