Hmm, I've been seeing a lot of people talking about Arch Linux. So I figured that I might try it out on my moms old laptop.

I've only used 3 different distros before, Ubuntu, Slackware, and little bit of Open Suse, but that's it.

I heard it's really lightweight, and will be very handy with my 6 year old laptop, which is running Windows XP at the moment.

Wish me luck that I figure everything out quickly! lol

I don't know if anyone else has been talking about it, I've just been toying with the idea of installing it for the past couple days. But good on ya, you'll learn quite a bit of how GNU/Linux and operating systems in general operate.

Watch out though, unlike Ubuntu it doesn't even have a GUI installer, and once it's installed you're dumped into a terminal and you have to manually configure EVERYTHING. Which is why I wanted it. Ubuntu takes too much control of the system away, plus I've never really been a fan of Gnome or KDE or any of the other major window managers. I like light weight utilities like twm, xmonad and tmux (A powerful combination!).

That said, I've never used any version of GNU/Linux that didn't ship with a default desktop manager of some sort, though I have toyed around with FreeBSD and OpenDarwin a little bit, and I know my way around the command line. But it was still a very easy to use installation. But that's because I prepared myself before hand, by reading the official wiki, specifically the Beginner's Guide, Installation Guide, and the FAQ. And I read the man page for any program I wasn't familiar with.

But I only installed it last night and installed a few basic command-line apps. I didn't install X or any real important system utilities, but I plan to do that tonight.

Anyway, you're on your way to a journey through a magical land of learning and self-discovery, and I wish you all the best! If you have any questions or need any help, feel free to ask.

Oh yeah, and it is SUPER IMPERATIVE that you read the wiki page on GRUB if you intend to dual-boot with Windows. While installing, AIF should pick up your current Windows installation and automatically configure GRUB for you, but you should always double check, and know what it is you're looking at when it asks you to confirm settings.