It is getting harder and harder to convince new hardware to do an external boot.
Only some thumb drives are truly bootable. And of course you need 2 computers — the one you use to download the distro and the other which will be the new Linux box.
I don’t think Linux is for most. Once I do it all my bourne shell programming comes back to me but it takes a few days. I really don’t care for the wondowed interface.
YMMV
“And of course you need 2 computers — the one you use to download the distro and the other which will be the new Linux box.”
One could make the live CD stick on a working computer and then make that same computer linux or dual boot linux from the stick. That’s what I did. I made the stick in Win 7 and then installed it dual boot over the windows on the same machine. 2 computers are not actually required, It can easily be done on one.