This article is a quick roundup of “best picks” for Linux Live CD’s.
Why use a Linux Live CD?
Well, there are four main reasons.
* You want to test drive Linux (or that particular distribution). You want to give it a look, and see what programs it offers.
* You want to test your hardware. Will it work with Linux?
* You want to install Linux to your hardware. If you like it, you might want to make the leap right then.
* You want to do real work.
What does real work consist of? Usually, it means:
* Surf the web, meaning “look at html pages.” On occasion, it’s also handy to have built-in plugins: flash, pdf, shockwave, and the codecs necessary to run a movie trailer.
* Email. You might want a dedicated email client. More often, using a CD means that you’re fetching your mail via a browser.
* Chat.
* Open or create an office document. It could be that you’re just trying to read a document, spreadsheet, or Power Point that someone emailed you. Or you’re trying to create one.
* Print. So you view or create a document. Maybe emailing is good enough. Sometimes, you want a copy.
* Read/write to a floppy or USB pen drive. Either of these might store your configuration files, or documents you’re working on as you travel.
Here’s my home collection to date (and while it isn’t complete, it’s a good look at today’s offerings).
* Basilisk (based on Fedora)
* BeatrIX (based on Debian/Knoppix/Ubuntu)
* Berry Linux (based on Fedora)
* Damn Small Linux (based on Debian)
* FreeSBIE (based on Free BSD)
* Gnoppix (Knoppix/Debian plus Gnome, now merged with Ubuntu)
* Kanotix (modified Knoppix/Debian)
* Knoppix (the first big live CD, based on Debian)
* Luit (Debian/Xfce, rox filing system)
* Mandrake Move (based on Mandrake)
* Mepis (Debian)
* Morphix (modular Debian)
* PCLinuxOS Preview (a Mandrake fork)
* Sam (Mandrake/Xfce)
* SLAX (Slackware)
* Suse 9.1 and 9.2 (rpm-based)
* Ubuntu Live (Debian)
* Xfld (Debian/Damn Small Linux and Xfce)
The most significant way to categorize them is their software management systems. Most of the Live CD’s fall into one of two camps: Debian apt-based (Damn Small, Gnoppix, Kanotix, Knoppix, Luit, Mepis, Morphix, Ubuntu, Xfld), or rpm-based (Basilisk, Berry, or SUSE).
As I hope is obvious from the above, Debian is winning. The apt-get program allows the user — at least one who isn’t afraid of the command line — to easily add and remove programs, even to upgrade to a newer distribution with a single command.
In general, all of the Live CD’s booted, found the Internet through an ethernet port, and launched their bundled programs.
Few of them managed to print. Often, it wasn’t even possible to figure out how you were supposed to set this up. (I freely admit that the problem may be me. CUPS has proved slippery for me.) Many of the distros also had trouble locating a wireless connection.
Some, of course, were faster than others. A few were so slow (taking over 5 minutes to load a program, for instance) that they weren’t even worth trying to use on an old Gateway, 128 megabyte machine (see test machines, below).
Some were easier or more pleasurable to use. This, of course, is subjective, a matter (aside from speed and function) of taste. I’ll try to declare my biases as I go along. But in general, “pleasure” means that I found a sense of integral design, a consistent look and feel, a focus on not just lots of choices, but the right choices.
I tested the Linux Live CDs on three machines:
* a Gateway E-3200, PII, with 128 megs of memory, 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X, 10 gig hard drive.
* an HP Pavilion A520n,with 512 megs of memory, nVidia video and sound. The Internet connection for this one is via wireless: an Intersil Corp, PRISMII.5 Wireless LAN card.
* Dell Precision with 256 megs of memory, nVidia video and sound drivers.
_My favorites and why_
On machines with 256 megs or more:
PCLinuxOS (www.pclinuxonline.com) is an offshoot of Mandrake. The work of Texstar and friends, PCLOS is a Live CD that has it all: polish, configuration tools, a KDE desktop that seems designed for someone who wants to work, not just show off the software.
The best part is that it’s all preconfigured: it has the most complete list of browser plugins I’ve seen. Although rpm based, it uses apt-get/Synaptic for software management. The community is smart and helpful.
