Quote Originally Posted by xeo4d
Be very careful in installing linux, I recommend fedora, or if you are crazy Gentoo. I lost windows to gentoo, imagine that! Installing Linux and it automatically eats windows for me. Like I said be careful and look on the forums under the linux distro's site for more info.
Gentoo is a tough distro to start out with. I wouldn't recommend using it unless you are experienced with getting down and dirty with Linux. If you are a newbie to Linux, I would try either Mandrake or SuSE. They are both pretty easy to install, and can easily be installed next to Windows without bunking it up.

As far as home use and wether or not to install it goes, if all you need internet browsing, email, and office apps, Linux is a nice way to avoid the Microsoft tax. But if you are going to want all the newest games and software, then Windows is going to be your best bet for now. Even though I am a Unix Sysadmin, and have a Linux partition on all of my computers, I spend most of my time in Windows (Probably mostly due to my World of Warcraft addiction).