It's actually fairly easy to test.
1-Set your computer to boot first from the CD drive. Unless you have a bootable CD in the drive, it isn't going to do anything to your system.
Go to Distrowatch, and download the ISO for a bootable Linux (Ubuntu, if you want a full featured one with lots of bells and whistles, something like Puppy if you want a small one that's quick, but fairly lean in features).
3 - Burn the ISO to a CD (don't copy, just burn the image, usually by clicking on it).
4 - Make sure that the computer is plugged into an ethernet cable and the new cd is in the drive.
5- reboot
Run the connection wizard, if necessary
6 - open the browser (Firefox or SeaMonkey)
7 - Test the connection by going to CNN
Try going to FR.
I don’t need to test a thing. I have no problem with XP and I’ve already played with the various flavors of Linux, and nobody has been able to demonstrate to me why I should ‘change’.
Funny, how the 0bamunists and their ‘change’ mantra sound suspiciously like Linux fanatics, lol