Great information above, thanks very much. I have thought of changing to linux but I have this awful fear that I will switch the pc on, there will be no Windows and I won't have a clue what to do.

I'd like to see a linux running first as I have no idea what linux looks like and whether I would be able to find my way around but after reading your posts I might check into it a bit more now.

This is exactly how I feel.

Unfortunately, I have just spent out on a new PC after m old one's motherboard died, so I don't have the money to cough for an old one. Even if I did, I would be far too terrified to even attempt to download Linux onto it......

I turned up a few articles like this one. They all mention pretty much the same methods of getting a feel for Linux but don't go into any great detail. It's just a case of choosing a trial method that you think will work for you and doing a little more searching for more detail.

If you've got a PC that's reasonably powerful, I'd recommend the Virtualbox method. That way, you can try out any number of distros and get a real feel for the installation process before you do it for real on actual hardware. Here's a bit more detail on this method.

As I have said previously, I am going to be moving soon to Aberdeenshire and in my preperations I threw out 3 low spec working PC's. I wish I had saved them now and could have handed one to you.

When I first started using Linux I did not have a clue. I have only been using it since Jan this year and don't think I am as experienced as rich c. But I can understand what you mean by installing Linux and then being confronted with a desktop and not knowing what to do. That would be a bit daunting. I really believe that the fastest way to learn anything is to be shown rather than read. Once you have some knowledge, reading is a good way to learn but at the beginning it might not be the best way.

Vicky, its up to you but I see you are in Croydon and I am only in Hackney and I am willing to come to you and either show you on my laptop both Vista and Linux running side by side. Then, if you like that I can install Linux on your machine. When you then turn your machine on you will get a straight forward option, Boot up with Windows or Linux. If you chose windows, it will be just as it always was. No better and no worse. If you chose Linux, you can play around and get a feel for it. Using Linux is easy, but getting used to all the new names for various things can be a bit daunting.

1cutedog, When I have moved I will do the same for you if you would like.

rich c, do you think Virtual box might be a bit too far advanced for a complete newby? ie:- Shared ram, dynamically expanding hd, etc? If I do introduce anyone to Linux I like to show either Ubuntu or Mint. What do you think?

Cheers

Nigel.

Advice from a Linux nerd, even if it's biased - listen to Rich C and Nigalius.

The benefits of using Linux far, far outweigh the benefits of staying with Windows.

I've been using Linux on and off since around 2001-2002, whenever Red Hat 7.3 came out. Several years ago, 3 I think, I switched from dual-boot to 100% Linux and I haven't looked back. I've used distros ranging from Slackware to Gentoo to Ubuntu and everything in between (my favorite has always been Arch Linux! but I only use it for a server right now. The X package they have is finicky).

Xubuntu is amazing. I do web design and minor graphic design (including photo processing) on a laptop running Xubuntu, with a 1.4Ghz Celeron M and 512MB of RAM. No problem whatsoever. Every once in a while it will lag for a few seconds, but never more than 10 or so seconds and only when it's a huge photo.

The benefit of Xubuntu and Ubuntu is they are available as LiveCDs. What this means is you put the CD in the tray, reboot, and you can try the operating system without actually installing it. Do this first before you go setting up VirtualBox and all. Set up VirtualBox if you want to give it a test run. Dual-boot for a serious test run, although you run a risk of losing hard drive data during the dual-boot setup process.

You can get Photoshop and other software like Adobe Illustrator to run on Linux through various workarounds, but with a little practice GIMP and InkScape can work wonders as replacements for those two. There's thousands upon thousands of high quality software suites available for linux.

Look at Conky on the right hand side, under RAM usage. You can't get that kind of efficiency on Windows! ArchLinux used less than this Xubuntu computer, around 60MB with OpenBox, but like I said before the X package was too finicky for a desktop computer. Actually, it was the intel graphics driver package. I'll leave Arch to a server.

I don't think Virtualbox is too dauntiung if you follow a step by step guide, of which there are loads! The benefits of having a totally safe environment to play in more than make up for a bit of configuring to get going.

As far as first distros, I'd deffo recommend Mint by reputation. All the top distros strive to be user friendly these days though so it depends on what the end user wants. If they were business oriented then I'd go for OpenSuSE, general purpose would be Mint (Or SimplyMEPIS) and if they wanted general purpose but something a little bit edgy and different then I'd say Fedora.

BTW, don't forget you can go into any supermarket (Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda etc.) and buy something like Linux Format magazine which will have a bootable cover disk as well as other iso images you can either burn to CD or virtualise.

I wouldn't worry too much about being lost without hope on a Linux desktop. A lot of the concepts are exactly the same, as in 'start' button revealing lots of menus with all the apps in etc. To use the ever popular car analogy, it's a bit like going from your car to a different make/model. all the controls are there, just maybe in a slightly different place.