Hi!
I'm incredibly new to this world--my Dad recently convinced me to start a dual boot of W2K and Linux. Windows is (unfortunately) already installed on my hard drive, but I don't want to give up the evil thing entirely. So, I bought a reasonably cheap hard drive and I'm planning on installing linux on that, along with the hard drive with Windows on it. I'm wondering how to go about doing this...Will there be partitioning involved? Software I need to install?
Thanks for your patience with the new gal.

Firstly:

Welcome to LQ!

Basically, yes, there will be partitioning of the new drive which will have linux on it. You should make at least 2 partitions:

/ (aka root)
/swap

Other have several partitions and some (like me) have only 3: /, /swap, and /home.

The only software you will need to install to get up and running is on the install CD for what ever distribution you're wanting to install.

If you're ever stuck or having any problems, you've come to the right place for help. Enjoy your stay.

How about the linux distro of your choice? Everyone needs that.

Oh yeah, if you're wanting to know more information about the different distributions, this link should be quite helpful:

www.distrowatch.com

Mandrake is very easy to install. Just read everything very carefully. For file systems try using either ext3 or reiserfs. The best one is reiserfs. The swap partition uses its own filesystem. Make sure you test the resolution that you picked because on some systems it may incorrectly read your video card and monitor specs.

You have two options for booting. You can use your windows drive for booting into linux. The second way is use linux for booting to windows and linux. Linux has ways to boot to any storage medium even USB (I think). If you want LINUX be able to be the boot loader. You have to connect it as the master on the IDE cable. Changing the hard drive from master to slave should not mess anything on the hard drive. Just do not bang it to hard.