I Want To Break Free
"Live CDs" are a great way to try out Linux without danger. Download the CD image from the net, burn it onto a CD, put it into your PC's first CD drive, then reboot. Wait a couple of minutes whilst the system loads from CD, and voila, a working Linux system without any danger to your all-important data. They are self-contained, designed to automatically work with all your hardware, and include a number of applications to give you a feel for Linux. Distrowatch should have a selection of live CD Distros for you to try out, the most famous of which is Knoppix. A more complete link can be found at FrozenTech. My personal recommendation is MEPIS, though almost any of the desktop live CD Distros should provide you with a feel for things.Because the CDs are self-contained, they can prove an excellent hardware debugging tool - if a piece of kit appears broken, try booting Knoppix - if it works fine under Linux, then the hardware is probably fine. This is my first diagnosis step these days for supposedly non-functional hardware - there's nothing more embarrassing than sending a piece of kit back to the store as broken for them to find it's actually fine.
Take a moment to play around with a live CD. No doubt many things will seem confusing at first, as there are a lot of tasks which are approached differently to under Windows. Explore all the option screens, try out all the little apps, just feel your way around. If it doesn't work at all, then the best advice I can give is to try another Live CD - and if neither work, then just walk away; you've not lost anything. In the second part of this article, I'll cover the Linux file system and mechanics, and try to explain and break down the different components of a working Linux distro, as you saw with a live CD. Finally, I'll guide you through installing a Linux distribution to local disk.
This article was written on a Debian Linux system, using the Abiword word processor and the Bluefish HTML editor. Whilst I was at it, I chatted with people on IRC using XChat, listened to music from my Windows server using Rhythmbox, and ripped a DVD to XviD using AVIdemux. Oh, and played Unreal Tournament 2004 when I got bored.
Thanks to Rob Weir & Steve Kerrison for their insight.
