hi.joe.i have never used it.ihere its a good os..........

mate you could try knoppix its linux on a cd. it doesnt touch your hard drive it mounts all drives virtually you could look herefor more info or find the thread about it on techtalk. i used it and its convinced me to run it as a seperate OS.
id definetly recommend it. theres loads of linux versions ie redhat, mandrake,SuSe, to name but a few. ive been recently trying to find out the best system for me and im gonna go with mandrake 9.2. give it a good thought i think i can remember you saying you had a dial up connection. so you might be able to find a shop near you who'll sort you out a copy of knoppix.
ps its free as well. well worth giving it a go.
and theres also a few other live-cds aswell give it a look

hi drummerboy.thanks for the link to knoppix.com.i will be checking that out for shoure thanks.and i got my cd to boot it was so easy all i did was add the microsoft boot image to the cd with nero burning rom.it took me 10 minutes to do it and it boots with no problems.thanks for all your help.and iam going to readup on knoppix.the only os i know about is windows so it will be a good learning experience for me thanks again............

no worries mate. that was a good idea you came up with but. hehe.
im the same when it comes to OS so im well looking forward to learning linux

before you install linux on your system be sure your devices are going to work, my other computer has a wireless internet card and it doesnt work with linux =\ so im sol with that just be carefull cause linux isnt very user friendly at times:-|

hi.drummerboy.where did you come up with the idea to try linux out.and why linux????????

hi.joe.thanks for the heads up on linux.sins i know nothing about it i will go very slowly..........

well ive been interested in linux for some time now but never done nothing about it. until i read knoppix for newbies by tekmaven. which kinda suprised me because i thought tekmaven didnt like linux or at least preffered windows.
when i first tried knoppix live cd iwas amazed at how "easy"(that will probably cause debate) the transition was it wasnt that different from windows only better, its not prone (to the best of my recently aquired knowledge) to flaws like most viruses and security flawsthat windows is plagued with. and you can have a look at how it works and with the right study you can learn how to adapt it to your own prefferences and if youre a right computer whiz you can write and edit it to your own requirements and share it as your own OS (ill never make it that far.lol) but its pros are almost limitless.
joes right about the hardware issue but theres nearly always a fix you could post here or visit a forum related to your choice of linux they're always on hand to help a newbie. i only had one problem with knoppix, it didnt recognise my onboard sound which i managed to sort out my self easily.
I highly recommend knoppix live cd for wetting the appetite so to speak im now ashamed to say it but i honestly thought linux would ressemble DOS (silly me)
but theres loads of literature on linux like these,
http://dsl.org/cookbook/
http://frf.hypermart.net/linux-newbie/index.htm
http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/introtolinux.html
http://www.linmagau.org/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/
http://www.justlinux.com/
http://www.yolinux.com/
and this cool linux google search engine
http://www.google.com/linux
you could also check this thread out where you can see my bumbling attempts at discovering more about linux.its educational (well it was for me) and weather channel is very knowledgable and seems like his thoughts are a bit contraversial to some
i hope this helps mate

hi.drummerboy.thanks for all the links.that should keep me busy for awile thanks...

no worries blue. glad i helped