I am looking at purchasing a Dell system with UBUNTU Linux on it and then putting Windows XP on it. I would put Vista but every thing I read says there is still too many issues to work out. I am a database administrator and want want experence using both systems.
I am looking for some suggestions?
The best way to do this?
Is the Dell UBUNTU a stable platform or should I look at another system?
An inquiring mind wants to know.

Thanks for any help.

Buy the laptop with Ubuntu on it and give it to ME

Couldn't help my self.

If I knew I was going to install windows on the system but I wanted to keep Ubuntu I would setup a dual boot. Or setup Windows as a virtual OS, use VMware or something like it.

When you want to make a partition for your windoze partition use a live cd (ubuntu or gparted) set up the amount of space you want to run win. When your finished setting up win you will have to reinstall the grub loader up again.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p15.htm

IOW, MS always overwrites the MBR, so install MS first, then Linux, not the other way around. Mate of mine had exactly that problem.

It should be pretty stable, I would put windows xp in a vm, unless you want to run 3d games on it

I will second what AceofSpades19 says.

But put the OS you're most comfortable with as the base OS and put the 'new' OS in the virtual machine until you're comfortable installing / breaking / reinstalling it.

First, the main thing to consider with installing a second operating system on a pre-install is going to be either complete reinstall or partition resizing.

Second, when I checked out some "Business" rather than "home" configurations a year or so ago, Dell offered an option to install the requested system to 25/50/75% of the drive as requested. I do not see this option with the Ubuntu offerings with a quick look.

Third, if you are going to use Windows at all are you really wanting to pass on the cheapest way to aquire Windows VIA OEM?

You don't say if your choice is laptop or desktop so there can be a huge difference in hard drive size available. If you wish to pass on Vista do you already have an XP version you can install? In this case you are purchasing a computer with hardware Linux support from the manufacturer. I haven't needed to follow this but you may want to see if there are issues upgrading to the newest version of Ubuntu. Depending on hard drive size you could be running both Vista and XP if you wanted to experience the transitions of the applications you use between the two. Assuming you have an XP license and would get an OEM Vista License.

On the resizing issue. Your post brings up an interesting issue to me. The paradigm has been adding to a Windows pre-install and many Linux distributions can handle this. Windows is not set up to resize Linux by default during install. You may want to have a copy of the gparted live CD .

Good Luck

If you are looking for a copy of an OS to play around with, I would recommend setting up a virtual machine. If you would prefer to have Linux as your primary OS then I would recommend using virtual box (google it) to use as your virtual software. I've used it and have found no problems. On the other hand if you would prefer windows to be your primary then VirtualPC is also free of charge.

The benefits of having an OS running in a virtual machine is that if you are new to the system or would like to really get into the "nitty gritty" you do not have to worry about compromising the system. But! I would not recommend this method unless you have ATLEAST a gig of ram (although you more than likely do anyways)

Good luck.

Try this maybe, for free

http://www.virtualbox.org/

A Synopsis,

Thanks all of you for responding to inquiry.
From reviewing all of your responses this is what I have come up with taking my own needs and the needs of my wife into consideration.

Purchase a new computer with Vista installed. 2 gigs ran large drive.
Have dell section the drive up.
Get a copy of VirtualPC on put on it.
Buy a copy of Linux and put it on the machine and run it in VirtualPc mode.

That way my wife will have all of the programs that she uses on a regular bases and I will be able to go into to VirtualPC and run my Linux programs.

If you have any suggestions to this let me know.

Thanks Again.

why would you buy a copy of linux when you can download it for free