On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:51:06 +0100, Invisible Man
wibbled:

I have a laptop with no Windows license (apart from a PC with Windows 7
64 bit and a PC with XP SP3).

Thought I might try Linux. Is Ubuntu the easiest and most stable to
start with?

Any advice on pitfalls etc.

Try what the others have said LiveCD mode.

I'd start with Ubuntu - it's based off Debian which is one of the distros
with the highest quality*quantity (of programs) quotiant.

Laptop has a 30 day install of XP on the c drive. Do I use another
partition for the linux software and the third for other files?

That is my preferred layout.

TIA for any replies. I have been using MS Windows PCs since 3.1 and
anticipate a steep learning curve.

You won't. The installer had me confused the first time I ran it because
it asked so little. You get a good default install and most (all) of
hardware should come up live without half the buggering about Windows
needs.

You might need to kick windows down into a smaller partition first.

You can expect to find OpenOffice (MS Office clone), Thunderbird,
Firefox, and lots of random programs for editing, photos etc already
installed.

Install Gimp and Inkscape for more serious raster and vector graphics
(Inkscape has had a big jump recently and is bloody good).

If you tell it to allow the "restricted" package repository (not pure
enough open source for Debian or not open source at all) you'll get MS
fonts, Flash player, and a load of codecs that let you actually watch
videos, play DVDs etc.

Gnome (the default window manager) is a little weird from a Windows POV
but you can customise the "theme" and move everything around until it
looks pretty much like Windows.

Kubuntu is Ubuntu's sister but defaults to KDE desktop which you may find
more natural (and is equally as advanced as Gnome), so that's worth
considering (but you can install Ubuntu, then add the "kubuntu-desktop"
package and that gives you the choice of Gnome or KDE at login time.

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.