The repositories are surprisingly rich. You get even more current software than Mandrake. The difference is, PCLOS is more tightly integrated, and in my experience, more stable. PCLOS is what I run on my home machine — after the Live CD assured me that everything worked. (And then I installed Gnome, which works beautifully.)
Ubuntu (www.ubuntulinux.org) is Gnome-based. It doesn’t come with the pre-configured thoughtfulness of PCLOS. But providing you first install it on your hard drive, one 35 minutes session with apt and the online Ubuntu Starter Guide (ubuntuguide.org) packs in everything else you need, from browser plug-ins to Microsoft-compatible fonts. The founder is Mark Shuttleworth, the African dot-com millionaire who bought his way into space — and now focuses his attention on providing affordable computing for the masses.
Ubuntu closely tracks the latest Gnome, and Gnome’s new utilities for setting up network and printers make Ubuntu a breeze to use.
BeatrIX (www.watsky.net) is a sleeper. It’s Knoppix (for hardware recognition), then Ubuntu, with one more cycle of focus and distillation. Pop in the Live CD (which fits on a mini-disc), and put it in front of a computer user who has never seen Linux. They won’t know or care. Stripped to nothing but core apps and a kernelized Gnome, Ubuntu is quick, uses industry standard applications, and is synched to the gold mine of Ubuntu repositories. This is the CD I carry around with me. The website bills this gem as “Small, Simple, and Elegant.” It’s true.
Caution: BeatrIX doesn’t mess with multimedia stuff. Again, with a hard drive install, you can add whatever you want, but it’s target is internet and office use.
Mepis (www.mepis.org) is the home user’s upgrade to Knoppix. It is KDE-based. I’ll admit it: I prefer Gnome. But Mepis has just enough user utilities (to install to hard drive, to set up your wireless network, and more) to convince me that it really wants to do the job. Caution: a “dist-upgrade,” as opposed to just apt-get upgrade,” can (and in my case, did) break the whole installation, as it actually moves you to Debian SID. But Mepis is responsive and comprehensive, with another great community.
_On machines with 128 megs_
When you step down to a 128 meg machine, the choices change some. In general, the window manager determines the speed. Window managers with small footprints — Blackbox, Fluxbox, Xfce, Icewm — are quick and robust. The tradeoff? You get fewer utilities to set up the network and printer. Too, you tend to get a collection of unrelated programs, rather than a consistent interface.
A more full-fledged desktop environment — KDE or Gnome — slows things down. In exchange for the demand on system resources, you get more utilities. Again, I happen to prefer Gnome 2.8’s remarkably straightforward guides to setting up a network connection or printer. It’s hard to do the wrong thing. By contrast, KDE wizards offer too many options, all of which seem strangely equal, and most of which are incorrect.
But both of them have a logic. Both of them work. Moreover, both have other bundled applications that make the computing experience more predictable and therefore comfortable. KDE has the edge on integrated programs: Konqueror, KOffice,KMail, and KOrganizer are far more seamless than Abiword, Gnumeric, and Mozilla (or Firefox and Thunderbird or Evolution).
Openoffice.org runs on all of the above, of course, but is the gorilla at the dinner party — you can dress it up, but it still looks a little out of place. On the other hand, PCLOS uses KDE integration for OOo, which does help.
If speed is the primary desideratum, the best of the Live CD’s ranks as follows:
1st tier:
Damn Small Linux (www.damnsmalllinux.org). It’s a little scary, this fluxbox-based distro is so fast. It took a little noodling around, but I got it to find my wireless. It’s printer config program baffled me. I liked its hell-bent-for-leather approach — but DSL is a hodgepodge. What goes into DSL is clearly governed by these two rules alone: it’s fast, and it fits. I haven’t seen such a mishmash of interfaces and programs since my old DOS computer. It drove me crazy.
Next would be Luit (luitlinux.sarovar.org)– a distro based on Xfce AND DSL. Xfce is an up-and-comer, a low-resource window manager/desktop environment that lends coherence to a distro. Luit feels better than DSL to me, but it doesn’t come with a hard drive install or, as near as I could discover, any way to print. The idea, I gather, is to install Knoppix, then grab Xfce through apt-get.
