Linux trial ?

hey guys a while ago i heard about a possible trial of linux before u buy it cuz rite now i got windows xp and i wanted to see the good and bad stuff about and not have to download it or buy it and then not like it

linux is free, excluding a few distro's like redhat and suse, if you want to just try linux out, you should download knoppix, or some other live distro, it's a bootable cdrom with an entire operating system on it, no need to partition/install etc.

as aeon said, give Linux a test run with Knoppix (this runs entirely off a CD)

heres the link:

http://www.LinuxISO.org.

if i like it witch one would i download ??? to get like a full version?
also i read that it takes up a bit of space on my hard drive am i able to remove that space and how would i do it ???

SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, Fedora are some of the more popular distributions. But really the best distribution is whichever one that You think is best, so i recommend trying a few of them.

They are all "full versions"; they are 'open source', which means no matter what you use it for... it's free.
[Licensing rules apply]
Decide what it is you want to do with it, then perhaps do a little research on which one might best suit your requirements.

Cheers.

well can someone describe each one and ill pick the one i like because i love gaming and i stilll need to use the internet and some programs for school work

alright i just finished downloading it and its .iso on my desktop now what do i do what program do i open it with ???? or where do i put it ???

And regarding your other question try here:

http://www.ozzu.com/unix-linux-forum/burning-iso-images-t34883.html

8 posts or so down….

is it possible to do this without burning it to a cd cuz my cdrw drive is on the fritz ( not working ) and i cant do anything about it

lol, still havnt done it... http://www.ozzu.com/hardware/new-dvd-drive-installed-t34310.html

Back to your question, which one have you downloaded?

well the hard drive doesent have a jumper and i got the knoppix

For LiveCD's and for most distributions you need to burn a CD for it to run.

You can get a distribution that installs over the internet and that might only take a few disks but they write to your harddrive.

If you want to try out linux before installing it either get a friend t download the iso and get him to burn it, or if you want you could donate a few dollars and buy a distribution.

This comes with the added benifit that you get documentation and support (usually).

If your new to linux I recommend Suse, Xandros or Linspire (the last two I think you have to buy, but there is a free version of Xandros). Suse there is personal version of it and I'm personally using it, and I found the install quite easy.

Xandros and Linspire have installations that are so easy it's scary. Both are very user friendly.

Linux currently has very few commercial games ported to it (as in you can play them) there are some games, and more are coming but in my opinion if you want to play games. Keep a version of Windows just for gaming, it's easier than tweaking Linux to run them.

There are also a few other distributions you should look at:

Mepis - is another version of Knoppix, I havn't used it myself but it's supposed to be quite good as a LiveCD

Gentoo - harder to install (much harder) but it's optimized for your system and if you know about your computer this might be for you

Fedora Core - I havn't used it myself yet but it's based off of Red Hat and is probably quite good, heard some good reviews of it.

Debian - Probably not for you, it's quite hard to install, but it's good distribution never the less and you should look into it.

Finally, if you've got the time you can always look up a Linux User Group in your area and go to one of their meetings, you'll meet some people that will probably help you get into the marvelous world of Linux.

You might also want to look into a version of BSD, but I've never used it myself.

Hope this helps.

can someone tell me the ups and downs of linux ?? compared to windows xp

it's secure, it's stable, it doesn't burn resources like xp does, it multi-tasks properly, it uses memory properly (it actually remembers things)... other than that, it's free, open-source etc, the linux community is huge, and many linux users are also hobbyist programmers, so there is a lot of open-source software available.. it also has the advantage of not looking like it was made by fisher price like xp does.

I guess one disadvantage of linux is that it has a much steeper learning curve than windows