How do you install a second OS?

I never tried to install two different OSes(Linux/Windows). But for Windows, no problem as long you have a partition. Install older version first before latest.i.e. 95/98/Win2k/WinXP. Later version can detect that you already have OS installed so itwill ask you if you want to install another one on the other partition. Click yes.

Just insert your installation CD and when it probes your system it will see Windows. It will then prompt you on whether you want to install Linux there our in a separate partition.
Also, you may want to set your search engine with keywords such as: Linux windows SUSE XP dual boot and read some of the very informative articles. They have step-by-step tutorials to walk your through and also troubleshooting steps in case it does not work as planned. Lastly, back-up anything you value in caseof problems. I have setup 10 Linux/Windows dual boot PCs in the last few years without any problems but you never know.

An "host OS" only makes sense when you are using a Virtual Machine environment, like VMWare. In this case, you can make the WindowsXP the host OS and install Linux in a Virtual Machine. The documentation has step-by-step instructions on this.

On the other hand, if you want create a dual-boot enviroment, you should take the steps as follows:

1- Make certain that there are enough free disk space, unallocated by any partition. For a testing environment, 3GB shall be enough; for a production environment, less then 8GB will be very hard to work with.

If you do not have enough space, two solutions:

a) use a partition manager (like Partition Magic) to reduce the size of your current partition, non-destructivelly; also, make sure to reserve a space - 30 to 40 MB - at the start of the disk. This is necessary, depending on the Linux distribution you will be using.

b) use another HD for Linux.

2- boot from CD-1 of your distribution

3- at some point, it will ask you to recreate the partitions on your disk; make sure to choose the option that preserve your XP partition

4- create the partitions for Linux. Create an swap partition and a "/boot" partition as well. Make sure the "/boot" is a primary partition and active. Write down which partition was that.

4a- when creating partitions, if you reserved an space on the beginning of your disk as in 1-a, make sure to mark this as the "/boot" partition.

5- at some point you will be asked to install the Linux Loader (or to choose among LILO, Grud, XOSL, or others). The default option is to install it on the MBR of the first HD: DON'T. Reinstalations of Windows reset the MBR, so you will end up not being able to boot Linux again. The recover can be painfull. Install it on the "/boot" partition.

5a- if the "/boot" partition is on another disk, as in 1-b, you will warned that you may not be able to boot; it is OK, ignore it by now.

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