[RootbeaR]

"Get the best of both Linux and Windows worlds

Although you certainly can use the Internet safely on a Windows PC, doing so requires a lot of effort these days just to ensure that your copy is properly patched and secured. Like it or not, Windows has become the Ford Pinto of operating systems.


Painless way to add Ubuntu to your Windows PC

You can install OS X on your PC, but doing so is neither easy nor permitted by Apple's license, which requires all installations to be on Apple hardware. There are hundreds of free Linux distributions, however, that will work. Canonical's Ubuntu 8.10 — code-named Intrepid Ibex — is arguably the easiest Linux distro for Windows users to install, configure, and use.

In addition to the major revamps that appear each year in April and October, Ubuntu receives updates and patches almost daily. The free OS also comes with an enormous library of free, downloadable applications and utilities.

Installing most Linux distributions requires you to download and burn to a CD a several-hundred-megabyte .iso file and then boot your PC from that disc. Ubuntu supports this installation method, but it also provides an alternative, brain-dead-easy approach: Wubi, a free Ubuntu installer that works entirely within Windows.

Rather than repartition your disks, Wubi downloads and installs Ubuntu's files to a virtual disk stored on your existing Windows partition. Wubi's download is still a daunting 700MB, which can take a while if you lack a fast connection. (Of course, you can keep using your other Windows programs while Wubi does its thing in the background.)"
http://WindowsSecrets.com/comp/090108

[1002richards]

I have found Wubi easy and straightforward. I've used it with Ubuntu and Mint.
Install / uninstall no fuss.

[Byteman]

I've been using a Wubi install alongside XP Home for months and I really like it....

Actually, Ubuntu is beginning to look pretty darn good!

I had no install issues, everything installed "out of the box" first time....

[tomdkat]

So, is the idea to make your "Windows" PC safer by simply not running Windows?

Peace...

[lotuseclat79]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

So, is the idea to make your "Windows" PC safer by simply not running Windows?

Peace...

Good one tomdkat!

Since a dual-boot scheme on a single computer implies that only either Windows or Ubuntu is running (not both at the same time, although it would be cool to have a multi-core setup running both, one monitoring the other), that must have been the strategy, i.e. to not run Windows, thereby making it much safer from the Internet miscreants that persistently attack it!

Sorry, RootbeaR, the title was far too easy to resist posting!

-- Tom

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

So, is the idea to make your "Windows" PC safer by simply not running Windows?

Peace...

Hi tomdkat

Feels that way sometimes

Myself.....I'm comfortable with a Windows drive image to fall back on rather than having to invest more time in sorting out a different OS.

[RootbeaR]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Good one tomdkat!

Since a dual-boot scheme on a single computer implies that only either Windows or Ubuntu is running (not both at the same time, although it would be cool to have a multi-core setup running both, one monitoring the other), that must have been the strategy, i.e. to not run Windows, thereby making it much safer from the Internet miscreants that persistently attack it!

Sorry, RootbeaR, the title was far too easy to resist posting!

-- Tom

Just showing how easy it is to get into Linux.

Although, personally, I think PCLinuxOS is the best option.

[JohnWill]

I think Acronis True Image is the best solution. My automated weekly O/S partition backups give me an easy fall-back position.