I've heard stories of people dual-booting their intel Macs with various Linux OS's... what would I need to do to dual-boot my core solo Mini with Ubuntu or SuSe?
Also, would I need to back up my files first? I've never really worked with partitions on a Mac, so I don't know whether they can be resized or if I'd have to format/ install.

i've been trying to instal ubuntu [unsucsesfully yet] and hfs+ partition [mac native] can be resized without any probs. if you want to use dualboot you must install yaboot or some other new-world mac bootloader. however, os x ha it's own bootloader and as far as i know, you must place your bootloader, mentioned yaboot for instance, on a logical position BEFORE the original os x bootloader.

Yaboot is only for PowerPC based Macs. The Intel Macs require a bootloader called eLILO since they use EFI.

This site below might be able to help more:

http://www.mactel-linux.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thanks for the help. I'm looking into it, although I'm also piecing together a new AMD machine, so mayhaps I won't need to make room for the penguin on my mac, lol. I'm still gonna look into it, in case my Ubuntu media arrives before it's assembled.

This how-to for Ubuntu looks one of the most promisng and easy to follow to me.

http://bin-false.org/?p=17