andLinux

beta2 freezes my win7 (32-bit) completely :(

i like it!

much easier to install than Cygwin, a good complementary to my Windows desktop which I'm forced to use at work

Very nice integration; faster and much more lightweight than Portable Ubuntu, and much easier to set up than Cygwin/X. I recommend going wtih the minimal/XFCE distro to get you started, then add on the KDE base with Synaptic (just be sure to UNCHECK "consider recommended packages as dependencies" in the options before selecting packages). Now you should have both Xfce AND KDE to play around with, all coming in at a mere 1.5 GB or so. You can increase the 2 GB disk image if you think that's too full (andLinux supplies a utility for this), but I've never actually ran into any problems using just the supplied image;. Keep in mind that andLinux is meant to function as a Linux suite of apps running UNDER Windows, so your media files and big downloads are going to be on of your NTFS partitions, not the Linux image. When you realize this, and take into consideration that Canonical's updates don't automatically consume 10-100 MB of drive space every few weeks (it's more like 1 to 5 MB), then you begin to appreciate the beauty and efficiency of the whole thing. You get access to the best of two operating systems instantly available all the time, all while only using 2 extra gigs of hard drive space (and no messing with partitions!)