Hoping  you have a bootable CD/DVD drive.  (You may have to set the boot order in the BIOS setup). Just pop in your Red Hat / Mandrake / Suse installation disk.

Mandrake has the most friendly installation interface and the best for a new user. You will be provided a flight-check-off style menu where you can easily go back on initial choices made. You have the option of ReiserFS for file system ( an advanced journaling system which will safeguard from accidental power downs). First thing when you start is the choice of language. Next, select the Expert mode. (If you want to follow the recommended mode, by all means do so: many of the hints provided here will become irrelevant since Mandrake takes over the controls. However, if you want to retain control, select the expert's path.) Configure the mouse by selecting PS2/Wheel mouse/USB, emulate three buttons if you have. After the initial routine, you will come to the Disk Drake: a graphical partitioning tool. Its not a minefield exactly, but you'll be well advised to be careful. Now,

Select the newly created partition by clicking on it on the graphical bar;

Create a new SWAP partition, roughly the double of the size of RAM installed in your system (for a 128 MB module create a 256 MB swap),

Create another partition, select '/' in Mount Type, (there can be many partitions like /user, /home, /var etc but we may skip actual partitioning for the moment), select ext3 or ReiserFS in file system type (journalized file systems), increase it to the available size,

And click Done!

Next you come to 'Package group Selection',  select as many as interest you (multimedia et al, do select Documentation). the installation routine will follow. In between you'll need to change the CD's. After the files are installed, you come the Set Root Password. Give a root password. Do remember it. You must create a different user though, for you are not supposed to run your system as root unless you have some tinkering to do. You can create many users here, select their faces et al. You may select a default user but I will advise you not to. Coming to Network Detection, you can configure your modem. Remember, if you are having an internal modem, it is represented by 'ttys3'. Just fill in the User Name, Password, Phone No., Connection Name. Finally you come to the Bootloader. Install the default 'Lilo with Graphical Menu' selection. Next go to advanced, you can select your Windows partition here and make it the default OS if you want to. You can also change the delay before switching to the default OS while booting.

You can select a graphical resolution. You should not change the default X-Server. Test the graphical selection. Finally. DO NOT FORGET TO CREATE A BOOTABLE DISK.

So, you have your Linux installed, dual booting and all.
 

Red Hat will start with choices for your language / keyboard /mouse etc. When prompted for the mode of install, choose 'Custom'.  (Here too you can hand over controls to Red Hat but then you may want to dictate terms, don't you?) Don't worry, you have to be terribly dumb to mess up things. Select 'Manual Partition with Disk Druid'. You will be presented a horizontal bar representing your hard disk and its various partitions. Select the new partition you have just created. Now, you may have quite a few linux partitions (such as /usr, /home, /var, /boot etc) but we will create only two: A SWAP and A ROOT partition. Now click on NEW. Create a SWAP the size should be roughly the double of your RAM. There is no mount point for the swap.You will be left with empty space on your disk. Select again for the second partition. In the mount point select '/', in the file system select ext3. You can adjust the size as per your wish. Since in this case this is the only other partition you are going to have, use all the empty space. The installer will proceed to format the newly created partitions. Select the group of packages to be installed. You can go in for individual package selection but then you'll be offered an enormous list to choose from. Here on its not very different from Mandrake.You'll have to select the time-zone (select Asia-Calcutta for IST), give a root password (and REMEMBER that!), do not forget to create at least one extra user which you'll be using. (You are not supposed to login as root except for exceptional reasons). Select a graphics resolution. Do select Graphical Login when prompted. Default desktop for Red Hat is Gnome. I would suggest you to go for KDE initially. You can always change it from the login screen (and it remembers the previous choice for every user.)

Do install LILO, when prompted, on the MBR (master boot record). You can change the default OS here, time given for making the selection etc. In the end, don't forget to make a BOOTING FLOPPY.
 

SuSE comes with Yast2 (yet another installation tool ver 2!). If your system doesn't take off with the default installation, select Safe Settings. After the mouse-keyboard-language routine, go into the expert mode: discard the suggestion of resizing of your hard disk by Yast. Remember, basic installation tenets remain the same as above. All you need is a SWAP partition double the size of your RAM and a '/' partition. Be brave, GO ahead for the manual tinkering.  Suse is a robust distribution and unless you don't have too condescending an attitude to the system generated messages you should not be in trouble. You'll have to calculate sector-wise for your partitions. ReiserFS is the forte of SuSE. Create a swap and a root partition as mentioned above. For packages, select detailed selections, check off as many types as you feel like doing. You will be offered a tool for adjusting the viewing area of your screen after the packages are installed, a graphics resolution is selected. Experimenting with the arrows will give you the best view eventually. (I have found that the two facing right and left arrows (-><-) will reduce the projection area first thus making repositioning easier).

Except for minor differences here and there, all the three distributions will take you quickly to a newly installed dual-boot system.

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