"In going over all the alternatives (including a very nice and mature Knoppix that now fully supports NTFS read/write), I settled on Puppy Linux. It seemed to have the best frugal-to-usable ratio out there. And, no surprise here, it's very easy to use. You can download your own copy from the Live-Puppy Download Site. It's completely free of charge (although I'm sure they wouldn't sneeze at a donation ;) and very easy to use."