To read more about how to setup networking under Linux, read through this
networking guide (part of one of the installation guides I got further down).
All linux distributions include grub and/or lilo, the two most well known boot managers for linux. Once you have your linux distribution installed, grub will be installed in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of your hard drive, thereby allowing you to choose which OS to start from.
You will need to create some unpartitioned space on your hard drive, which depends on the size of your hard drive. Around 4GB should be ok, but you can do with 1-2GB as well (although not all packages will fit in 1GB...)
You can resize your Windows partition from the Ubuntu installer, through the popular DiskDrake partitioning program (which will run during the installation). The installer will take care of the required partitions for Linux, so you don't need to worry about those.
If you wish to resize your Windows partition through Windows, you can use a Windows utility to create some free (unpartitioned) space and let the Linux installer create the needed partitions in there. The most popular (although not free) tool for partitioning under Windows is undoubtedly
Partition Magic - although there are some free alternatives out there, e.g.
Ranish Partition Manager, the
partition resizer and
FIPS - although I've only used Partition Magic.
The installation is a pretty straightforward process, with the only "tricky" part being disk partitioning.
There are installation docs out there that can help you with the installation, e.g.
here and
here. The Inquirer has a
Linux guide, but I don't recommend it, as this site's validity of articles is usually non-existant, so this guide could do you more harm than good.
As for tools, you might want to check our
sticky thread on top of this forum for tools and drivers. Some of these tools work under Windows too, so you can get familiar with them and use the same tools in both OSes.
There IS a way of playing Windows games under Linux (the Cedega project), however this actually uses Windows DLLs to accomplish this. Still, it's much faster than VMWare or similar tools. Check the sticky thread
Good luck with your Linux experience, I hope I helped you a bit with this post
