Just got the Ubantu CD in the mail and am going to load - do I need to reformat hard drive and get rid of XP and all of my programs? or do I just load the Ubantu CD? do I then use program manager to load all of the other programs or can I access them from XP? like I a said, this is all new to me!

Hi -- Welcome to PCHF-- I have moved this post to it's own thread-- when you have a question ...please start a new thread even if it seems related to a previous one.

That way you won't get overlooked as easily. (hopefully not at all)

Do you want to dual boot with windows, or are you going to go with only Ubuntu? You can do it either way. Did you get the live cd with the install cd? If youre new to linux, i suggest either dual booting, using the live cd till you learn a little about it and decide whether you like it or not, or if you have a spare hd laying around, install it on that. (My preferred method, but i have lots of hard drives) If you decide to dual boot, i suggest you back up everything you want to keep from your hd before you start. Its not that hard to do, but if done wrong, you can wipe out your windows stuff. Also if you decide you dont like linux, uninstalling and reclaiming the disk space can be a pain. Thats some of the reasons i suggest putting it on a spare drive. Theres tons of info available on linux installations/dual booting, heres a couple of places to start. Heres a good tutorial:

Ubuntu & Windows XP DualBoot

And heres another good place for info:

Installation & Upgrades - Ubuntu Forums

I think youll like Ubuntu, its a good distribution, and fairly easy to use. But its not windows in a linux box. Get ready to do some studying.

[ That's one of the reasons I move the post -- I had done exactly that (hosed my Windows install) before. Wanted to make sure that someone with more Linux experience saw the thread.
Thanks Uncleed

c5vetter: I presume your question has been answered as you have not replied for two weeks.

marked as answered.