for Linux babies, ubuntu normally recommends you do a transitional shift, from your current operating environ, whereby you take baby steps whilst you maintain your old environ.
for products like mepis, although with such you can run directly from cd, problem is u still need to enter commands such as "force mount" for you to be able to view your files lets say in d: of which we are all sure u've formated using ntfs.
for ubuntu 10.10 such commands are minimal, infact they have spoonfed you.
my lame reasoning :)
From: odhiambo@gmail.com Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:24:33 +0300 To: skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Linux for Desktop - which one?