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Its easy enough to play with almost any linux distribution (distro) on old & new computers. First find a distro. There are hundreds of them most completely free, and suitable for anyone from complete noobies to experienced old hands.
Old hands will have their fave d/l sites but for newbies have a look here
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
Pick one of the popular ones - Mint with Cinammon desktop is a good one to start with as its fairly recognisable once its started up - (most of the important things are in similar places to win7!)
Download the appropriate iso of the distro you want to try & save it on your computer.
You will now need an iso burner - unetbootin allows you to make dvds & usb flash drives bootable and is nice and easy to use.
UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads (if you are using a windows machine to create the bootable disc download the windows version!)
Run unetbootin, choose if you are making a dvd or a flash drive navigate to the file you downloaded and press go - let it do its stuff for 5 minutes or so and you will have one fresh bootable dvd or pen drive. I will assume we are making a dvd disc.
Reboot the computer you want to play on and get into the bios, (a key press during the boot sequence - often F2 or DEL) & select to boot off the dvd drive.
Allow the computer to boot off the dvd and let the disc work its magic. At the appropriate point choose live cd - not install Leave the disc to run & key in any required info - time zone, language etc Eventually you will have a spanking new install of the Mint OS running in ram on your computer. If you get hopelessly lost just take the disc out, kill the power and let it restart - and you will have your original set up back completely unchanged.
The beauty of live cd's is that you can download any iso, make a live disc and boot from it. If you dont like it kill the power, restart & bin the disc.
BTW it may seem obvious but dont click the install icon on the desktop unless you really do want to install it! There are chances to stop but this is supposed to be play with linux safely so I'll say it!
Old hands will have their fave d/l sites but for newbies have a look here
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
Pick one of the popular ones - Mint with Cinammon desktop is a good one to start with as its fairly recognisable once its started up - (most of the important things are in similar places to win7!)
Download the appropriate iso of the distro you want to try & save it on your computer.
You will now need an iso burner - unetbootin allows you to make dvds & usb flash drives bootable and is nice and easy to use.
UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads (if you are using a windows machine to create the bootable disc download the windows version!)
Run unetbootin, choose if you are making a dvd or a flash drive navigate to the file you downloaded and press go - let it do its stuff for 5 minutes or so and you will have one fresh bootable dvd or pen drive. I will assume we are making a dvd disc.
Reboot the computer you want to play on and get into the bios, (a key press during the boot sequence - often F2 or DEL) & select to boot off the dvd drive.
Allow the computer to boot off the dvd and let the disc work its magic. At the appropriate point choose live cd - not install Leave the disc to run & key in any required info - time zone, language etc Eventually you will have a spanking new install of the Mint OS running in ram on your computer. If you get hopelessly lost just take the disc out, kill the power and let it restart - and you will have your original set up back completely unchanged.
The beauty of live cd's is that you can download any iso, make a live disc and boot from it. If you dont like it kill the power, restart & bin the disc.
BTW it may seem obvious but dont click the install icon on the desktop unless you really do want to install it! There are chances to stop but this is supposed to be play with linux safely so I'll say it!
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