i'm making the transition myself (ok, i intalled a *nix, i haven't had a chance since then to sitdown play and get everything working). I actually installed mandrake b/c i thought having a easy interface would allow me to get a good feel for it before i went to something a little more difficult. I found instead that, though easy to use, i wasn't really learning *nix whatsover. I'm going to switch over to gentoo or redhat in the near future, whenever i have time. Definitely repartition and use a dual boot system. a) You won't pick it up 100% your first day and b) you probably use windows programs that aren't in nix yet. my nixnoob advice