I have some people interested in linux, i offered them
mandrake 9 to start with but they are a bit too scared to
resize partitions so i offered them vmware but they did not have money to buy a license (fuzzy ones)
So my question is : Is there any linux distro that can work from windows (XP)?
No winlinux because it doesn't work on winXP

There is a distro called KNOPPIX 3.1. This is a version that boots from the CD and runs from the CD. It makes no changes to or adds anything to the Harddrive.

It does an autodetect of the hardware and does an excelent job IMHO. You can download it from:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

I have been playing around with it some. Here is the description from there website.

Linux-Kernel 2.4.x
KDE V3.0.3 as the standard desktop with K Office and the Konqueror WWW-browser konqueror
X Multimedia System (xmms) an MPEG-video, MP3, Ogg Vorbis Audio player and xine
Internet connection software kppp,pppoeconf (DSL) and isdn-config
Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) Version 1.2
utilities for data recovery and system repairs, even for other operating systems
network and security analysis tools for network administrators
OpenOffice(TM), the GPL-developed version of the well-known StarOffice(TM) office suite
many programming languages, development tools (including kdevelop) and libraries for developers
in total more than 900 installed software packages with over 2000 executable user programs, utilities, and games

I was impressed. I discussed it more under this post:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ing+new+distro

It's worth a look.

ddpicard

suse live evaluation does basically the same thing.
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/live-eval-8.1/

Yes and No.

It runs off the cd but it does setup a usr file and swap file on the harddrive. That is why I suggested KNOPPIX. This way it does not touch their harddrive and is a full working version of linux.

Being a SUSE user myself I downloaded the live version also to try, but I did not like the fact that it did used the harddrive. On my personal system it is ok, but like here at my job I prefer for it not to add anything. I liked the other because I can run it anywhere and not leave any files behind.

SUSE 8.0 works great for me and would be a great user friendly version to introduce them to Linux.

ddpicard

never used knoppix, so i'm flying blind.
so you can't save WM pref's, text files , high scores, etc? or does it offer to offload to a floppy/zip drive?

i am downloading knoppix right now, i will give it a go

I was able to save my KDE and Windowmaker settings to floppy. In the KDE Menu there is a KNOPPIX folder and there is an option to save to floppy.

But, if they are not afraid of some extra config files on their harddrive then SUSE-LIVE would be a good option also.

ddpicard

well mandrake 9.0 can still run from a windows partition.... *should* be xp friendly...

Can it? I thought they did away with the whole Lin4Win thing actually on the install CD from 8.0? If it can, then I'll have to take my CDs around to more people

I have to say that i am very impressed with knoppix (i am using it right now in this very moment)
It is perfect for them fuzzy guys (wait a second, i am not supposed to say perfect!!?) ahem, it is really good, it takes no time to load and detected all the stuff inside my box, and mounted all partitions (fat32,ntfs and ext2 from my debian hard drive)
Also, it comes ready with xcdroast, just a few clicks to configure and it will be ready to burn that stuff you though you lost !!
This is a must, for anyone willing to show off the power of linux

well you seem to have a reason to think something, i just assumed it's stayed the same. super.