Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to try to install Sarge on my XP box as a dual-boot and begin testing. Mepis and Libranet are both appealing, but I think I'll stay with pure Debian for now, since that's what I'm getting comfortable with. I haven't used the desktop environment in linux yet, besides on a Knoppix rescue disk. I'm very eager to see how it all works out. Thanks again for all the extrememley valuable input. This is a great list.