As always, I appreciate the information and responses. Thank you.
I just saw the thread about the Acer laptop at Costco. As good of a deal as I got on the HP, the Acer is cheaper and will do everything I need so I may just get that one. Then I won't have to worry about dual boots etc, etc.
In case you're interested, I got the HP that was on sale at BigLots over the weekend. HP P8300, 4GB RAM, 320 HD, lightscribe, etc, for $599.