I appreciate the advice provided and as a beginner I will spend some time getting my head around it before I see if I need to come back to you on this. Many thanks.

I am a fairly basic computer user who is setting up a new computer at home for the first time. It already has Windows XP Pro as the operating system. I am keen to explore the use of a Linux operating system like Ubuntu or Mint and learn more about free programs that work with Linux and give me the o...