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The joys of Linux. If you are a tinkerer, this is for you. The ultimate knob twiddling experience in computing. Get yourself a copy of Fedora or Mandrake or Ubuntu Linux, install it on an old PC, and learn a LOT about computing. Actually you don't even have to install it anymore, since there are many "live CD" distriutions - you simply plop it in the CD drive and run it from there. It won't disturb your Windows install at all! Read on.... These distributions are composed mostly of open source software, which means they are free, and prolific. There are equivalent packages for word processing, browsers, instant messengers, etc. etc. Many of them are far superior to their windows equivalents. They are just not as well known or widely used. There is an incredible amount of resources on the net about Linux and open source software. Start at www.linuxnewbie.org
I run a Fedora Workstation/server on my network, and several of them at work. The Fedora server is my DNS, web, ftp server, and does Windows file sharing as well. It has an incredible range of tools.
Beware that even the Linux distributions are starting to suffer from bloat. A desktop installation of Fedora really needs a minimum of a 200 MHz processor, 256 MB of RAM to run in any way that you can stand. Server versions without the X software can run on a lot less!
NEW MAY 3, 2003: Knoppix 3.2:
There is a new Linux tool that is receiving some attention. "Knoppix" is Linux burned on a CDROM. If you can boot your PC off the CDROM, you can run this Linux. Once you boot it, it gives you access to your disk, the FAT/FAT32/hopefully NTFS partitions of your disk. SO it can be like a super rescue disk. I am currently investigating this new tool. Stay tuned for more.
5-8-2003: This is really neat. Knoppix doesn't really need a hard disk at all if you have enough RAM. It just silently unzips from the CD every program it needs and which you call up. It has Mozilla 1.3, OpenOffice, and a bunch more I haven't discovered yet. If you don't have much RAM, it asks to create a swap partition, if you don't already have one, from an existing or past Linux installation. It does run a little slow on older PCs, with less memory. Stay tuned for more info!
5-23-2003: This is an amazing tool. You can basically run a full fledged version of Linux on most any modern PC which can boot from the CDROM (if you can't you can boot from floppy and then boot from CDROM). The only real downside seems to be that it is very questionable to access NTFS file systems from Knoppix. I see warnings about putting your data at risk if you do. So this is a very big negative. But actually a very big plus, because it means your file system is secure if it is NTFS. You really wouldn't want just anybody walking up and booting into Linux on your PC and reading all your sensitive data. As a recovery method for NTFS, probably not a good idea.
Another downside is that unless you have at least one VFAT partition on your hard disk, Knoppix will not be able to save anything from one boot to another. Talk about a safe and secure OS! But talk about not being able to modify your environment! So Knoppix has limitations - it is only meant as a rescue environment, altho it is a very powerful one for VFAT
But I am seriously considering just running a Knoppix CD on a WinXP Home laptop, rather than considering a dual boot with WinXP Home/Linux. The only reason I would boot Linux is to access all the Linux tools available. SO I wouldn't need to save environments.
OTOH, I see you can get an rpm from http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net to support mounting NTFS partitions from Redhat. Maybe this is the way to go. choices.... choices....
October 2003: Knoppix 3.3:
AN upgraded version of Knoppix. Among its improvements are the ability to save to a USB stick, which means you can actually carry a version of Knoppix around with you on CDROM, run it on most any PC which can boot from CD, and save your settings for this environment to some non volatile storage which you can carry around with you, like a USB flash stick. Absolutely a neat tool! Still not much support for NTFS however.....
update: I have yet to make the "save to USB stick" work. I am not sure what is wrong yet. Still investigating. update: such an idiot I am! The actual USB drive just simply appears on the desktop once you insert it, at least on my laptop. It is called "/dev/sda1."
February 2004:
Someone has compiled a listing of all the "Live Linux on CDROMs." This is an evolving environment and includes many potentials.
Redhat is also changing course and will only be supporting their Enterprise customers. So that means you and I will either have to pay money for this every year, or switch to their open source project "Fedora." I have recently downloaded and upgraded Fedora in an attempt to make this transition. I have installed Fedora on 3 or 4 PCs, with some trouble encountered. And I have not yet figured out a convenient upgrade scenario that works yet. I think they and all their supporters are still trying to get the environment straightened out.
I did actually buy Suse professional 9.0 and installed it, but have decided not to pursue this. I intend to remain with Redhat/Fedora and make this approach work somehow! See http://fedora.redhat.com to download the iso images for the Fedora distribution. You will actually have to learn how to use your CD burner burn an iso 9660 image. Alternately, you can go to www.cheapbytes.com and order a set of the CDs for a few dollars. Saves a lot of time, and is quite worth it.
Go to www.rpmfind.net to find any rpm package for your Redhat/Fedora. Installing this software is as easy as typing "rpm -i package.rpm," assuming it doesn't find any missing dependencies. This can be a real pain sometimes!
June 2004:
I see that Knoppix 3.4 is out. And Fedora Core 2. I get so tired of downloading this stuff, that it is simpler to order the CDs. You can order CHEAP CDs from www.cheapbytes.com of all of this stuff. Don't forget the "Open CD" as well - www.theopenCD.org . As we speak I am evaluating Fedora Core 2, and have installed it on several PCs. I have figured out how to do the automatic updating. You need to go to www.fedoraforum.org and especially www.fedorafaq.org and read the FAQ. Download the modified yum.conf file and replace the one in /etc/yum.conf, and make sure the yum service is turned on. This will automatically download and install the Fedora updates that it finds. Great!
I am experimenting with using Knoppix and its free tools, such as parted, cfdisk, sfdisk, partimage, partimaged, qtparted, and most of all the general unix "dd." This presents a terrific way to do an image backup of your system to perform a full backup. Check out the backup page on my website for details on this.
There is a very good review of the different Linux distributions - go to the slashdot article first, and then go to the flexbeta article.
August 2004:
I am running Fedora core 2 Linux on about a half dozen boxes at home and at work. I use them for all kinds of tasks, from ssh servers, web servers, DNS servers, ftp servers, etc. I am able to keep the boxes up to date using the "yum" update tool, even easier than with Windows Update.
The newest tool I am using is "dnsmasq," which is a small DNS caching server for a home/small network. It does not require learning or mastering the BIND syntax, which is very obtuse. It simply picks up and serves your hosts file, which you can edit and keep up to date. I went to www.rpmfind.net to get the dnsmasq rpm. Installing is very simple using the rpm tools.
I now see there is a windows equivalent, although I have not personally evaluated it yet...
November 2004:
Fedora Core 3 and Knoppix 3.6 are out! Get them and enjoy!
Fall 2005: Fedora Core 4 is out....
Spring 2006: Fedora Core 6, and now Ubuntu is proving to be a popular Linux distro.
spring 2007: A great Linux resource: http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page