It turns out that my night school is switching to Ubuntu, so I decided to install that.
On the installer page, there is a CD, and something about a Windows installer.

I want to install Ubuntu on the D partition currently labeled "data" that I intend to repartition for Linux. I want to leave the Windows C partition alone as there might be problems with Linux connectivity on the school network.

Do I go for the standard CD or do I use this Windows Installer? It sounds like the latter is a virutual machine or something akin to WINE, which is not what I want. I want a dual-boot.

If you want a true dual-boot, you would use the standard installer.

Wubi, the windows installer, will install ubuntu within windows.

also some here do not consider "Wubi" to be a "real" install .Some do some do not

I would read up on using a duel boot set up
having windows 7 on one partition ( or drive) and Ubuntu on a separate partition ( or drive)

two drives IS a better set up than just one hard drive

DO NOT fallow old "how to's"
IF you are using XP, vista or 7 ALL ARE DIFFERENT
if you have win7 DO NOT use a how to for xp or vista
all 3 do things DIFFERENT !

First, I should refer you to this thread for what I intend to do with the computer.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ubuntu-853832/

The laptop is an older Acer Aspire 5570Z laptop. I don't have an extra license of Windows 7 or XP to put on the laptop. The choice is Vista Home Premium or Linux. Given Vista's dismal performance due to being a memory hog, I'm giving Linux a second chance after I had an unpleasant experience 10 years ago on a PowerMac 6500/300.
The specs are
1GB of RAM (not enough to run Vista well)
According to Vista's Welcome Center it's a "Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2080 @1.73ghz."
140GB of hard drive space in 2 partitions, one with Vista on it, another blank partition labeled "Data". I'm going to convert Data to Ext2 (or is it ext3 these days) and make the swap partitions and all that jazz from it.

Anyways, I can't really install a second drive unless it's an external USB drive. I have one, but it's formatted for NTFS and is needed for my night school courses. I _can't_ use FAT32 or ext for the USB drive as it holds all the virtual machines that are too big for FAT32 and XP Pro can't read EXT filesystems..

it is EXT 4 now or a LVM ( except for the /boot partition " ext3" )

Be careful with data prtition on my acer xp machine data parttion holds my restore points.