Newbe questions

[Rick]

Dear Friends,


I have run both Ubuntu and Kubuntu live CD's and have been impressed 
with what I saw. There were some things that didn't work, but that may 
be limitations of the Live CD system. At least I'm hoping that is the 
case. I am now awaiting the arrival of 5.10 (Breezy Badger) so I may 
install it in a dual system with my XP. Please relate to several 
questions I have.

1. Will I be able to install Ubuntu with XP on NTFS? Will Ubuntu be able 
to manipulate that formatting, or should I prepare a dedicated partition 
myself?

2. In the live Ubuntu's I was unable to access the other partitions on 
my computer. This has not been a problem with other Linux distributions. 
How can I access these partitions in Ubuntu?

3. The remarks about not needing a firewall in the FAQ were not very 
satisfying. If Ubuntu does not have an integrated firewall, what 
firewall is recommended?

4. What kind of anti-virus software is recommended for Ubuntu?

5. I am retired, but I still do some translating, and lots of reading in 
a variety of languages. I own the Babylon translating tool in Windows, 
and this is very useful for me. Is there anything like that in Linux? I 
don't need anything like the mass translators (like SYSTRAN), just word 
to word (or expression to expression) among English / French / German / 
Chinese / Hebrew and such. I tried Wine without success on Knoppix, and 
searched around the Internet, but found nothing.

6. In Kubuntu I was able to get the language keyboard system going, but 
when I tried to type Hebrew in Open Office (I use it in Windows) no 
letters appeared on the page. How can I gain access to Hebrew fonts? In 
Ubuntu I was unable to get the keyboard choices working at all.

7. Can Evolution be tweaked to allow composition in Hebrew or Arabic?

8. If I install the pre-release 5.10, how will I be able to upgrade it 
to the final release?

Thanks very much for your patience in reading to the end of this long 
list. My thanks to anyone who can help with the questions.

Rick