2nd tier:
In the second tier, all about as fast as each other, are,
* SAM (www.sam-linux.org). This plucky German distro has character. It’s an Xfce/Mandrake combo, which means it’s pretty, and comes with great noob-friendly configuration tools. It has another twist: it includes Textmaker and Planmaker, free versions of commercial office programs. It’s snappy and it makes you happy. Printing was missing, though.
* Morphix (www.morphix.org) has a new Light GUI version that impressed me. It loads fast, from boot to application. To get it to use wireless, I had to type these commands from a terminal window:
sudo iwconfig eth0 essid linksys
sudo iwconfig eth0 key [1] xxxxxx
sudo dhclient eth0
It worked, but I don’t know which is worse: that I finally learned all that, or that I needed to. Moreover, printing involved starting up cups, and configuring it all blind. That’s just harder than it needs to be. But Morphix has promise, too, a modular Linux that just needs an “Ubuntu Starter Guide” clone to be a hard drive install that would wring another year or two out of an “end of life” machine.
* BeatrIX (www.watsky.net), as noted above, is Ubuntu, minus 25 pounds, and in training. Gnome, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Evolution, GAIM. The breakfast of champions.
* SLAX (slax.linux-live.org) surprised me. It wasn’t the fastest. It wasn’t the most modern. KDE-based, it nonetheless looked great to me. It took a second or two to load things, but then ran tight and clean. I begin to see the Slackware appeal. SLAX feels like a distro that stays close to its origins. I couldn’t get it to talk to the wireless network, and couldn’t get it to print — just a little too stripped down for this non-programmer (but because of that, it also fits on a mini-CD). It’s not an install disk, either. But I liked it anyhow.
3rd tier:
* Ubuntu (www.ubuntulinux.org), with 256 megs of memory, has become my work machine distro of choice. But it runs at 128 megs, too, if a little sluggishly. Again, it feels complete and polished.
* Mandrake Move, on my 128 meg machine, was slow to get started. But after that, like SLAX or PCLinuxOS, it felt thoughtfully woven together, a complete environment.
* Knoppix/Kanotix/Mepis. All good choices, but Mepis feels more home user oriented.
* Xfld (ww.xfld.org/Xfld/en/index.html). This one is worth a look. Knoppix hardware detection; Xfce window manager. This is another one I could live in.
PCLOS and SUSE don’t run on 128 meg machines.
For the best “experience” on an older or underpowered machine:
Ubuntu and MandrakeMove are, I think, roughly equal on a slower machine.
But what’s the one live CD to carry around with you, not only to wow your friends, but to do actual work quickly and efficiently: BeatrIX.
_Oddballs_
A couple of quick comments on the distros I don’t recommend.
Basilisk, based on Fedora, was so excruciatingly slow in getting to a GDM login screen, and even slower beyond that, that I can only hope I had a corrupted download. Unusable.
Berry Linux, also based on Fedora, wins the prize for the most entertaining CD start-up routine. First you get a marijuana leaf, then a jackhammer, then a heart, then … A KDE distro, it too looks good. But it also felt sketchy, and if it had any package management tools installed, I couldn’t find them.
FreeSBIE, based on Free BSD and bundled with Xfce, is intriguing, but I couldn’t get it to talk to the wireless network, or to print. It also crashed my system twice. But I’d be willing to check it out again sometime.
Kanotix and Knoppix. Nothing wrong with them at all, and both have rich communities. Just not to my taste. But they do run on lower-capacity machines.
SUSE. I’ve had trouble on every computer I’ve ever tried it on. Sometimes it locks, sometimes it hangs looking for a printer. Who needs it, with so many other choices?
_Conclusion_
Finally, I’d like to thank all of the Live CD producers for their work, their obvious passion for their products, and for the low-risk opportunity to test their vision, before committing it to the hard drive. I spent a happy couple of weeks with their work, and I’m grateful to them.
About the author:
James LaRue is a public library administrator..
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSAlert.
“What does real work consist of? Usually, it means:
* Surf the web, meaning “look at html pages.” On occasion, it’s also handy to have built-in plugins: flash, pdf, shockwave, and the codecs necessary to run a movie trailer. ”
So true o/
I wish the article covered each live CD’s ability to save/restore user preferences to a USB key or network file.
