Run a Free and Open Source OS on a Windows PC

If you're tired of your plain old operating system (commonly abbreviated to OS), there's a fairly simple, beginner-friendly way to change the OS.

Steps

  1. Download a Virtualisation program such as Virtual PC 2007 from the Microsoft website (it's free), and install it.
  2. Now start the Virtual PC. Hard Disk Wizard will automatically make a virtual drive (it sounds complicated- it's not, the wizard will do it for you).
  3. For your first test, I'd recommend a Linux variant called "Damn Small Linux". It's a very simple, effective, and user-friendly OS (and powerful, too)
  4. Download the .ISO file for "Damn Small Linux", which you will mount onto the virtual drive you have created.
  5. Open the virtual PC. You should see a black (booting) screen. In the menu, find the CD submenu, and select 'Capture ISO'. Load the 'dsl.iso' you downloaded a few minutes ago.
  6. If you've performed all these steps successfully, the DSL OS should boot within about 15 seconds. This OS is rather user-intuitive, and you'll find many similarities in function to Windows OS. You have a desktop, etc.
  7. See a fully functional OS.
  8. Full Screen Mode use Alt + Enter
  9. To exit the OS, use Alt + F4. You will be prompted whether you wish to Save State or not. Do so.
  10. To return to the OS, start the Virtual PC program, select the virtual hard drive, and activate it.

Tips

  • Don't forget, there are other operating systems to try out there:
  • Feather Linux
    • Select the .iso file
    • This OS is designed to be very easy to use.

Warnings

  • What you are really doing is using the Virtual PC utility and the .iso of the OS to emulate the OS running as if on a different hard drive, even though it is actually running it from your normal hard drive. In other words, it puts aside a cozy little portion of the CPU memory and makes it pretend that it's a different hard drive, upon which the new OS is running
  • This does not replace or modify your current OS in any way.
  • Generally, if you don't know why you would want to use a different operating system, you have no reason to - elect to pass on doing this if you don't understand the general implications of what using a different OS means

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