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One problem people seem to have with installing Linux is the fact you have to download an .iso, and then burn it to a CD. While burning an .iso to a CD is not hard, unless you are into it, or have done it before, it can be confusing. That is, assuming you have a CD drive, CD burner, and spare CDs. Not to mention with some Windows CD burning programs, it’s not exactly obvious how to properly burn an .iso.To solve this Debian and Ubuntu are now offering a downloadable Windows .exe file that will install Linux while you are running Windows. The Ubuntu one apparently will do all it’s automatic, non-destructive partition magic (meaning it will make your system dual boot with both Windows and Linux without hurting the Windows OS).

The Debian installer can be found on goodbye-microsoft.com, and the Ubuntu one doesn’t seem like it’s ready, but you can read about it on the wiki page.

I don’t see myself using this as I tend to build my own servers (and use Mac on the desktop). However, I can see this being very useful for systems that come with Windows pre-installed and you want Linux instead.

In my experience, a Debian or Ubuntu CD is only used to boot the system anyway. Once a network is found all the software is loaded live over the net via apt-get so this removes the first step being local (and limits some waste). Very cool.