Still wittering on.....

[#1]

have a look at the livecd and see if there is an installation guide; there should be.  all you need is tell linux to use the whole drive when it installs.  it will wipe windows, remake the necessary partitions, swap, / and /home, install and there you have it.

[#2]

Sounds simple enough - should I do something about saving the Windows installation to DVD in case I wanted to reinstall it (if there is no disc)? If so, what's the best way of doing this?
Also, if I get it all up and running properly, do I get promoted to the penguin ranks? 

[#3]

depends what you want to do next, My little Eeepc on Linux is great for my away trips,. Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office, and now since an Auto update, no dirty fingers, it has WiFi  with WPA  (Only WEP before), also games and lots more
PS Changed my Sig Pic, Keep it under Control

[#4]

I love your little penguin but p-l-e-a-s-e let him out! After all, you have definitely been 'outed' as a Linux user even though it is only a little 'puter.
 

[#5]

I could have been rough and bottled him - any way I dont have to know Linux at all just switch it on, click the icons do what I want and turn it off

[#6]

Quote from: poppy

Sounds simple enough - should I do something about saving the Windows installation to DVD in case I wanted to reinstall it (if there is no disc)? If so, what's the best way of doing this? Also, if I get it all up and running properly, do I get promoted to the penguin ranks?

I think it unlikely you will want to reinstall Windows to be honest! If you were to reinstall Windows it would rewite the master Boot Record and prevent access to Linux anyway, although this can be fixed. If you are at all worried about losing Windows then just keep it on a small partition. When you get your lappy, first boot into Windows, uninstall any software you don't want, do a cleanup with something like CCleaner, then defrag. Then install Linux. Tell the installer you want to keep the Windows partition fairly small, say 10G, but depends how big the drive is. It will install a boot manager that will give you the choice of whether to boot into Linux or Windows, but it will boot into Linux automatically if you leave it for a few seconds.

[#7]

Have just followed previous advice re: Kubuntu. Trying it via live CD and I think that I like it more than PCLinuxOS. Like the start menu idea, which is very like Windows and seem to be  able to find things/places relatively easily. Am using Konqueror right now as Kubuntu doesn't come with Firefox. All good fun!

[#8]

That's all part of the fun - trying out different distros to find something that suits what you want from it.

[#9]

@poppy,
Try out the latest Mepis live CD, AFAIK it comes with Firefox and uses the KDE desktop base of Kubuntu.

[#10]

Poppy.
When you install whichever distro you decide on be sure to put your /home directory on a seperate partition then when/if you come to try a different distro your personal settings and data will stay intact.
Cheers
Jon

[#11]

Right, am all set and need further advice from you nice gents.
Have bought a new but refurbished laptop with a 160GB hard drive - Vista HB is installed on a single partition  and I have the operating system recovery DVD.
What to do next? My initial thought was to reformat entirely with Kubuntu but if I did this would I be able to reinstall it from the recovery DVD if I wanted to? Alternatively, would it be better to create a small a partition as possible for the Vista installation and allocate the rest to Linux?
I have never done this before so need guidance, step by step and easy to understand.
I bought the laptop specifically for Linux so don't mind reformatting and wiping Vista but would like the option to go back as a fail-safe. Won't do anything until I have had some opinions.

[#12]

A word of caution.
The last time I bought a PC with a recovery disk it was a disk image and repartitioning then trying to install in one partition I found that it wiped all my nice new partitions out and put everything in one partition again.
If that is the case you would need something like Acronis and backup the disk to an external drive or a DVD then restore with the partitions setup you want

[#13]

Yes, I thought as much and this is why I asked the question. I had considered the disk image thingy but not sure of the cost to purchase Acronis so will have to check.
The more I think about it, I believe it would make more sense to partition it, particularly as it is quite small as I haven't put anything on it apart from anti-virus and some updates. There is then loads of room for the Linux.

[#14]

poppy, you must use the vista partitioning tool to resize the windows partition.  it will only split the drive in half, but after that, you will be able to safely reduce it further with a linux repartitioning tool.

[#15]

I was thinking about the partitioning tool and have taken a look. Wasn't sure how much to shrink it by so half sounds OK to me, although don't plan to use the Vista bit.
Never done it before so will do a defrag and have a go with fingers crossed.