Linux On Microsoft Virtual PC?

I am a linux noob. I have played around for a few hours in Mandrake 9 but had too much on my plate when it came time to reinstall XP i just wiped everthing.

I was wondering if it would be easier to Run linux on Virtual PC than installing it for dual booting with windows xp.

Sys Specs:
AMD Athlon 1700+ XP
ECS K7S5A (mb)
WD 120gig hd w/ 8mb buffer
512 DDR 2100 ram

Would any distros be better for this?

Very easy. Simply startup a new virtual machine and set the ram to what you think it needs and boot it up. Microsoft doesn't support running it but it still works.

I have problems getting Xserver to start up with Mandrake 9 under Virtual 2004, so right now i'm stuck with textual linux (:()

Anyway... I'm going to try to reinstall it, see if it configures properly.