The CD image is about 700 MB.
You should have access to most of your hardware, including network, sound, and graphics. Some older video cards and Wi-Fi cards may have compatibility issues; in this case you might want to check the LinuxQuestions Hardware Compatibility List, as well as asking about your hardware on the [http://www. ubuntuforums. org/ Ubuntu Forums
Partitioning your hard disk is the only step of the install process that has the potential to do serious harm. If you install to the wrong partition, you could accidentally nuke your Windows drive and all of its contents. That’s why it is recommended to run a full backup before you start the install process. The safest way to install is to add a new hard drive or create free space on the existing drive. This is not always an option; you can re-size your partitions to free space using the sliders
