I like this and had no idea it was an option. Can that same CD later be used to install?

I know I want to start off with a dual boot. Here's how I'm thinking of doing it - please anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong / fill in the "gaps" I might be missing.

1) "Squish" my current HD into a smaller size partition.

2) Partition off the remaining space, leaving a partition dedicated to the Linux OS

3) Cut / Paste the files from my "squished" Windows partition (my current disk) that I want to save over to a partition that ISN'T for an OS

4) Format my "squished" Windows partition / current system setup and reinstall Windows OS

5) Install Linux on dedicated partition (not the one that holds the files I copy / pasted earlier

6) Dual boot? How do I do this? Thanks! ;)

You won't be disappointed by Linux with general usage and work related tasks, you'll probably even see it as an improvement in most cases once you learn how things work. If you go with Linux Mint it should be pretty seamless.

Gaming on Linux is vastly improved over what it used to be, and a lot of older games work better in Wine than they do in the latest version of Windows. But you'll definitely run into glitches that are going to need troubleshooting, and a lot of games won't have the same performance they'd have in Windows for various reasons.

you may want to try out lightweight os lubuntu, make a live usb and check them out to see which is more stable for you

You might not need to do any of that. Most modern Linux distro installers are fully aware of existing OSes and will walk you through setting up the dual boot option during the install. To be safe, you should run a full backup before doing anything. Also yes, a live CD is an install CD.

You can use the same CD to install after you try it. But you're better off letting the distro installer squish the ntfs partition for you, Windows doesn't it do it very well because the OS is actually running on it at the time of squishing, so it can't move certain files it may need to move to make space.

There is a wannabe distro for gamers called Play Linux. It's currently in alpha and its beta will be released in a month.

Official website: http://play-linux.com/

I usually don't trust such kind of specific distro, if you know what I mean, still favouring the generic, solid ones, with some great community behind (Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, ecc.). Anyway, considering the upcoming release of SteamOS, well, that could be worth a try.

I'm going to add this thread to favs, because I'll probably have to abandon Windows (thank you MS..).

You should get familiar with the concept of software repositories, installing new programs is usually a trivial and safe operation, probably you won't need to surf the web looking for common software such as Wine or PlayOnLinux.

^^ Same here.

hmm windows with wine, well i prefer windows with wodka. its the triple w of enjoyment.

Several years ago I managed to convert a Windows-using friend of mine. The thing he's probably most grateful for is precisely the fact that virtually any software he needs he can find it in the distro's official repositories, without the need to browse a variety of shady software websites. Seeing this is one of the OP's main concerns, I think he/she should have no trouble adapting to Linux. :)

Come... Come into the light! :P

I'm curious.
Why is that? Gotta say I'm pleased with W10. Only a slight volume issue annoys me a little, but overall it's a great improvement over Windows... what was it called again, 8? :P

Linux does things a little different than Windows. For a basic system, you need at least two partitions; one for the OS and your data and one for the system swap (analogous to Windows page file). You can also do things like create a partition that contains your /home directory separate from the OS, which can be very helpful as it will allow you to completely reinstall the OS without touching any of your personal data or programs that aren't installed in the system partition. Generally speaking a 20 GB partition should be more than enough for the OS, swap size will depend on how much system RAM you have (usually about equal to the RAM unless you have a ridiculously huge amount), and the rest for your /home directory can be as much as you want.

As for installing Windows and Linux programs in the same directory, don't. Bad things will happen (mostly to Windows). Besides, Linux and Windows work best on different file systems (NTFS for Windows, EXT for Linux) that cannot be understood by the other OS*.

EDIT - *by default. Linux does have the ability to get read access to NTFS drives fairly easily and you can install a EXT driver in Windows, but like I said, bad things tend to happen when you try to blend Linux and Windows like that. Files corrupt, permissions get screwy, the Windows registry has an aneurism... it's not pretty.

If you go with Linux Mint, WINE is in its official repositories so it will be the safest way to install it.
(if you don’t know this yet, repositories are somewhat akin to the app stores you can find on other OS)

Should you go with any Debian-based distribution (Mint being one of those), you might be interested in my ./play.it project, the aims to help newcomers to easily install their games on Linux and integrating them well in the system (with automatic dependencies management, menu entries, etc.):
https://www.gog.com/mix/playit_for_debian_gamers_and_their_ubuntu_friends