title: List of unique strings in database table using Linq?
body: <p>I have a "Tickets" table with somewhat following structure (removed unnecessary columns)</p>
  
  <pre>
  int | string   | int   |
  ID  | Window   | Count |
  ------------------------
  0   | Internet | 10    |
  1   | Phone    | 20    |
  2   | Fax      | 15    |
  3   | Fax      | 10    |
  4   | Internet | 5     |
  .   | .        | .     |
  .   | .        | .     |
  </pre>
  
  <p>And I have mapped this table to a class "Ticket". So I can get all records like this:</p>
  
  <pre>
  var tickets = from t in db.Tickets
                select t;
  </pre>
  
  <p>Now I need to get the list of unique window names in the table. For above table, list would look something like:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Internet</li>
  <li>Phone</li>
  <li>Fax</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Is there anyway to create this list without fetching all records and iterating over them?</p>
  
  <p>I am using SQL Server 2008 express edition.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:
  Thanks for the answers guys it solved the above problem. Just being greedy but is there any way to <em>also</em> get the total of count for each window. For example:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Internet = 15</li>
  <li>Phone = 25</li>
  <li>Fax = 20</li>
  </ul>