Generally there are two ways you can go about doing this. One is DSL embeded Linux, the other is VMWare Player.
Now since you're a self-confessed Linux newbie, I would think playing around with VMWare Player and finding a suitable image, would be the lesser of two evils (the other would be messing around in /etc/fstab and aptitude trying to get all the mounts/packages you need). If you can find an Ubuntu WMware image, that would probably be very close to ideal (as far as BlitzMAX is concerned).
Now since you're a self-confessed Linux newbie, I would think playing around with VMWare Player and finding a suitable image, would be the lesser of two evils (the other would be messing around in /etc/fstab and aptitude trying to get all the mounts/packages you need). If you can find an Ubuntu WMware image, that would probably be very close to ideal (as far as BlitzMAX is concerned).