In reply to:

Would it be more advantageous to set linux up on a seperate box from my windows computer?



I just installed another HDD In my box, and use that. No need for an entire second system. However, if you do have older hardware lying around, Linux will gladly run on it.

If you want my 2 cents as far as distro does, I'd use Fedora for various reasons. It's pretty intuitive and has a large user base. With the addition of yum and apt, I don't have any real reason to use Debian anymore.