The best way to test Linux is either use a Live CD or use Virtual BOX. 

Noticed Windows running on MAC at iStores etc. thats VM Ware or Virtual BOX

Oracle VM VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, originally created by software company innotek GmbH, purchased by Sun Microsystems, and now developed by Oracle Corporation as part of its family of virtualization products. It is installed on an existing host operating system; within this application, additional guest operating systems, each known as a Guest OS, can be loaded and run, each with its own virtual environment.

tip: to make your machine robust and secure install Linux and tun your favorite OS (even Windows if you prefer to stay closed :P ) on VM Ware or Oracle VM Virtual BOX. This will kill all the virus attacking system and you don't need to install any firewall or anti-virus.

Note:1. I would recommend atleast 2 GB RAM, if you using Windows as an Host operating system as Windows is pretty slower

To install Virtual BOX :

• Download form http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads 
• Select the type of Machine x86, amd etc. and type of OS
• Install the software
• check out the video

More to come on virtual box and Linux soon...

Singing off...
Hustlershack..

Why Linux?

Most people are self trained on Windows from the day they have been working on a computer. In fact most people are experts in their own Windows distribution trouble shooting. The class of Linux seems to be reserved only for software geeks and crazy freaks, also the ease of Windows graphical environment. ironically it is totally untrue. Linux supports a wide range of desktop environments. I have used OpenSUSE KDE desktop environment and it has better graphics than Windows 7, and no doubt it is more powerful because it has the Linux kernel. Oh now now no more tech spec. :() 

So simply what i mean is that if you are a regular user and you have no interest in development then don't you worry we have class of Linux for you and still you can close your Windows and open the door. :P

So, basically I unofficially class down the Linux distribution into 

1. Dev Type

2. Easy Linux for everyone [ELE]

Honestly, even though every Linux today has a powerful GUI, some Linux are better for dev and others are there for both or provide more support for general users, which has to be taken in to large account according to me.

Linux started as a project for hackers but today it is Open OS for everyone. It is my earnest request to everyone to try any distribution of your choice and feel the power your self.

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LINUX, AN ADVANTAGE 

The one big diffrence of Linux/unix/bsd and alike is that they have been designed with security in mind from the start as you would have found you sart up as a limited user and have to go through a few hoops to get to root user only now with Vista has Microsoft started thinking that way.
As far as the other differences this will depend on the use you put it to, for myself I can not find a huge amount with xp to Mandriva but I do not play games ect I write software for microcontrollers (single chip computers) for my own projects. Recently Visual basic like software has become avaliable for Linux this will make the big diffrence as far as Microsoft versus Linux ect as Visual basic has driven in many ways the big use of their products, it has now become very easy to write nice GUI programs on linux, I know others will say things like C+ ect is not hard to use! Well it is! if you are not maths/structure minded like most humans. I have found that Mandriva 2009 is very close to XP/Vista in its look and feel and with the many copyrighted drivers that the "one" disk comes with many of the problems of hardware not working have gone.

  

• Cost – The most obvious advantage of using Linux is the fact that it is free to obtain, while Microsoft products are available for a hefty and sometimes recurring fee. Microsoft licenses typically are only allowed to be installed on a single computer, whereas a Linux distribution can be installed on any number of computers, without paying a single dime.
• Security – In line with the costs, the security aspect of Linux is much stronger than that of Windows. Why should you have to spend extra money for virus protection software? The Linux operating system has been around since the early nineties and has managed to stay secure in the realm of widespread viruses, spyware and adware for all these years. Sure, the argument of the Linux desktop not being as widely used is a factor as to why there are no viruses. My rebuttle is that the Linux operating system is open source and if there were a widespread Linux virus released today, there would be hundreds of patches released tomorrow, either by ordinary people that use the operating system or by the distribution maintainers. We wouldn’t need to wait for a patch from a single company like we do with Windows.

•  Choice (Freedom) – The power of choice is a great Linux advantage. With Linux, you have the power to control just about every aspect of the operating system. Two major features you have control of are your desktops look and feel by way of numerous Window Managers, and the kernel. In Windows, your either stuck using the boring default desktop theme, or risking corruption or failure by installing a third-party shell.

