If you can run XP, you can in most cases run Linux I would say. I am only saying most cases, because I am sure you could make it unbarebly slow, but lets not let that happen
I would recommend either a dual boot or an extra hard drive if you have one or there is not enough space on your main drive. To Dual boot you would need to use a progam like Partition Magic to resize your XP partition and then use linux to use the free space. If you had another drive then you could just install right onto that, which is a much cleaner process then trying to resize a partition. Safer. Alternatively you could reformat the drive and have XP use only x GB and allow the rest for Linux, but then you haev to reinstall programs and backup documents and all that good stuff.
if anything was unclear(im sure I said something horribly, kinda tired
) then I am sure someone will quickly clear it up. Hope your time with linux is fun