After all, a live CD is most useful for making temporary use of someone else’s machine, and in that case being able to quickly customize the configuration with your own stored prefs is mighty handy.
I too am a live cd user. Berry could own but sadly it needs to lose the 12 year old appeal boot screens and come out with a straight english version.
So I agree with the author: BEATRIX!!! The issues I have with Beatrix are lack of plugins, that I wish were on the cd and perhaps a more cutting edge version of OOo. Maybe even the 2.0 beta! Hmmm. Perhaps overlayfs, and more display drivers would rock also.
My last pick: Xfce demo cd. It’s pretty darn nice.
“Knoppix (the first big live CD, based on Debian)”
Demolinux was there long before Knoppix…
I liked very much this article. Slax is very temptizing; maybe I’ll download it sometime… I still have Arch to test.
Besides, I tried Hikarunix (www.hikarunix.org). It is great in what it is supposed to do: play go and surf the web. Sometimes slow, but otherwise it is worth trying!
You forgot a lot of specific distro…. Ex: Helix anyone?
I’ve just had a good idea (!)
Could somebody put together a DVD with all of the Linux LiveCDs currently available on it? There could be some kind of bootloader (akin to the old AtariST games menus) that let you select which flavour of Linux you want to try?
Just an idea…
John
That should actually be doable…there’s a cd image around with 4 or 5 different live distros on it, including SLAX and Beatrix.
XFLD is fantastic. I love this distro. I’m very excited by XFCE, and this is, of course, made by the same people expressly for demo’ing XFCE.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in that DE.
I’d do it if I could, but my Linux skills don’t stretch that far (and the PhD has to come first).
If anyone decideds to have a go can they let me know?
Cheers,
John
I really like yellow do you have an yellow distro? All others i dont recomend them,
I’m a live cd geek and to me 4 distros are really good.
( A live cd is something LIGHT to bring around ).
KDE base = Slax
Gnome base = Sam
XFCE base = XFLD
Flubox base = Damnsmall
And out of the 4 which one i take with me, XFLD !!!
I have to say I recommend people stay away from ubuntu’s livecd. It’s slow and asks too many questions.
I’ve tried Ubuntu on a few machines and its pretty Horrible IMHO. On my main generic KT266A Nvidia GF 4 512MB XP1900 machine which EVERY livecd and Linux distro works perfectly on, every app in Gnome hangs and never launches. Where’s the QA? This has happened with the latest test version and the orginal Ubuntu Live CD. Considering how well all of the other LiveCD version of Gnome work I assume its just something on Ubuntu that’s flaky. Debian, Fedora, Suse, and every LiveCD I’ve tried Debian/Gnome based or not all run flawlessly so its not some problem on my end.
On my Dell laptop PIII900 256MB Ubuntu is like running XP on a P233 64MB box. SLOOOOOW. In fact the slowest LiveCD I ever used. Again I’ve used dozens of these live cd’s and Ubuntu seems to be the worst of the bunch. Nothing stands out as its a really “generic” gnome install and again, slow as heck. I guess its one way to see what Gnome looks like but beyond that it does nothing to stand out and is certainly notable for the total lack of multimedia capabilities. I respect the philosophy but its a multimedia world and going by that the Ubuntu Livecd is crippled.
My vote goes to DSL or dam small Linux. Fast light and includes all of the basics. That or PCLinuxOS if you really need a lot of apps.
I really liked the layout of the article. Reviews are really informative, but alas… no ppc livecd reviews
I mention this because I was racking my brain trying to find one last night…
there were a LiveCD with Ion3 as window manager – talking about minimalism.
I was wondering if anyone here knew which of these distros had decent support for storing a home directory on a USB-connected drive and included Java. Unfortunately I need both for school.
i tried on some computer suse 9.2 (live cd) without problem… i use it since 2 month on my developper machine (can’t touch the hd…)
Hi, I was wondering, Is peanut any good? I remember years ago, Somebody reccomending it to me. at the time I was 11 years old and my dad was scared that it would break the computer (hah! that’s pretty funny now)
anyways I was thinking of giving it a try. let me know how it is
Dear Brian
I think PCLinuxOS would at the moment be your best choice. It hasn’t reached 1.0 status yet but it is very stable and has a great community.