• Software - There are so many software choices when it comes to doing any specific task. You could search for a text editor on Freshmeat and yield hundreds, if not thousands of results. Regular users and programmers contribute applications all the time. Sometimes its a simple modification or feature enhancement of a already existing piece of software, sometimes its a brand new application. In addition, software on Linux tends to be packed with more features and greater usability than software on Windows. Best of all, the vast majority of Linux software is free and open source. Not only are you getting the software for no charge, but you have the option to modify the source code and add more features if you understand the programming language. What more could you ask for? 
• Hardware - Linux is perfect for those old computers with barely any processing power or memory you have sitting in your garage or basement collecting dust. Install Linux and use it as a firewall, a file server, or a backup server. There are endless possibilities. Old 386 or 486 computers with barely any RAM run Linux without any issue. Good luck running Windows on these machines and actually finding a use for them.

 Some other general Advantages of Linux are :

• Quick boot time
• Faster processing
• Apache etc. work faster on Linux
• Better user control on all tasks running on the machine
• Never hangs
• No virus
• All driver are include and are preloaded with OS 

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One of really honest comments I read on the Debate of Linux vs XP :

Because XP is used more than Linux, there is more "Off the Shelf" software available for XP.

However, Linux is "Open Source", and there is more free "home-grown" software that can be downloaded from the software "Geeks" that do other and more interesting things, as well.

Those who use Linux say it's the greatest. Those who have never heard of it, stick with XP. I give Linux a "thumbs up".
 

Note: Although on servers, Linux dominates  

p.s : I will soon post the marketing skills of MS that has made half the world crippled with Windows.

More to come....
1. VMware and VirtualBOX
2. Try Linux 

Thank you.
Hustlershack, 
 
 

Genisis

Irony at its best . You are still behind the Windows. 

Cheesy at it seems, I had been using Windows all my life, but lately I realized how powerful Linux was not only as a development environment but also as a everyday OS. I had always know Linux to be something very weird and tech-savvy monster. Although a few year back I was introduce to GUI versions of Linux, I was still so no-no about using Linux,

[ well once I installed ubuntu (an extremely popular Linux distribution) and I couldn't connect to the Internet as the Beetle 220BX driver could not be installed on it. Of course there are ways of getting it run on any machine in the world,but back  then I lost hope and switched back to windows already there in my HD as a partition. :) ]

With so many distributions available now, I m pretty sure every Linux user a rippling thought in his mind WHY THE HECK THEY USE STUPID WINDOWS. 

Well, all I will be writing about is this. Difference between LINUX and Windows, also MAC OS, being one of non-MS user friendly OS.

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Being skeptic but honest Windows has become the most popular OS not because it so-called USER FRIENDLY and most importantly ALL MY DOCS AND FILES RUN ON IT but be are diseased with it. We are so accustomed to it that all we think of a computer in general is Windows. I'm pretty sure most non-technical but computer trained people or Lay-man has no idea about Linux's existence, which does not surprise me, as we Need Linux it does not need us  :).

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GNU/Linux or simply Linux refers to the family of Unix-like computer operating systems using the Linux kernel. Linux can be installed on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from mobile phones, tablet computers, routers, and video game consoles, to mainframes and supercomputers.Linux is a leading server operating system, and runs the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world.

The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed, both commercially and non-commercially, by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License. Typically Linux is packaged in a format known as a Linux distribution for desktop and server use. Some popular mainstream Linux distributions include Debian (and its derivatives such as Ubuntu), Fedora and openSUSE. Linux distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting utilities and libraries to fulfill the distribution's intended use.

A distribution oriented toward desktop use may include the X Window System, the GNOME and KDE Plasma desktop environments. Other distributions may include a less resource intensive desktop such as LXDE or Xfce for use on older or less-powerful computers. A distribution intended to run as a server may omit any graphical environment from the standard install and instead include other software such as the Apache HTTP Server and a SSH server like OpenSSH. Because Linux is freely redistributable, it is possible for anyone to create a distribution for any intended use. Commonly used applications with desktop Linux systems include the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice office application suites, and the GIMP image editor.

The name "Linux" comes from the Linux kernel, originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The main supporting user space system tools and libraries from the GNU Project (announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman) are the basis for the Free Software Foundation's preferred name GNU/Linux.

-Wikipedia 

So now you get a slight Idea what Linux is all about. 

In further post i will try to bridge the gap between Windows and Linux and discuss some myths about linux. 

regards,

hustlershack

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