Will try installing one of these systems very soon, the choice seems to be
either redhat or mandrake

As a complete beginner to Linux (never even seen it) which would be the
appropiate for me

Currently my system is Win XP pro booting from a SATA drive but will install
linux on a new standard IDE drive all by itself

The other question how do I boot from one OS or the other while the XP will
be on one drive and linux on the other

Thanks
--
Trevor BROOKES