I basically just surf the net, email, chat etc. I have an older 1.6 Ghz P4 - 60 Gig Hd - 128Mb Nvidea GForce T1400 (i like the dual display, is that supported),I have had enuff of bill gates buy it again and again b*llsh*t, and have been curious about linux and am ready now to remove winbloze from my hard drive for good and was wondering where to start. Which version of linux,what preparations do I need to make in advance etc.so as to reduce my down time. I am a total newbie and know virtually nothing about Linux except that it is supposed to be a better OS than windows in many ways, but lacking in support from the big company's.

Take a look at this list and just download two or three and burn them on a rewritable CD/DVD and boot them. No harm to your system and you can see what distribution suites you.
http://www.livecdlist.com/

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Welcome to LQ.
To get started with Linux I would recommend to start with one of the more beginner friendly distributions, like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Just download the CD, burn it to a CD (as image, not as data CD) and boot from it. You can boot in live mode, so that you can have a first look at it. Then just start the installer and follow the steps.

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Welcome to LQ

I would suggest to start with a live CD, or run linux in VM untill you are familiar with it.
Most distributions have live CD's.
Go to http://distrowatch.com/ and take one of the ditro's in the top 10.
For a beginner I would go for ubuntu.

Kind regards

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yes its best to try it in a Virtual MAchine 1st or with a live CD of Ubuntu .. It's a good one

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K Thanks! I got Ubuntu, I'm going to try it now

For this method VirtualBox is great.

I'd recommend that anyone starting with Linux should read this: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

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Here are some links you might find useful:

http://linux.about.com/. It's oriented to Ubuntu, but it's full of good info.

http://tille.garrels.be/training/tldp/. Machtelt Garrels Intro to Linux.

http://www.slackbook.org/. Slackware oriented, but excellent on the basics, such as file structure, permissions, and the like.

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If you only have 128MB memory, you will have trouble running many of the beginner friendly distros like Ubuntu or Mint, especially from their live CDs.
Adding more memory would greatly improve performance for the smallest investment. About 1GB of memory would be the "sweet spot" (most bang for the buck).
You could start by using a live CD of one of the mini distros like Puppy or Slitaz. These should run fine on your system even with 128MB memory.

I think you have misread his post. As far as I understand it his video card has 128MB RAM.

Since you say that it's an older computer, with a 1.6 processor, I'm going to suggest antiX. Make sure you get the full i686 version of the download, unless you want to basically build from scratch. (I don't recommend this if you're new). The current version is M8.5 but I've had more success running the M11 release candidate. It's light on resources but still looks pretty nice. You can find out more at http://antix.freeforums.org. It's basically given me the ability to keep my laptop around a little longer (this thing was a new model in '06), and not a high-end one even then. I've used Ubuntu and Mint on it, but those distros are getting a little too bloated for this old thing to handle. Here's the output of inxi -F so you can see what I'm working with here (I suspect its somewhat comparable to your setup) :

System: Host antiX1 Kernel 2.6.32-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M11-686 Jayaben Desai 12 April 2011
CPU: Single core Intel Celeron M 420 (-UP-) cache 1024 KB flags (nx sse sse2 sse3) bmips 3193.1 clocked at 1596.051 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel Mobile 945GM/GMS 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller X.org 1.9.5 Res: 125x39 Gfx Data: N/A for root
Audio: Card Intel N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller driver HDA Intel BusID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.21
Network: Card-1 Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN driver b43-pci-bridge BusID: 03:00.0
Card-2 Realtek RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ driver 8139too v: 0.9.28 at port 2000 BusID: 05:01.0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 40.0GB (10.2% used) 1: /dev/sda HTS541040G9SA00 40.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 25G used: 3.8G (17%) fs: ext3 ID:swap-1 size: 2.18GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Info: Processes 89 Uptime 45 min Memory 296.9/492.2MB Runlevel 5 Client Shell inxi 1.4.23

Good luck finding something that works for you!

If it only has 128MiB of RAM, then running Ubuntu and other "beginner" distros will be a problem. However, with those specs, I interpret that as referring to the graphics card, suggesting the machine has enough RAM.

Assuming it has at least 512 MiB of RAM, Ubuntu should be fine on this system. For comparison, I am running a 1.6 Ghz Pentium M, with 1 GiB of RAM and integrated Intel video. This machine has plenty of power for Ubuntu (plus Compiz).

Good luck with Ubuntu

With the OP running XP, I'd doubt that its a 128MB RAM machine. 128MB XP was bad enough in the old pre-SP1 days, with SP3 128MB of RAM is a fast way to get to drive flog land.

Probably you've misposted your video card, I'd bet its a Ti 4X00 (could be Ti 4200, 4400, 4600 or 4800).

Its supported with both open source drivers and the nvidia closed drivers, no problems there. Mind you, nVidia will drop the drivers for the GF2-GF4 series at some point.

Dual display is possible, and its pretty easy with the nvidia drivers. I've never tried with thr open source drivers, but it shouldn't be that hard.

I would recommend you try Xubuntu, as it will run a lot better than Ubuntu on an older machine, while still being user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing.

I would also recommend against using a virtual machine on your current computer. It won't run well, and it'll make your first experience with Linux potentially negative.

Simply go to the Xubuntu website, download yourself the 32-bit Live CD and burn it onto a CD. Then pop it into your CD drive (make sure your BIOS can boot from CD) and install it. Right out of the box, you'll be able to do things like surf the internet, use your mail, chat with others, look at pictures and edit documents.

For added abilities, like playing DVDs or MP3s, run this command after you install and update your system:
Enjoy Linux. It's fun, easy to use and simple. And if you ever get the urge to customize or tinker with things, it is very easy to do so.

Welcome to LQ!