I have a 40 G HD with XP already loaded. I am going to use partition magic to repartition w/o a nuke and pave to make room for Linux. I am going to get GRUB for my OS selector at boot and I want to install Linux. Do I have a handle on things? Do I really need GRUB or Lilo? Any suggestions on sizing for initial configuration?

Any words of advice or warning would be appreciated.

sounds good to me, few things I'd like to mention

1) If your XP is on a NTFS partition, remember you can only read off of it, not write to it (at least not safely)

2) I don't think you NEED GRUB or Lilo, if you really want to insert a boot disk every time you want to go into Linux.... Why would you NOT want one of them? They aren't annoying or anything.

u seem to be on the right track... partition magic should do most of the partitioning work for ya, but make sure u read up on how partitions work (or just watch the partition magic flash tutorial) because you'll be dealing with them a lot in linux

also, most times i find it easier to make some unallocated space in partition magic but i don't format it as ext3 or anything (especially for redhat9) since it is best to do it within the installer partitioning software manually (or if the installer does it itself)

also, don't worry about installing grub or lilo into the mbr or anything, nothing bad usually ever happens (just make sure u have the partition magic boot disks and the windows 98 boot disks)

have fun, and welcome to linux!