Advice Please

I am a beginner in the PHP arena. I consider my skills average with website design using all the Macromedia products and have also developed several applications in MS ACCESS. I would now like to try MySQL along with PHP. Here is my situtation and maybe someone can tell me which direction I need to take.

I plan on loading Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (maybe Perl also) on my local machine. Currently have a 60 gig HD and also an extra 20 gig HD I could install if needed. Currently running Windows XP Pro but would like to load Linux to run MySQL and PHP on. I could partition the current 60 gig or install the 20 gig to run on.

I guess my question is which would be the easiest to setup and confiqure to run the MySQL & PHP on, the partitioning of the 60 gig or install the extra 20 gig HD and run all components there?

I also read something somewhere that suggested it would be best to run the MySQL on separate partition than the server is setup on.... So this leads me to think I may come out better installing the extra 20 gig and partionting it to separate the MySQL.

Honestly I don't have a clue which path to take... I know at times confiquring software can be a pain and would like to "just get it right the first time".

I'm hoping someone has been down this road before and can enlightend me somewhat?

Advice Please..or maybe point me to a good tutorial on this matter..

Thanks in advance
RSG