Hello, I am studying for Oracle certification and I want to set up a linux environment running the database. I've used Unix before at work but would like to set this up at my home. Currently I have a desktop and a laptop both running windows XP. I'm wondering how can I get linux up and running. I guess the questions I have.

1.) Is it possible to run linux and windows xp on the same machine? Is this advisable? Can you recommend any software, preferably free or low cost.

2.) If I want to run linux only, Where can I get the software and can I install it on say a Compaq computer where I currently have WIndows XP. (I guess I can remove XP or reformat. Not sure how to do this but I think it can be done).

Basically my goals are to just have a linux environment available at home and install oracle 10g on top of it. From my readings I think I would also like KDE available.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how I can achieve this goal.

Thanks for your help

Hi,

Yes it's possible to run windows xp and linux on the same computer by dual booting, you don't need aditional software for it, either grub or lilo bootloader will make sure you can also boot you're windows partition.

You can download linux for free, no need to buy unless you'd like to have some support for a few months from the creators of the distribution. If you're new to linux there are some easy to start distrobutions.

You could take a look at either SuSe, Mandriva or Fedora core. These 3 are my opinion on probably 3 of the easiest distrobutions to start with.. my opinion though.

Take a look @ distrowatch on various distro's:

http://distrowatch.com/

KDE is availeble on all 3 of the above mentioned distro's.