While having run several distros over a period of time don't feel bad about being a Linux newbie since you're not alone. I had some fun first trying out a Red Hat server type distro some years back until trying the live versions of Mephis, Gentoo, Knoppix, Mandriva, ubuntu, and more recently the Mandriva 2008 beta as well as the 7.10 'gutsy gibbon" until now still trying to get the latest releases for each downloaded. Talk about ssslowww servers the first day that was out I kept getting bumped while trying to download it while it will ready here shortly for an actual look at the 8.04 release.
Since the ISP still doesn't carry Linux drivers I've been keeping a few live onhand for data recovery more then anything else while GParted with the libparted tool works quite well for the partitioning tool. I did find one or two blogs on how to see that installed however. One is seen at
http://osnovice.blogspot.com/2007/09...n-updated.html
If someone else(regular ubuntu user) doesn't jump in here with some tips to add browse a ubuntu forum. Often someone will outline a good method for this particular distro.