linux on a windows box

[Gaijin]

On Sun, Mar 02, 2008 at 09:13:53PM -0000, alex wallis wrote:
> I'm wanting to get set up with a linux OS, but I don't really want to go 
> down the route of jewel boot, and I don't have enough resources to run linux 
> under vmware.

Hello and welcome to the list,

	Have you ever heard of "LiveCDs?"  Dunno if 512 is enough memory
to run everything you might want, but LiveCDs run in memory alone.  Just
pop in the CD and start the machine, and voila, you're running Linux.
Unless you manage to mount the Windows partition and try to write things
there, it doesn't even touch the hard drive.  There are a few flavors of
linux that offer LiveCDs, like Ubuntu, GRML, , Fedora (I think), and 
Oralux, to name a few.  They'll even get you online if your system isn't
too complicated.  Anyway, you can use those to play around in linux and
see if you like it and leave Windows as-is.  Documentation is usually
included right on the CD and can be viewed with Windows Notepad or a web
browser  Get yourself a few blank CDs and try them all.  I run Debian
(no LiveCD) because of the package (software) manager is the best in the
biz, and 99.9% of the time you don't have to search the web to find any
software.  The entire collection can be installed with multiple
front-ends to the dpkg program (Debian's package manager), or go the
command line route and just type 'aptitude install <package' to connect
to debian.org, download and install the program.  HTH,

			Michael