i was also a windows monkey, and i found the switch relativelly easy with as was said, Knoppix, but if you're familiar with linux, i suggest a much more stable distro, as debian, which would facilitate the transition.
AceShells provides free shells with irc access (they're a commercial unix provider so, as always, there's a catch: free account activation is only activated during 3 - 4 PM EST) and passwords must be renewed every two months.
cheap alternatives are QuadSpeedi (which i use)
unixdemon
and AcmeShells ( $1 per process)
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i was also a windows monkey, and i found the switch relativelly easy with as was said, Knoppix, but if you're familiar with linux, i suggest a much more stable distro, as debian, which would facilitate the transition.
AceShells provides free shells with irc access (they're a commercial unix provider so, as always, there's a catch: free account activation is only activated during 3 - 4 PM EST) and passwords must be renewed every two months. cheap alternatives are QuadSpeedi (which i use) unixdemon and AcmeShells ( $1 per process)