Originally posted by cs475x
Do you want to use it as a replacement/backup to windows? Or do you just want to use it for certain applications? If you want it as a replacement, then you should either install it over windows or in-line on a separate partition on your hard drive. If not, then you can just use VMWare and run a virtual machine to boot from within windows.
As for the distribution, I'd just stick with Ubuntu or Fedora for now.