You can install ubuntu from within Windows 7 with Wubi. It will install in a duel boot. When you are sick of it boot into windows and use the windows uninstaller to remove it. I have used it a couple times and it works well and will not hose your MBR so it wont nuke your restore partition.
absolutely, but there are a few caveats to that...
it's not a long term option as the wubi install invariably crashes eventually... normally during/after a windows update.
it defeats the purpose of having linux as a backup on a windows machine since it's installed within windows, so you can't infiltrate your windows environment for maintenance or in case of an emergency.
the wubi install can be sketchy at best at times depending on the system hardware and some OEM windows installs. granted, it does usually work.
when the wubi install crashes, it can hang up your windows partition and rob some of your disk space and give you one heck of a time trying to recover that disk space.
splitting and reformatting part of your windows install (if say your "recovery disk" only lets you take the whole drive like the wifes compaq disks) is a whole lot more stable. even better is to only allocate some of your drive to windows in the first place with the linux partition being completely separate from any windows allocated space in the first place. the coup de grace of all dual boot windows/linux options, is definitely to allocate entire drives for each OS and choose between drives (not just operating systems) at startup. this eliminates all of the aforementioned minor to major issues when the two have to share a machine.
we're getting quite a bit off topic. maybe we can make a linux geek thread if this has to go on further? sorry, pap.
ex does bring up some good points about thumb drives for the smaller distros and lighter distros for older B-boxes...
