Hi again.
I have an older Gateway M325 Windows OS XP Pro with 1 GB of ram. I have never used Linux yet and am wanting to try live CD or ? Is Virtualbox the best way to try or booting from a CD or USB on startup or something else I haven't considered? I don't want to screw anything up. I consider myself an experienced/intermediate user with windows xp but attempting this is brand new to me. If you need more info from me, ask and I'll provide it. Your help is appreciated. Thanks!

live cd will not "screw anything up" - but of course it may depend on you. 1 GB of ram is not really enough for Virtualbox.

The Gateway M325 comes with a Celeron M or Pentium M CPU. Both lack support for hardware virtualization, so virtualized (for example using Virtualbox) systems will run horribly slow.
I would go for a classic installation (not a Live system) to an USB storage device, this way you won't mess with the already installed XP and get a system as it would be on a harddisk.

I see. My computer does have the Pentium. However, our other (main) computer is a newer Dell Inspiron 1545 with 2 GB of memory, Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU T4500 @ 2.30 GHz. Something interesting while viewing system information is that it indicates 2 GB Total Virtual Memory also. Does this one have what it takes? Thanks!

According to Intel this CPU also does not feature hardware virtualization support. It was quite common at the time those CPUs were released to remove hardware virtualization on the cheaper models, at least for Intel.

There's nothing unsafe about installing alongside Windows, if you follow the installation instructions: always a good idea, anyway. Support for XP stops next year, so that computer is an ideal candidate for Linux. I'd go for Linux Mint — beginner friendly, reliable — and pick the Mate version, not the Cinnamon. Your computer is similar to this desktop, and I can tell you it will be fine:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...p?product=2625

2GB likely isn't enough for virtualization anyway, I'd recommend at least 4.

You'd still be better off booting a live CD/USB.

Great info. I'll keep checking back. Thanks!

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Normally trying live CD doesn't cause any harm. I personally have used several live cd and installed debian GNU Linux alongside windows xp.
But I recommend if you get some prior knowledge of hard disk partitions like they are labelled sda1, sda2 etc. sda, sdb as first and second hard drive etc., then it would be better.
It would be helpful to you know about partition resize and partitioning under linux, if you want to install linux alongside windows.

Remember GNU linux liveCD doesn't cause any harm by itself, except if you intend to do so deliberately.

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