Can anyone recommend the best (free) VM software to install on a machine running an AMD 5600 with 3GB of memory. I want to tinker with Linux but don't have a whole machine to dedicate to it. It's an Asus motherboard with integrated NVidia Geforce 8200 graphics running Vista Home Premium.

Can anyone recommend the best (free) VM software to install on a machine running an AMD 5600 with 3GB of memory. I want to tinker with Linux but don't have a whole machine to dedicate to it. It's an Asus motherboard with integrated NVidia Geforce 8200 graphics running Vista Home Premium.

VMware Server is free.

http://vmware.com/products/server/

If you find the browser based console to be clunky (I haven't tried the final version yet, so it may have improved since the beta), uninstall server 2.0 and try 1.0.8 which contains a stand alone Windows application for the console.

You can find all the versions here.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

http://www.virtualbox.org/

freeware

have a look at http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

you can use qemu or the GUI version MobaLiveCD to mount live CDs http://mobalivecd.mobatek.net/en/MobaLiveCD_v2.0.exe

very easy way to test linux

If you just want to test the water then some distros (Knoppix, Ubuntu etc) can be booted and run from the CD without the need to install anything. Others can be installed under windows and then run like a normal application without having to configure a VM.

If you find the browser based console to be clunky (I haven't tried the final version yet, so it may have improved since the beta), uninstall server 2.0 and try 1.0.8 which contains a stand alone Windows application for the console.

You can find all the versions here.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

The 2.0 contains also the VMware Infrastructure Client which is a windows application

VMWare and VirtualBox as shown above. One other > Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

My Windows XP Pro works fine but I too enjoy playing with different distros of Linux. I have an extra hard drive that I use for Linux. I unplug my XP hard drive and plug the cables into my Linux hard drive. No risks and no conflicts.