Will this distribution run on my hardware?

Check with http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/index.html when in doubt about compatibility of your hardware.

What kind of keyboard do I have (number of keys, layout)? What kind of mouse (serial/parallel, number of buttons)? How many MB of RAM?

Will I install a basic workstation or a server, or will I need to select specific packages myself?

Will I install from my hard disk, from a CD-ROM, or using the network? Should I adapt the BIOS for any of this? Does the installation method require a boot disk?

Will Linux be the only system on this computer, or will it be a dual boot installation? Should I make a large partition in order to install virtual systems later on, or is this a virtual installation itself?

Is this computer in a network? What is its hostname, IP address? Are there any gateway servers or other important networked machines my box should communicate with?

Is this computer a gateway/router/firewall? (If you have to think about this question, it probably isn't.)

Partitioning: let the installation program do it for you this time, we will discuss partitions in detail in Chapter 3, About files and the file system. There is system-specific documentation available if you want to know everything about it. If your Linux distribution does not offer default partitioning, that probably means it is not suited for beginners.

Will this machine start up in text mode or in graphical mode?

Think of a good password for the administrator of this machine (root). Create a non-root user account (non-privileged access to the system).

Do I need a rescue disk? (recommended)

Which languages do I want?