Hi Jo55,

I've been using Ubuntu now for the last 15 months, for just the same reasons as you mention.
Very little problem setting up, though I had to ask my son for help to configure the boot loader so that WindowsXP was accessible, it was a simple case of editing the bootloader file and uncommenting the winXP line. You might want to have your son around, as you will probably need to partition and format your drives for linux. Always a good Idea to backup your WinXP data first, just in case it gets wiped.

I have hardly used winXP since, and by following instructions at the Ubuntu forums I was able to 'mount' the Windows partitions so that the data on there could be accessed. This is probably only possible if your windowsXP is Fat32, I dont think it will work for NTFS drives, maybe just read only.

I'm still using Breezy Badger, but will upgrade to Dapper Drake at sometime.

Good luck, and enjoy,
Jon