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/
You won’t be disappointed and if you install it onto your HD you get all the cutting edge software.
Using a live CD to access an email account isn’t recommended if you have a POP3 account. Are you supposed to save your messages to a floppy disk once you’ve read them ?
For those of you wondering about multiple distros on a live CD, the the following was published on osnews.com a little while ago. Courtesy of James Pryor, thank you.
The osnews.com article, click on read comments for info and links.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9045
The multidistro page
http://multidistro.tlm-project.org/
Distrowatch page, look at the bottom of the screen
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20041129#1
Kanotix is NOT based on Knoppix. It does use Knoppix autodetection but that’s about as far as it goes. It also supports ALOT of hardware that other live distros don’t. Also comes in 64bit flavor!
Mepis. “Caution: a “dist-upgrade,” as opposed to just apt-get upgrade,” can (and in my case, did) break the whole installation, as it actually moves you to Debian SID. ”
How can it be so great if you can’t use it in the fashion that Debian was meant to be used? “Moving” to Debian Sid (not SID) does not break a real Debian installation.
I want reviews with more comprehensive hardware compatibility information. What am I supposed to do with “Worked fine on my 800 mhz laptop” and “Never detected my onboard graphics card”. What card? What chipset? Was there a fix? Is this a common problem. I’m not asking for test installs on a hundred platforms, but if you’re going to talk about compatibility, do a little research and find out if your experience with the distro is normal or atypical.
Example: I have a dell inspiron 4100 and a d-link dwlg650 wireless card. Ubuntu Warty has a fatal power management bug with only this model of dell laptop. Any power management call to the kernel locks the machine, hard. This includes changing from A/C to battery. The fix is to use an older kernel. That breaks the wireless card. So, for my particular combination of hardware, Ubuntu Warty is next to useless. On my desktop machine it works like a dream, and on any other dell laptop, this problem wouldn’t exist, but if I’d written this review all I’d have said was: “Warty didn’t work on my laptop. I’d recommend something else.”
I just get frustrated with OSAlert constantly accepting artcles that don’t amount to anything but installer testimonials. Sorry for the rant.
Hey all,
While the reviewer didn’t seem to think much of Kanotix, I think it deserves much more credit than it has been given. It’s the only distro that made my wireless card work without much fuss, includes many useful scripts such as installing ATI 3d drivers (worked perfectly for me), installing mplayer, etc. It also comes with the Klik utility allowing you to easily add other software.
Not to mention, it detects my hardware very well, is fast, and is (to my knowledge) now 100% Debian Sid based, thus allowing me to use local Debian repos for apt without worry. Try doing that with Mepis/Knoppix, etc
If you want useful, try ‘INSERT’. It’s equiped with ‘Captive’ and ‘ClamAV’ besides other goodies. As the ‘ClamAV’ can download updates while running, you can be the hero and use it to save your family and friends WinXP systems when they go down with “the flu”. Captive will let you give them the injection they need to cure those nasty old viruses!
“Demolinux was there long before Knoppix…”
I’d have to dig out my old ‘DemoLinux’ CD, but I was thinking that it was pretty much a ‘Knoppix’ variation.
“Kanotix is NOT based on Knoppix. It does use Knoppix autodetection but that’s about as far as it goes. It also supports ALOT of hardware that other live distros don’t. Also comes in 64bit flavor!
”
The creator is a well known contributor to ‘Knoppix’ and I read an interview with him where he talked about starting from ‘Knoppix’ as a base. Maybe a lot has been changed, but there’s more there than just the detection, at least in spirit and execution.
“As I hope is obvious from the above, Debian is winning. The apt-get program allows the user — at least one who isn’t afraid of the command line — to easily add and remove programs, even to upgrade to a newer distribution with a single command.”
Oh, not this old chestnut *again*. So does urpmi, and so does yum, and so does every other package manager written in the last two years or so. Besides, this is a review of *live CDs*. What does package management have to do with it? Apart from that, a nice roundup. Though I agree it would’ve been nice to compare the USB key functionality (this is one neat thing about Mandrake’s Move).
