i have a dell xps/diminsion 400/9150 i want to install linux but last time i did i ended up with no sound and no internet. Well i have soundblaster xfi card witch apparently doesn't have Linux drivers any where. and i have on board sound (i cant get to work but thats a topic for a different forum) i want to dual boot linux with winxp and have full functionality with both winxp no problem but linux..... i need to find drivers for on board sound and on board nic. i am a newbie at this
so where would i get the drivers for my two devices, also i tried freespire is there a better distribution out there??? thank you in advance i hope you can help me i want to run linux for a change of pase mostly plus ive heard alot of good things security wise about this os so id like to try

First step - get your dual boot up and running. It's pretty straightforward, there are lots of tutorials out there to tell you how. Don't forget to set up a shared partition (vfat format). Once that's done, then you start worrying about getting all your hardware to work.

There's no best distro, but for user-friendliness you might want to try ubuntu.

i have read tutorials and watched them... i think i am ready to go i only have one problem
drivers sound and nic i have found nic drivers and im not sure they will work but i am dual booting so it doesnt have to b perfect i am using the suggested distribution and i am trying it in the next 30 minutes i will post again sometime tonight to tell you my results.

thank you very much for the help on this and if anyone has anymore ideas i would it would be much appreciated

i am posting on linux ubuntu!!!! i paritioned my hdd four ways 25gb for winows 23gb for linux 1gb for swap area and 102 gb for them to share. i set it to fat 32 so linux could read it but i do not se it in linux (not that i know where to look just yet) but i did go to computer and it shows my cd drives it shows the 23gb partition for linux and it shows file system (no clue what that really is) now the only thing left is to find my allusive F drive that is suposed to be shared

did i do something wrong or what thanks in advance for the help

You just missed a step. run fdisk -l and look for the device number of your vfat/fat32 partition. It would be dev/hda#

Edit your fstab, vi /etc/fstab. Hit 'i' to enter edit mode. On a new line, /dev/hda# (tab) /shared (tab) vfat (tab) defaults (tab) 0 0
Hit 'esc' to exit editing mode then ':wq' to write and quit
run mkdir /shared
run mount -a