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The easiest way to try out Linux is to use Acronis Disk Director Suite to create a Linux partition on your existing Windows computer and load a copy of Linux into the newly created partition

There are a variety of free distributions of Linux available, or you can commercial version such as Mandriva 10.0, Red Hat or SuSE.

Creating a Linux partition is simple under Acronis Disk Director Suite. The product's advanced features show you how much space you have on your hard drive that you can use for a Linux partition. In the automated mode, just tell the software how big you want to make the partition, and let Acronis Disk Director Suite create the partition in the Linux file system you want. Then download or purchase a copy of Linux and follow the instructions that come with the Linux distribution.

The manual mode of the product gives you even greater control of the partition, allowing you to set specific file systems and the like.

Generally a 10 GB partition is more than ample for a Linux system. While Linux experts recommend creating a Linux System Partition (usually 1–2 GB) to hold the kernel and basic system files and using a separate partition for the applications and user files, you can create a single partition for Linux. This is sometimes handy in the beginning when you are just learning Linux. Later you can use Acronis Disk Director Suite's easy-to-use interface and Linux compatibility to re-partition the Linux partition to create a separate system partition.

If you don't have 10 GB you want to devote to Linux, many Linux distributions can run in much less space. Some versions of Linux can run in less than 1 GB, although some popular features, such as a graphical user interface, require more space. Here again you can use Acronis Disk Director Suite's features to create or re-size partitions to add space for additional features.

Partitioning flexibility lets you start small with Linux and expand it as you decide to. You're not locked in by inflexible partition schemes or sizes.