jamie7823,
Hey man great to see you are getting interested in Linux, O.K so you want a way to learn about Linux without having to re-format, A live CD will do what you want. A live CD runs entirly from CDrom and doesent touch your HDD. After you have come to grips with that why not just dual boot, so you can have both Linux and windows on one machine?
As for reading:
http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/basic.shtml http://www.ss64.com/bash/ http://www.userlocal.com/helpbasic.php http://www.linuxgeek.net/beginners/node3.html http://observatory.phy.queensu.ca/L...ual/node50.html http://www.cns.uni.edu/cns-computing/help/unix-cmd.html http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~pavon...terCommands.htm
Those should give you basic Linux Commands
For more in depth reading, (still KISS principal applies)
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
And for Networking:
http://www.lesbell.com.au/Home.nsf/0...b?OpenDocument
this is A little complicated, Hold off on this till you have mastered the basics
Hope this Helps,
Jake