Quote Originally Posted by cairnswm
What do I need to enable dual boot on this machine to give me a linux PC at home? I want to be able to compile using FreePascal and run the games created with it.
First, get a list of hardware part you're going to buy and check on google if it is compatible with Linux, expecially video cards if you're doing games

Next, you just need to install both operating system. (I suggest debian unstable if you want the best distro, or fedora if you want the easiest)
This usually simple requires that you make two partitions on your disk: one for windows (usually NTFS) and one for Linux (usually ext3).
Since the two OS can't read/write each other filesystem, i suggest to have a third partition for shared files, formatted with fat32.
After that, you first install Windows on the first partition, then linux on the second, that will eventually create the boot menu.
That's it, apart from configuring linux

If you need help, just ask