Fedora core 3 and oralux

[Shaun Everiss]

Hi all
I am a new user.
I am currently need some ergent help.
I am required by my local university, or collage as you guys in us call it to use dos, linux and windows for a operating systems and programming paper.
I have been getting conflicting reports however on distrobutions.
One person someware else told me fedora core3 with gnopernicus, yasr, flite  and openoffice are good.
At the same time I heard oralux is good.
And debian is good.
Obviously, I can't try all and I have a time constraoints before course starts, etc.
So whats best?
Take in mind I only have a slow connection and so have employed others to do the linux cd downloads.
Of those I have fedora core, and oralux.
I have no time to get debian.
I need to ask a few questions.
1.  What is a good boot manager.
2.  I know auralux does not right to ntfs but does fedora?
Is there a way I could have linux loaded on the same system as windows xp,?
And if possible Instead of using a boot manager could I bee able to start linux from a program group in windows, that is have something that would shutdown windows and start linux from windows.
For software I have everything.
IN this course I will also bee using dos.
Is it therefore easier to  have a seperate machine for dos or is the windows xp console suffishient, or is it better to have a dos emulator from within linux and therefore whats best?
Now even if I choose fedora, and or auralux I will ergently need some tutorials for both systems, installation guides,etc.
Manuals for speech synths etc.