linux install (newbie here)

[GuildL at rcn.com (Laurence Guild)]

Hi,

 I'm a software engineer and just got laid off after 9 years at the same company.
I am interested in installing linux on my PC and learning more about it. 
I have worked on AIX quite a bit.
I saw there is an install fest on May 20th which I am definitely interested in
seeing if I can get linux installed. Here is what I have for a PC,
it's an older machine and the graphics display is screwed up so that if
I look a jpegs or giffs, it looks like a negative, but it works fine for
text and anything else. Hopefully that wouldn't effect running linux
any more than it effects windows.

I am running windows 2000 service pack 2, it shows Fat32 file system, 14 gig
hard drive with 10 gig free space. 130,544 KB or ram and an AMD Athlon(tm)
processor.

I have a CD (read only drive), but also have an external CD burner than can
function as a read/write CD drive through a USB port. 

I'd like to install linux on a partition and still be able to boot windows 2000,
I'm wondering what size partition approx would I need for linux ?
I could buy another PC, but I'd prefer to see if I can do it all on this one.

What linux distribution should I use or would they have something at the install fest ?
I would like to get Perl, C++, emacs would it come with those and x windows ?
Java might be good also.

thanks
Larry



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