I haven’t done this in a while because I have been traveling a lot and I have been busy at home. I have a few minutes to spare this weekend and so I thought that I would do my part to evangelize the Linux Operating System.
Taking Linux for a test drive on your computer is made easy by using a Linux live CD. Basically you download the .iso image, burn it to a CD and boot your PC from it. When it boots up, you will be using Linux. It will not install or change anything on your hard drive. When you are finished, take out the CD, reboot and you will be back in M$ Windoze world.
There are many Live Linux CD’s out there now. I recommend trying out Knoppix. I have always had very good luck with it. But there is a large list of Live Linux distributions here if you are looking for something to suit a particular purpose.