I've been a user of Debian since the "Potato" release in 2000. Ubuntu is a Debian based distro that focuses on a platform that should "just work" (TM). Ubuntu works great with my Dell D820 Laptop and had no problems with my sound card, video driver, and power management. I was definitely a happy camper so I thought I'd share how to create a dual boot environment with Ubuntu + XP.

Making a dual boot of Ubuntu with Windows XP on your PC is ridiculously easy. I'll describe the steps for the installation and also what you should do post-install to give you a more usable system.

Pre-Reqs
* Make a backup of your Windows System or have a restore CD available in case something goes wrong

* Create a CD image of Ubuntu 7.04

* Check your NTFS partition to see how fragmented your hard drive partition is. If you have a new PC or fresh install of XP then this probably won't be a problem, otherwise it is likely you will have to defragment your hard drive so that you can free up space for your new ext3 linux partition. I recommend using PerfectDisk. I had a good experience using this program to defragment my partition and it provides an advanced option to "aggressively" defragment your partition for maximum contiguous storage of space which I recommend.

Installation Steps:

1) Insert your Ubuntu Live CD and reboot (of course, you need to make sure your BIOS is setup to boot from CD)

2) Once Ubuntu boots up, you can select "Start Ubuntu or Install"

3) Double click the Install icon on the desktop

4) Walk through the steps and select your preferences. The only step you'll need to think about is how much space you want your linux partitions to take up.

5) If all is well, then Ubuntu will automatically create the Swap partition and Ext3 for the OS. Ubuntu should be able to resize the existing NTFS partition (where windows is installed) and create the ones needed for linux.
If you have problems (and hopefully you shouldn't if you have fully defragged your drive) then you can use the GParted tool in your Ubuntu Live CD to resize the partition for you.

6) You can choose to migrate documents from windows to linux. Keep in mind you can always mount your Windows partition and explore your files through linux.

7) Setup your account info to log into Ubuntu. An important note is that the sudo password is the same as this new account password.

That should complete the steps for the install. Now a few post-install tips:

1) Install Flash Plugin - Since this is a proprietary plugin, you will have to enable the package manager to obtain non free sources. You can either enable the option in the Synaptic Package manager or do it manually in your apt sources.list file. Once you have done that, you can run "sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree" or obtain the plugin using Synaptic.

2) If you need to run Internet Explorer (I have to use it for some corporate HR sites) then you can install wine for windows emulation and IEs4Linux.
Follow these directions: http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Installation

3) If you need to use your scanner with XSane then you may need to install some drivers. I have an HP printer/scanner so I installed hpoj from apt. Another recommended install is hplip which apparently has more functionality.

4) run "sudo updatedb" to index your files and to allow the "locate" command to find files anywhere on your disk. You can also install beagle for google desktop-like functionality.

5) GMail users - it used to be that GMail didn't support automatic mail refresh in firefox for linux but it looks like that has changed recently. Nevertheless, you can install checkgmail which places the gmail envelope icon in the panel tray and automatically checks for new mail.

6) NVidia Drivers - You'll have to do some extra work to utilize these drivers. I haven't tried it out myself but I'm sure there are resources out there to help you out.

The Ubuntu community is very strong and active so check out their forums for your questions.