Unix on internet

If your PC supports booting from the CD, check out http://www.knoppix.org/. You can download a CD image which you can burn. Boot from it and Linux will run from the CD without effecting your PC. Just remove the CD and reboot and your system is back to normal. Great starting point for linux, I think.

Also check out http://www.cygwin.com/ for a unix emulator that runs on your PC. This may be more appropriate if you just want to start learning the shell, etc.

Gary

I'd download a Live CD (a distro that doesn't need to install). Gnoppix, Gentoo, Suse and Ubuntu all have Live CD versions.

You also probably want to use SSH rather than telnet as telnet is all in plain text (including your username and password)

For a free shell account online check:
http://www.ductape.net/~mitja/freeunix.shtml
http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?telnet
http://www.65535.net/freeshells/

cywin
a console unix environment that runs in windows.

vmware a virtual pc, where you can fully install any os you want. ( no hardware access so no chance of damaging system )

Try a live CD (Linux: ubuntu, kubunto, gentoo,
knoppix etc, Or FREEbsdlive [livecd.sf.net]) or

Try cygwin for just the UNIX tools, or coLinux
if you want a low overhead windows/linux
cooperation on the same system. qemu/vmware/ms
virtual server can also work to provide a
virtual environment.