Dual Booting on a Netbook

I've recently bought the Samsung N110 netbook - it comes pre-installed with Windows XP, but I've decided to run Linux on it.

The decision is this - remove Windows XP and have Linux as the sole OS, or keep Windows XP and use dual booting?

I will mainly be needing this for working at school, or general internet use when I don't have access to my desktop at home. Therefore, I think it's unlikely that I'll need highly specialist software that can only run on Windows. Also, Windows takes up a fair amount of space - could dual booting slow the netbook down?

Having been pestered by the local nerds and read up on a lot of the material on the web, I'm pretty convinced that Linux is a good choice for me on this netbook. That said, I may well run a trial anyway before I switch. So, is there any reason to keep Windows XP or should I ditch the pre-installed OS and go with Linux all the way?

Thanks in advance,
Tom
:smile:

P.S. While I'm here, any suggestions as to which distro would be best for my netbook?

If me, I would dual boot first till you get the hanf of linux first, Then you could go into windows if you need to to access internet to ask questions if in a bind.

Have you checked out this site

Samsung Netbook Community: linux distributions

I haven't seen that site before - thanks, it looks useful!