Ok, anyone have an in-depth guide to installing red hat (preferrably 8) on WindowsXP using Vmware?

I've got the setup of Vmware down, just want to be positive i'll be installing RH8 correctly when the time comes.

Also, since Vmware uses up quite a bit of system resources, overall, do you experience slower performance with either OS? Because my main reason for trying linux (apart from wanting to try new things) is for speed, power and stability. I demand these characteristics because i'll be using 3d/animation software on RH.

Cheers.

I don't have a guide for you, but installation isn't that hard. However, I can tell you that vmware is going to have a bit of a performance hit in both OSs. I used RH and Gentoo on my WinXP box at work (dual Xeon 2.0GHz with a gig of RDRAM) and you can definately feel the hit in speed. So if you just want to get familiar with the OS or run simple things (like small compilers, office apps, etc) in the guest OS then go for. But, I wouldn't suggest running high-demand applications in the guest OS and then make a judgement as to its performance afterward. Mostly, you just use it for evaluating simple compatibility.