What is the easiest way to move mysql from linux box one my local Vista box?

Easiest thing to do would be to do a mysqldump on your linux box, and then import said dump into your local windows database.

First, the mysqldump (docs: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysqldump.html)

mysqldump -u [username] -p [any other options desired] [database name] > dump.sql

The above creates a file called "dump.sql" in the directory you ran that in. Next grab that dump.sql file from your linux box and bring it over to your windows box. Now, you can either use a GUI to import the dump (like navicat or sqlyog, or even phpmyadmin if you happen to have that handy), but the way you normally do this from the command line (on linux, you may have to make an adjustment on windows) is:

mysql -u [username] -p < dump.sql

And that's it! The above line pipes the dump.sql file into mysql. The dump file is nothing more than a bunch of SQL statements, which is why the above works. Sorry for not being able to provide windows-specific command line instructions, it's been a while since I've worked with windows :) Hope that helps.

You can try copying MySQL database files. This should work: they're often binary compatible. On Linux, they're located in /var/lib/mysql