If you are like most people you probably fear getting a virus on your computer, you install costly anti virus programs only to have them expire and you not be protected. Linux doesn’t have problems with viruses, because nobody makes viruses for it.
Until recently you had to be a computer whiz to run Linux on your system. Now there are several platforms and distro’s that make it incredibly easy to install and run Linux.
The first thing you need is a flash drive at least 4 gb in size, the bigger the better. It needs to be able to be formatted so don’t have anything you need still on it.
Next download Linux Live USB Creator onto your windows machine and run it.
Plug your USB drive into a USB port.
Open Linux Live USB Creator and select your USB drive.
Now you have three options: Install linux from a CD, from an image file, or to download it directly using the program [this is the easiest option].
If you have no prior knowledge of Linux your best option is to download one from the program. The good news is they support almost all linux distro’s so you have a wide selection. My favorite distro is Fedora because it is the most user friendly and cross computer compatible.
Once you have selected your distro and your USB drive, check the “Format the key in FAT32” and the “Enable launching Linuxlive in Windows” boxes.
Now just click the lightning bolt and make yourself some coffee! You now have linux on a USB drive!
You have two options for booting, first you can boot live from windows by going to your USB drive and clicking the live Linux folder and running it from there. Second would be to shut your computer down and open the bios configuration [pressing f2 or f10 at the very first screen you see] then navigate to boot order and move USB to position number 1. After you do that save and exit. When your computer boots it will look for a flash drive. If it finds one it will boot from it booting Linux. If not, it will move to the next thing in your boot order and boot windows.
Now you are in Linux! If you want to save your files select “boot persistent mode” if you are prompted [In Fedora it will boot in “live mode” unless you hit enter while the “automatic boot in 10 seconds” screen is counting down] Live mode will erase all files and settings when you shut down your computer. Persistent mode will save your data.
The thing I like most about doing it this way is that you can literally take your computer, files, settings etc with you everywhere. All you need to do is plug it into any PC and boot from the USB drive! [explained above]
