[Techtalk] Newbie needs advice

[Juliet Halloran]

Hello,

I'm a college student with minimal Linux experience.  I have an HP laptop with 2 internal 80GB drives.  I want to put XP Media Center (which is what came with the laptop) on the 1st 80GB drive.  I want to partition the 2nd 80GB drive and use half of it for data and the other half for Linux.

1)    What is a good version of Linux to use and learn from?

2)   What kind of issues could happen from having a dual-boot?  Namely, will it work?

3)    What are some good websites and books I could use to learn Linux better?  I have some books, but they're from older distributions - Fedora Core 2.

I already have some CompTIA certs and I want to get the Linux+ cert as well so I'd appreciate any advice about how to get proficient.

Thanks!