Virtualization is one of the safest ways to try a Linux distribution. Unfortunately it is limited to those who have broadband internet connections, as software and files of 650GB or more need to be downloaded.
First you would download the free VMware Player - which allows you to run virtual machines but not create them, and then download from the selection of “Virtual Appliances” at the VMware Virtual Appliances directory - which includes a large number of pre-installed Linux distributions. Basically you open the “Virtual Appliance” with VMware Player, run it and you have a installed Linux distribution running inside a Virtual Machine. Alternatively, if you already own VMware Workstation for Windows, as well as running the Virtual Appliances, you can install almost any distribution you like on a Virtual Machine - “virtually” the same as installing Linux on a new PC.

Additionally, I tried the new installation option in Ubuntu 8.04 - install into Windows. With this option, Ubuntu (or Kubuntu in my case) installs and uninstalls like a Windows program. When you reboot your computer after the Windows installation, a menu is displayed giving you the option of your current Operating System of Ubuntu. The first time you select Ubuntu it completes installing itself, and subsequent times you boot into an Ubuntu Linux Desktop, which works like you had installed it in it’s own partition, except it is in a large file on Windows. This was pretty impressive, a much easy than creating a dedicated partition for Linux.

Posted on June 5th, 2008 by mervyn