you can try with some virtual banking, chat client applications to use your 'c' knowledge with Linux, in CLI .That will cover all 'C' concepts and Linux function calls

"Anti-Microsoft comments are NOT welcome."
No one here, will do that. Do not WORRY .People here are Professionals.

"Using alternatives to IE9, or changing the default settings, is not an option.

As all webdesigners know, sites simply have to work with what people have... "

yes , no doubt in that. But, the point might be, the site has some small stability issue after some changes made due to security breach in kernel.org. So, just want to check whether site is up or not, you might be asked to use other browsers.

And, now to check with your issue, I am typing this message, and sent you one private message through IE9 in Windows-7.
And I dont have anything in my mind right now to start a forum topic. If I get one I will post through IE9 and will let you to know.

Have a very good day

happy to hear that.
Feel free to come here, in case if you need any help.

"If I try with Windows it says that support is not formatted. Is it right? "
In this place, do you mean, laptop/desktop or Win CE in board?
In either case , yes, it wont read ext FS. You can use some third party apps to read the ext FS in host system .

after creating the partition in SD card, did you check by mounting the both ?

I believe that, the SD card is not made bootable yet . If possible try with some other script.
Support for beagle board is more in network.

My guess is the bootable info written in FAT FS type,[ which is mostly not made correctly here ],and Root FS in ext2 .

What actually you are trying to compile? Kernel ? In the board itself?

In embedded systems mostly, Cross-Development is better than Native development.

The root problem might be, "Bad block table found at page 131008, version 0x01 "
Due the invalid entry [ the entries not expected by this kernel] ,everything may go down.

The best solution is , approach your board supplier.Is the operation you are trying to do is supported by the board?

" Is it for free? "
No doubt in that. I am very very happy to share with anyone if they interested.
Right now am in work place. Will send to your id, you mentioned in your first post, once I reach my home.

Regarding the last part, I prefer Fedora, since thats my very first Linux distro .ANd moreover, the "vi" editor that you will use to do 'C' program, in Fedora is good, whereas in Ubuntu you need to update the same for easy use.

If you are installing any one of those, in your hard drive you need to choose the "GCC" option to install [ in fedora ] .
If you are trying as Live CD/DVD boot without hard drive, it will be there. I remember, I used it .