Linux Help

I am a newbie to Linux. I have Red Hat and have had it for years but never really felt comfortable using it so I never really did. My question is, isn't there a Linux program that runs from a cd inside windows that I can use to get comfortable with it before I install it on a computer?? I remember such a thing but cannot find it anywhere. Please help I want to take back control of my PC!!!!

Thank you very very much.

Here's the CD:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] -04-EN.iso

and the DVD:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] -04-EN.iso

Make sure you check the md5 and sha1 sums!

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] so.md5.asc
http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] o.sha1.asc

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] so.md5.asc
http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] o.sha1.asc

This is the procedure for checking the md5 and sha1 sums:

http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/using_md5sums.html

The procedure is the same for md5 and sha1 although you also need sha1sum.exe from: ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.exe

with this sig

ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.exe.sig

the source code is here:
ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.c
ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.c.sig

Fast mirror for downloads:

http://mirrors.kernel.org/

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/


GL :-D

If you're at all familiar with RedHat, Fedora might be a good place to start once you decide you want to actually install Linux. I found it easy to install and easy to use... and I'm a complete Linux noob.

Ok, I do have a version of Red Hat that I bought a few years back and played around with. Would you suggest that I use that or the Ubunto or whatever it is? Stuff I have read has mentioned using that to start off.

I've used both fedora core 6, mythdora which is myth tv on a stripped down version of fedora, and Ubuntu. It depends what your into.

I like Ubuntu because it's not as bloated as fedora. I am typing on a 400 mhz computer right now with 512 mb ram and the thing flies except for boot up.

Fedora is great for having the majority of the software already there but I don't like yum since it's slow and I hope will some day be able to compete with the speed of apt-get. Although I found installing mythtv went much better with fedora I'm sure Ubuntu is catching up. I heard the latest Ubuntu support most capture cards out of the box.

If you go with Ubuntu I suggest automatix if your looking for support of most media types, players, and some cool tools although the program is in questionable legal standing with some of it's add-ons like DVD support.