A major amount of discussions and FAQ s are prevailing on the Web in the quest of knowing whether a Windows user can run
Linux on his PCwithout having it installed in a separate portion on his HDD. In fact the regular Windows users are a trifle cautious about doing something that could cause damage to their prized Windows and subsequently losing their consistent and attractive interface following a faulty installation of another OS.On the other hand, they are also curious to have a taste of the Linux - the much talked of OS!There are two readymade solutions for this problem.First, they can do so by using the freely available Linux Distro-s, which are also called Live CDs. All you have to do is going to Setup by pressing DEL while the machine boots and then changing the 'Boot Sequence'(or Boot Device Priority)to CD ROM. Save the setting, insert the Linux live CD into your CD drive and restart the machine.Linux will boot from the CD.Secondly, if you don't want to get into the task of doing the above;
download VMware Player(you can search for the download location in Google) and install it in Windows.When it's run, it gives an appearance of just another computer on your monitor without disturbing anything in Windows. Now you can put in the live CD in your CD drive and boot Linux inside Windows! Whenever you want to come out of the VMware window-just press Ctrl+Alt. Getting back to it with Ctrl+G.That's it ! You can have a Windows + Linux running side by side.And moreover, VMware Player is
free to download. So this whole thing happens for free! Ashish Mukherjee (pupblazer@gmail.com)