For anyone interested in trying Linux was recently introduced to Dynebolic, an instant bootable GNU/LInux ran off the bootable CD or DVD. You can download the ISO from their site and create your own CD or DVD from the below page.

http://dynebolic.org

Was really impressed on how much they packed on the image.

Was able to boot the CD on multiple computers and have full GUI, mouse, keyboard, and even sound and Internet access. Did have issues unfortunately on one system with it DETECTING the Logitech mouse. However was still able to navigate using the keyboard (F12 key same as right-click on desktop) and I could just hook up another mouse and have it working.

Has multiple media players, gimp, blender, inkscape, gphoto, GQview, Firefox and other browsers, thunderbird and other e-mail clients, IRC clients, Gaim, VNC, samba and so much more. Pretty impressive.

Also able to use the file browser to browse files on the hard drive for those times you need to troubleshoot a computer and even NEST your environment on a USB key or hard drive.There are few other distros out there that are similar too.

Knoppix - probably one of the best known
Kanotix - best on Knoppix, but with slightly better hardware DETECTION and much easier boot options
Backtrack - a penetration testing toolkit, full of network tools (didn't automatically detect a PCMCIA network card on one laptop I tried it on though)

Plus SuSE, Ubuntu and many others have "live" CDs that will achieve a similar purpose.

I recently used Kanotix to bring a server BACK to life, when one of THREE hard drives had failed. Got all the data live very quickly via Samba. Happy customer.