I'm an absolute newbie when it comes to Mac. I have always used Windows. More or less I'm becoming bored and wanted to play around with other OS's. Bare with me for I have a few ***** questions.
1. Can I install Mac on my computer that currently has Xp Home. Do I delete the partition and create one with Mac?
2. Is there any special hadware I need to have. (special apple hardware?)
3. How is the stability of Mac. I'm interested in Tiger.
4. Is it worth it?

Thanks for the help and pointers!!

Not yet. Apple has announced Intel support some time soon and there
happens to be a bootleg(read illegal) copy out there.
Pragmatically, yes. There's the Mac Mini for $499 and you provide
mouse, montor & keyboard. Networking and sound is already included.
10.3.9 is VERY stable! Also far less prone to trojans and viruses for several reason
(I'll not debate here) Tiger is still in its infancy and has 2-3 major updates already. VPN/Cisco features are shaky
Very subjective issue. With years of Windows experience, it is likely that
you will see OS X as trivial, unless you dive into the FreeBSD (read Unix)
underpinnings.

I use Windows, Mac, and Linux daily and love them all. I couldn't live without a windows machine though - can't say the same for the other two. As for your other questions seems joe took care of those already. I haven't had any issues with 10.4.2 yet and since the release of OS X I've refused to use anything older.

I avoided bringing a computer into the house for Y E A R S, knowing that
it would be the begining of a "camel's nose in the tent". When the wife wanted
to start desktop publishing in '84, our first machine was a Mac IIci (which happens to still run ).
We've updated it only three times and now have an eMac.
I have the laptop and desktop Win/* systems, the latter dual booting into
Redhat Linux.

The big niche for Mac is the graphic and no other platform begins to compete there.
For people that like/want to overclock, build your own and twiddle with the inards,
Intel is a natural fit. Mac users tend to buy machines to perform work rather
than to work upon.

Your milage may vary :-)

I always thought it would be interesting to install gentoo on a mac. I've never had the stones to shell out for the overpriced hardware. With the direction Apple is heading, this seems like a moot point.

I have been an MCSE for years ... yeah I know, but it pays the bills I have been running one form of linux or another since around 1997. I just recently got a powerbook G4 and run OS X 10.4.2 I am now in the process of moving completely to alternative Operating Systems at home. You can do just about anything with Linux / OS X that you can with Windows. So in my opinion, a Mac Mini is well worth the money. Enough rabmling from me....

Dale

i heard there are apple hadware emulators out there, have any of you guyz tried running apple on the pc ?