[ubuntu-uk] creation of a dual boot desktop from scratch

[rosemurgy at googlemail.com]

A few months ago my desktop pc died and I replaced it with a cheap
laptop (windows XP) and even cheaper desktop (no OS installed). I
replaced the OS on the laptop with ubuntu 6.10 and it's been great. So
much so that I never got around to doing anything with the desktop at
all.

So now I'd like to put ubuntu onto the desktop and give it to my mum.
She's a complete computing novice but as I'm going to be helping her &
I think she'd be better off learning to use ubuntu than windows. I'd
like to also install XP 'just in case'.

I thought I'd install XP first (the online tutorials I've found seem
to assume that windows is installed before creating a dual build
machine - which is logical enough as so many are sold with it
pre-installed) and create partions on the single hdd as follows:
an ntfs partion (for XP)
a system partion for ubuntu
a swap partion for ubuntu
a small fat32 'shared partion' in case I want to move any files between.

If anyone can see a flaw with this thinking or has some other advice
it would be much appreciated.

Fi