Total noob seeking "where to start" advice
 

I'm a total "computer person", but up to this point, I've only ever used windows. I would like to try (and possibly install) Linux on my PC, but while leaving windows XP home on the machine so I can switch between them (I believe this is a dual-boot setup?). I've looked around on the web and seen mention of Live CD's, but I actually couldn't find the files to use for them, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to do this without some guidance anyway, so I thought I'd ask here first.

My question: For someone who has never even touched a computer running linux, what's the best way to start? What distribution should I get, how do I download and install it, and what should I know, in general? I plan on checking out some stuff from the library, but I also thought I'd ask on this forum.



Thanks for the help,
DJ

Go to www.linuxiso.org or iso.linuxquestions.org and download Knoppix. Burn it as a CD image, insert into your CD drive, and reboot. If your computer is set to bott from CD, you'll have a nice Linux environment up and running that won't touch your hard drive. One note about Live CDs, they can be quite slow as everything has to be accessed and run off of the CD.