In the beginning (of user semi-friendly computers) was the PDP-8. And it was good. And it ran an Operating System called TSX (Time Share Executive).

Then came unto all Gary Kildall and he wrote a clone of TSX called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers, in the movie TRON called Master Control Program).

It ran inside of 8K by itself, and it was also pretty good.

DEC begat PDP-11's and updated TSX to RSX (Real-Time Share Executive) and it ran business programs well (also very small ~16K)

Seattle Computer Products expanded CP/M into a DOS for 8088 based computers on the S-100 bus and Apple II bus. It was bigger (~30K). Bill Gates saw this and was working with IBM on a DOS and took a shortcut by buying Seattle Computing DOS renaming it PC-DOS and MS-DOS. Later versions of MS-DOS got bigger, fatter, slower.

Microsoft later added a GUI Shell called Windows (there were other GUI shells for DOS out there).

IBM wanted a proprietary Operating system and worked with Microsoft to make OS/2. Microsoft wanted this to be non-proprietary so they made more than 1 version and the higher version needed Microchannel architecture computers to run properly. Microsoft, seeing their profits go down, was pissed.

Later, in a successful attempt at monopolization, Microsoft begat Windows 95 which (1) avoided antu-trust charges by looking like an extension of the shell that incorporated the Operating System (making the Operating system incorporate the shell would have been unfair competition to the other shells); (2) avoided their technology sharing agreement with IBM (same excuse as above). It was a horrible kludge but it was very well marketed and destroyed the competition. Windows 95, 98, etc. each got bigger, fatter, slower; requiring an ever increasing amount of processor power, memory, and larger hard drives; basically requiring new computers every 2 - 3 years. The Computer Manufacturers liked the idea of Planned Obsolescence a lot so they installed ever newer versions of windows on their computers.

we could go into various IBM Mainframe and Mini-computer OS's each incompatible to the other, HP's interesting Operating systems (let alone non-standard screens), DEC's VAX VMS, etc. but why bother?

UNIX et. al. had a different gestation. Unix was developed on PDP-11's in their enfgineering OS RSTS and RSTS-E. It's sole original purpose in life was to switch telephones quick and failsafely. It did. UNIX was developed to run C before C was built (in RSTS-E) then C was "ported" to UNIX and UNIX was recompiled in C (which answers the question which came first the UNIX or the C shell?)

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UNIX (raw command line UNIX) is GURU friendly and user unfriendly. What does PS mean? PS -a? LS? UNIX Guru's would know. So there came various shells (c shell, Bourne shell, korn shell, ad infinitum) which could convert meaningful commands to guru; then came graphical shells (Solaris, et. al.) much like windows.

LINUX was an attempt to clone UNIX like CP/M, and like UNIX there are several shells, (KDE, Gnome, etc.) and several variant releases wich all do the same thing. It is far less of a kludge than windows (ALL versions of Windows!) and therefore more reliable; more importantly a smaller memory requirement.

Microsoft ran a test with one of the magazines with Windows 2000 and IIS against Red Hat Linux and Apache a couple of years ago which demonstrated that Windows was faster. well..... The deal was it required the top of the line processor and 512Mb of ram. when the magazine had to go back and recheck some numbers the machines they originally used were unavailable so they used other machines. with 256Mb of memory.

OOOOOOOOOPS! Microsoft was still faster but was much slower than before. Now being suspicious, the magazine did more tests. Linux ran at still the same speed in 128Mb memory, Windows would not run at all. Linux ran about as fast on slower processors; Windows got real slow real fast. Windows had picked up the notion of memory caching variables, directories, etc. from Novell and practiced it with a vengeance (unfortunately many of these did not need to be cached so it was like traveling with 12 pieces of luggage of which you only needed 4)

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Notice we have to this point ignored a much better Operating System Apple MAC OS, especially OS X. That's what you get for being in a PC Bigot group; crappy OS's! Apple built many of the OS pieces (drawing and enlarging windows, etc. (into the Mac ROM's so the system runs much faster.

When FOX software was writing Fox Pro for the MAC they found there was so much more available for programming, and so much speed that they threw away their PC's (unfortunately about a year later they were bought by Microsoft).

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This is only a gloss over (yes I have / do use all those OS's mentioned and several more).

The more significant point is what are you going to do with it? If you just want to experience other operating systems get a Mac, get a sparcstation (used) and learn solaris, get a cheap ($199) computer at frys with linux on it. Unfortunately, we do not enforce anti-trust laws in this country so if you want to SELL anything you write you are stuck with Windows. If you really want to look at the future look at Linux - some of the biggest users (governments) are going with Linux for cost reasons as are some of the biggest corporations.

Linux also can be installed on your present computer when you "upgrade" to a new computer that runs a newer version of windows.

I have quit adding newer versions of Windows as Windows media player (7 and up) Windows 2000 (service pack 3 and up) and Windows XP all "phone home" and send a copy of your system registry to microsoft (WMP whenever you play a mp#, CD, DVD, etc.; Win 2000 when you install ANY update including security updates, Windows XP whenever you boot up and there is an internet connection found)

I don't want my users doing something that gets them in trouble (by terms of the EULA you are giving Microsoft the right to do this AND to disable or delete any programs Microsoft feels might be harmful to Windows, e.g. Wordperfect, etc.

As far as dual booting start formatting and installing Linux, make it stable, THEN install a second partition for Windows (or use a MAC with PC clone programs - there are several).

I could go on but you are probably already going Gaaaaaaaa.........