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I am trying to figure out how to put Linux on my computer and not lose what I already have.
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I guess I wasn't paying attention when I posted my original reply. Maybe I shoulda been workin' instead of surfin'. You could still go for the live CD and not install anything, but if you know you want to install something...
I'd throw my support behind Debian too. But, judging from your experience with mainframes, I'd guess the command line doesn't scare you and there's a chance you've worked with Unix. Something like Gentoo might interest you as well. It's very configurable and pretty easy to install over the net, but gives you hours (which turn into days, weeks, and months) of tinkering fun.
Then there's Fedora, Scientific, and other Red Hat based distros. They install with a GUI installer like WinXP. Good newbie distros 'cause they do alot of the management right out of the box, but still give you more flexibility and control than WinXP.
Yeah, 85GB is plenty of space for a Linux install. I have a PC with 28GB total HDD space and have three Linux distros on it. One of the hard drives is only 6GB. There's tons of info here and elsewhere about dual bootig Linux and Windows. As long as Windows is installed first, you're good to go. You may have to edit some config files to get GRUB/LILO to boot WinXP after your Linux install, but typically nothing more than that.
Good luck and have fun. Hope to see you around here in the future.