Have you always wanted to give Linux a try but have'nt because you thought of formatting your machine, reinstalling everything, backing up all your data and programs ? Well now you can learn and enjoy Linux along with your Windows operating system with full features using the free VMWare server. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Ubuntu Linux as a virtual machine in VMWare server on your windows machine. You will be enjoying your fully virtualized Linux desktop in less than 20 minutes.

Step1:
Go to your VMWare servers URL so we can start the setup, this is typically Start -> All Programs -> VMWare -> VMWareserver -> VMWareserver home page (by default http://yourservername:8333/ui/#) and log on (usually with your local administrator account on your VMWare server windows account)

Step2:
On VMWare server menu, click on Virtual Machine then Create Virtual Machine

Step3:
Give your Virtual machine a name and choose your Datastore (in this case, Ubuntu 9.10 and we chose Datastore1), click Next

Step4:
For Guest operating system choose "Linux OS" and from the drop down Choose Ubuntu 32 bit. Leave product compatibility as default

Step5:
For Memory and processor choose the default of 512 MB RAM and a single processor