What's the best way to play around with Linux? I have a small, secondary hard drive on my machine right now that had originally resided on a computer that was a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine. I'm tempted to do the same thing on this computer, but I wasn't fond of the fact that once Grub was on my computer, I couldn't boot to Windows if I took out the Linux hard drive. I want to build a separate Linux machine, but it is kind of cost prohibitive since I would need to buy all the parts, except for the hard drive I already own. So, I think what I'm asking is 2 things:

1. Is there an easy way to get rid of Grub so that I can go back to plain old Windows after I want to stop dual-booting?
2. Does anyone know of a way to acquire an old, small, cheap system that would run Linux?

Any input would be useful. Thanks. =^_^=

VMWare.

I'm a firm believer in building a seperate machine for learning an OS. Dual booting introduces two obstacles to really learning how a new system works. One, you can read data off of the other OS's disk space. This undermines a deeper understanding of how data should be arranged in your new system. Two, by having the other OS as a safety net, you'll too-frequently fall back on it when the 'little' problems start appearing instead of trying to figure out the root of the problem.

If you want to get rid of a Linux bootloader, you'll have to re-install a DOS MBR for DOS/Windows 9x, or you'll have to re-install the NT bootloader for NT/2k/XP.

If I'm not mistaken (and I may be, since I don't use NT-derived systems at all), you'll need to simply enterat a command prompt inside of your Windows partition. The same command should work regardless of what version of Windows you use.

I also prefer using LILO over GRUB for the simplicity aspect. I believe it will allow you to remove hard drives as long as the MBR and the drive with the target OS are still somewhere in the system.

The For Sale/Want To Buy forum? I guess it really depends on how small/old/cheap you're looking for. There's quite a number of people, myself included, that have piles of older machines going unused that could be made working with a little TLC.

Something to keep in mind about learning a new OS on older hardware is that there's no way it'll compare to something on newer hardware. It's not fair to compare the performance of Linux on a Pentium 233 with a Trident POS video card to Windows on a P4 3.8 GHz box with a top-of-the-line nVidia or ATi card. Keep that in mind when you're experimenting.

I agree with not dual-booting. Its too tempting to simply boot into windows. If your going to use windows, use windows. If your going to use linux, use linux. None of this half and half crap. If you want to keep using windows, yet learn something about linux, two computers is probably the best. Maybe put linux on your laptop.

If you really want to use linux on your main desktop, you can always install linux on a second hard drive, and then force yourself to only use it for a week or a month. Disconnect your windows hard drive or something, and promise yourself you will not boot into it for a week/month. That is also a good way to learn.

As far as grub is concerned, install it on your windows hard drive. You don't need linux to use grub. And you can restore the windows boot loader if you run into problems.

I too suggest using VMware. You can install the distro, play with it for a week, and simply tinker in another distro at the same time without any hassle. It's the most convenient way to test operating systems. All you have to do is delete the file to start over.