If you can spare 15-20 GB hard drive space, you may want to consider the free Wubi installer. This sets up a Ubuntu Linux virtual machine (computer) in a single file within Windows. Of course you need a really great Internet connection because Wubi streams in the 300+ MB of installation software via the Internet.

I use a simpler setup that only requires two downloads. For the virtual machine, consider Sun’s VirtualBox; especially the unofficial Portable VirtualBox 2.1.0. Doing so helps avoid the network driver corruption issues I encountered when I first installed VirtualBox and lost my broadband connection!

Download #2 would be of a More >