Thanks for all the replies. But you need to remember that I am totally new to the *nix world. I started out in the days of the Commodore 64, moved from there to DOS and then on to Windoze. I am very verse with M$ operating systems and should be getting my MCSA in the next three months. But when you guys say "want to try out the command line, use the "knoppix 2" boot string. " I am lost. How do I get to the command line when the CD just gose thru its own boot sequence after I set boot from CD in CMOS. All is a boot: prompt Then I did typed something and the cd ran for about 35 minutes during which a lot of infor passed on the screen I answer no to most of the prompt and yes to a 60mb swap partition set up as a file in the root of the C:\directory.

I guess what I am saying is that somewhere there should be a step by step instruction manual that explains what all those lines are and what they are doing (with screenshots )

Is there such a think that I can read in a pdf format and not from within linux itself, or the I can print out and hold in my hand while I am booting up knoppix?