I would like to learn linux but I want to keep windows 98 on my system for its user freindlyness. Which linux would any of you guys recommend

There are a lot of options, including slackware, redhat, debian, yellow dog, and hundreds more...and it's probably a lot easier to learn if you force yourself to use it and nothing else, that way you don't chicken out and do something the 'easy' way.

but that aside, what do you guys think, since it's kinda awkward to dual boot whenever you want to switch to a different OS... is emulation a tenable option for bedge here, running both at once? is it better to emulate linux in windows or windows in linux?

Well, before you get into it, make sure all of your hardware, or at least all the hardware you'll need will work until windows. I have a network card (my main way for internet access) that has no linux drivers and a winmodem, which only partially works under linux (which i'd only be able to use rarely anyway).

i have totally reinstalled my whole system to linux a few weeks ago. And it was a pain that my full hardware modem doesn't work anymore because of a computer crash prior to the linux installation. So I bought a pci modem. And guess what, apart from the data pumping is hardware the rest is software. hmm....I wish I have some Linux Software Modem drivers for Dynalink 1456vqh-r1. So I had to install WinME again. :(

My Linux Box has been up for 115 days straight :-) My Win2k box requires a restart once a day, sometimes more... Says something, doesn't it?

Funny, I've had mine up for over a month now. And the last restart was due to some more RAM being installed. So no, I don't think it says anything!

gian has at least some semblance of a point... yeah, you can keep an NT station working fairly well if you really know what you're doing. that's great for you, lordaerom, congrats... my experience has been more like gian's though. our linux and darwin stations rarely go down, if ever, while the commercial OS boxes need fairly regular reboots. NT, 98, MacOS pre-X, doesn't matter. So i guess mileage varies.

bedge, speak up. you won't get any help if you let everybody change the subject on you :)

Lordaerom: Granted, Win2k is good... I think it's a rather large bug that causes the machine to stop resolving domains and IPs suddenly and without reason, and the only way to fix it is with a restart, but apart from that I think Win2k has grown in leaps and bounds from it's primordial 3.1 beginnings to a OS that's usable... almost :-)

Well, I really doubt it's a bug that's common... I've never had such a problem on my machine. In fact, any system trouble I have had is due to my flaky cd-rom drive, it's caused me trouble no matter what OS I've had.

There was another thread almost identical to this before... we decided Redhat or Debian are good... or mandrake or slackware, pick one :-)