LinuxQuestions.org - download linux

Hi owenskie,
Thank you for wanting to try out Linux :)

The first thing that you should probably understand is that there are many distributions of Linux. You can more or less think of a distribution as being a version or a brand-name. However, every distribution is basically the same under the hood. It's just the configuration and installed software of a particular distro that makes it different. For every distribution, there is a large group of supporters who consider theirs to be the best distribution.

If you have a separate computer you want to try it on, I'd recommend that you try Ubuntu. This is the same distribution that Dell has recently chosen to use for their Linux computer sales. The home page for Ubuntu is http://www.ubuntu.com and you can find the download link and a lot of other information there about it. You'll want the Desktop Edition.

If you only have one computer, I'd like to recommend a live CD distribution to try first. A live cd allows you to boot your computer to a (almost) fully functional Linux distribution without actually changing anything on your computer. Ubuntu's installation CD is also a live CD, but it runs a little slow if you just run it from CD. For this, I'd like to recommend Knoppix. The Knoppix home page is http://www.knoppix.com. Knoppix is actually an excellent distribution in its own right, but it's designed to run exclusively from CD.

This is going to be a large download. It'll be close to the size of a full CD, 650M. Also, it'll be in the form of a CD ISO image. This is a file that contains the data files, and formatting information for a full CD. You wouldn't burn this file to the CD as you would with other files. Instead, you need to use a program which recognizes the ISO image and burns it to the CD with the proper layout. You may already have software that does this. If you don't, I think you may be able to try AVS Disc Creator (ref: http://www.avsmedia.com/DiscCreator).

-- Ghodmode