I'm not going to go through the LaTeX environment installation on your machine but just Beamer.

Beamer's project/home is hosted at SourceForge http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/. One more open project one could say. Hell yeah :D

On Windows operating system, if you have Miktek installed, just use the packages browser, search for beamer and install it.

On Linux Debian a cute:

apt-get install latex-beamer

will do the job.

That's it. Now a quick test. Take the short source given on the beamer home page:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{beamerthemesplit}

\title{Example Presentation Created with the Beamer Package}
\author{Till Tantau}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}

\frame{\titlepage}

\section[Outline]{}
\frame{\tableofcontents}

\section{Introduction}
\subsection{Overview of the Beamer Class}
\frame
{
  \frametitle{Features of the Beamer Class}

  \begin{itemize}
  \item<1-> Normal LaTeX class.
  \item<2-> Easy overlays.
  \item<3-> No external programs needed.      
  \end{itemize}
}
\end{document}

Then compile the PDF to see the result.

Advantages:

  • free...
  • clear
  • ready templates
  • no need anymore for crazily expensive commercial software
  • a PDF reader if enough
  • No problem to make the same presentation if you are running on Linux, Windows, Mac...

Disadvantages:

  • I'm not sure if this is a disadvantage but you still need to learn how it work
  • Need simple LaTex skills, especially for positioning element into tables.
  • Something else?