Heh. We just have WUBI for that. Forget all the above, go to Wubi-Installer.Org, and follow the instructions.

Note: NOT for newbies!
To get Diablo SDK on your Windows computer try this:
1) http://www.virtualbox.org
2) http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1224
3) http://repository.maemo.org/stable/diablo/INSTALL.txt
Note: NOT for newbies!

I would also say repartitioning your computer and installing Linux alongside an existing Windows partition is not something to be done lightly. There is a great risk of totally losing all data on your PC if you don't actually understand what's going on. Shrinking and resizing partitions is serious voodoo, especially with freeware Linux tools and NTFS.

I've been using and installing Linux machines since the dark, musty days of Slackware 2 and sometimes I still do it wrong by accident.

VMWare, however is amazing. As is Virtual PC, or VirtualBox. I have a Macbook which quite happily runs XP in a virtual machine with no noticeable slowdown. I also have a Pentium 4 PC which runs Virtual PC with XP inside that.

Both of these virtual computers run MS SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 Professional and can easily cope with me running an application and debugging it.

The most important thing is to have enough RAM. My machines have 2 gig each, with 1 gig being given to the virtual machine. I did run VMWare on my Mac with only 1gig of ram and it was awful.

But RAM is cheap

Now the correct way would be to show people how to install Linux completely, then run Windows in a virtual machine

Had dedicated Linux boxes for years, they had to go for space (and noise!) reasons. Then used VMWare for a few years. Got fed up switching between VMWare window and other windows. Earlier this year I installed AndLinux (based on coLinux). Recently installed scratchbox and maemo sdk. IMHO best set-up second only to dumping windows altogether (on the near horizon).

Argh, virtual machines are great... except simple fact: they're S-L-O-W...
Even with vmtools installed, vmware is still provides a decent performance penalty vs real hardware machine.If you have powerful 16-CPU server this may be not a big deal but on usual desktop you may not like obtained performance too much.

As for me, it looks like this:
- If you're going to just see "what is this stuff?" and then throw it away, vmware is great since no reboots needed.
- If you're going to live with <something> for a while and take some real use of it, IMHO it is better to install to a real HDD on a real machine. To be honest, that's how I migrated from XP to Kubuntu (yep, XP is at the end of its life and I dislike Vista, so Kubuntu was just exactly what I needed, he-he). At one day I'm found that on my dual-boot system Kubuntu uptime is just month or so and hence it looks like I do not need any Windows at all ))

You make a fair point about the performance hit of using a virtual machine. However, my Core2Duo 2GHz Macbook runs a virtual XP (with Visual Studio and SQL Server, don't forget) perfectly well, and is at least as fast as my 3GHz Pentium 4 HT PC running XP natively.

Virtual machines are great if you have one piece of software you need to run. If you're going to end up switching OSs then eventually you will want to install it "properly" into its own partition.

Of course, if you have a Mac with BootCamp and VMWare Fusion you can boot the XP partition either as a virtual machine (seamlessly, rather than trapped in a window) or as a proper OS instance from a boot menu. So you get the advantage of both.

I predict it won't be too long before we run large applications in their own virtual machines. Rather than installing all the Windows dev stuff into your PC you'll run a virtual machine. Same with games and office applications. A Core Quad processor isn't going to break a sweat doing this type of thing, and it seems technology is going towards multi-core rather than increased CPU speed now.

Oh yeah, you want to see network-based virtualisation too, that's impressive. Virtual servers can be moved from one computer to another - while still running.

Yes, but a Live CD is also slower than native.

If you want to try out Linux just use Wubi and you have Ubuntu installed (and easily uninstalled) in no time on the Windows NTFS partition in c:\ubuntu. Reboot, and boom you're on Linux. All ~native speed (maybe some overhead from NTFS :P). You can even access this installation via VirtualBox.

If you want to try or run KDE on Windows see windows.kde.org.

If you want to do maemo porting/development try my method above. VMware Player instead of VirtualBox would also work. Or consider a method like coLinux/andLinux.

BTW, newer CPUs with AMD-V or Intel VT are able to run VMs at almost native speed (90-100% sometimes even more than 100%). Provided your VM supports these hardware extensions there is almost no overhead then.

It's extremely easy to run Linux from a usb drive. I have sidux running from an 8 gig drive on my dell latitude and I use it far more often than I do Windows. Sidux had an option to install from a usb drive, so I didn't have to do much more than check the "install to usb drive" box. I'm also running sidux from my desktop, but I don't have Windows here.

Sidux has a reputation of being a very cutting edge and challenging version of Linux, but in my experience it is quite easy. Another distro that works great with my laptop wireless is Puppy Linux (which runs great for me on a 2-gig usb drive). Wireless is one of the sticking points with Linux, in my experience -- sometimes the proprietary wireless cards are difficult to get going, but not very, in Puppy Linux and Sidux, and it's getting easier everywhere.

Linux is way faster than Windows. The main reason I was ever running Windows was because Windows has much better text-to-speech than Linux, but now that my Treo runs Audible books for me, I have less reason to run Windows than ever.

One more comment, on running Linux from a CD: it's not necessarily slow. Slackware-based distributions such as Wolvix have an option to run the whole operating system from memory after booting from a CD. They are incredibly fast. Puppy Linux is incredibly fast.

Again.. the intent of this post appears to aimed at a non-sys admin type user.. IE: newbie. A timid, "I don't want to lose my life's work", "if I touch this will it break?", user.

The best way to sell these people is offering them solutions where the risk of hurting their precious dataz is minimal - this is with a Virtual Machine of some sort.

WubI is fine, Bootable CD is also fine (but slow) - (geneven; how much software is available on those? The reason Knoppix/Kubuntu/etc run off the cd is they are compressed on the fly allowing for more software, in a smaller footprint.)

Piku - If you notice I wasn't the one that suggested anyone re-partition their Hard Drives; that was in the OP.. I actually made the comment that I was surprised the Kubuntu installer has made it to the point where they are comfortable enough with the (experimental) ntfs support in Linux to actually allow resizing of an ntfs drive.

Now I haven't looked into cygwin in quite some time.. but when I did - it was a downright pain; had to compile everything I wanted to run via source, it was slow (then), and difficult... If I want to convert a newbie; i'm not going to give them Slackware, Arch or Gentoo on a command line and say "OK - Go."

You want them to have an interface that they are somewhat familiar with - Best options are XFCE (my favorite), KDE, and Gnome. IceWM is ok, but configuration is manual; Window Maker is too much a change.. the *box's are also too difficult for 'casual' users.

I still say that unless you've decided to upgrade your PC to a better OS - use a Virtual Machine or one of the other suggestion that do not require re-formatting (WUBI)... Once you realize what you are missing and feel the awesomeness that is linux and want it to run at full speed.. THEN you can attempt the OP.. and the OP stressed it several times; so has numerous people throughout... back up your data and -expect- to lose your windows.. You may not; but that would be more the exception, not the rule.

The Ubuntu 8.04 install CD has Wubi built in. No need to download anything extra; just boot Windows and insert the CD.