If you're on-the-cheap, you may also want to check out VMWare Player and the virtual appliances. I had a Workstation license, but it was from nearly 4 years ago and didn't work with many of the newer Linux distributions (notably Ubuntu). So I downloaded Player and an Ubuntu Gutsy virtual appliance, and was up-and-running in about 5 minutes.
If you're on-the-cheap, you may also want to check out VMWare Player and the virtual appliances. I had a Workstation license, but it was from nearly 4 years ago and didn't work with many of the newer Linux distributions (notably Ubuntu). So I downloaded Player and an Ubuntu Gutsy virtual appliance, and was up-and-running in about 5 minutes.