There’s a nice list of Live CDs at http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php?sort=&showonly=
They just list and link them, without comment, but it can be useful sometimes.
I’ve tried a bunch of them, some for a specific use (e.g. Geexbox or Insert) and some simply because. XFLD wins my personal award for the nicest LiveCD. Maybe not the most useful or the most complete, but the nicest one without doubt.
I am surprised that the writer did not include or perhaps was not aware of the Klik system developing for LiveCD. It is Debian based but not strictly so and enables the download and run of compressed image files (.cmg) of applications provided through the klik url. Knoppix forum klik has info.
Applications such as opera,firefox, and hundreds of smaller utilities, science, mathematics, sound, graphics and much more are already available for download.
An advantage in using .cmg files for apps is that they are in compressed form while resident in the users computer and only when running are decompressed. The compression is nominally 50% for each .cmg file.
Dependencies are involved: when attempting to use some of the apps should there be a lack of dependent support.
Thus a LiveCd becomes “livelier” with minimal storage impact. Each app is separate and can be e-mailed to peers and directly deleted without affecting other programs. Basic klik allows seven apps simultaneously and is expandable for larger systems.
Effectively, the LiveCD is then using two compression systems.
The system has worked on Knoppix, Stux, pclinuxos, and (archlinux desktop).
Linux LiveCD is changing!
“sudo iwconfig eth0 essid linksys”
Talkin about wifi security, it’s not a great idea to use default essid
Not mentioned in the article but definitely the best liveCD for multimedia purposes is dyne:bolic http://www.dynebolic.org/
and there is the LLGP, the Linux Live Gaming Project (or was it the Live Linux Gaming Project?). a nice cd, fully packed with games.
And I don’t agree with the author on Kanotix: its the only livecd that get’s wireless networking done. It’s also usable for the installation of a debian system, unlike knoppix (which, just as mepis did and sometimes does, breaks when doing an apt-get dist-upgrade to SID).
And ubuntu’s latest Live CD’s are indeed almost unusable. try it with a USB keyboard (won’t work, you NEED to have a ps/2 to get it booting… stupid…)
I’ve been using various live distros for a while. The reviewer should have included info re the communities around these distros.
Eventually everyone runs into a problem – and having a good forum to ask the question or search helps a lot
Ubuntu based distros are excellent for this
Knoppix/Katonix are excellent (irc etc)
Mephis is ok
Some of the other distros have limited or no community for support.
Agreed package mgmt on the debian based distros is better.
In my experience with Live CDs (including Knoppix, SuSE, Ubuntu, and Mepis), Mepis has been the best at auto detecting and auto configuring hardware. Mepis worked flawlessly with every PC or Laptop I threw at it. That can’t be said of the others.
Mepis has also been the fastest booting.
And finally Mepis has the best, fastest, and easiest hard disk installer.
Of course, I have yet to try a number of the others mentioned in the article. I’m actually wanting to try Xfld, as I really like the Xfce desktop environment.
check out release candidate 4 v0.1 of Zen Linux,
haven’t made an official release yet. trying to do something dramatically different from what you’re used to.
http://www.phrick.net/~shinzui/zenlinux/zenlinux_v0.1_rc4.iso
I had trouble with the Warty live CD, but the new Hoary development based Live CD is quite nice. They put out a new version every day, available here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live
I know unbuntu has it’s own packages. Some are mixed (knoppix, or it used to be).
Deb’s pkg mgmt is great but I have found,(and he pointed out in the reviews) that you can break stuff rather quickly going from say mixed to unstable.
I know morphix is deb’s unstable, and it’s what I still use, but I had to change a fair amount of stuff to get in working nice for a hard drive install.
My friend is on mandrake and want’s to switch to deb simply for it’s pkg mgmt. I want to know which one of these are deb unstable sources.
Ideally, it would be nice if you could gracefully switch sources with debian, maybe there is some guide.
As one who goes around convincing Winnies to Linnie instead, it is important to have a demo CD to test h/w that also installs. As far as I know, not very far, Kanotix is the only one in this category Live Demo and OS Replacement.
By the way ‘OS Replacement’ is obsolete. My clients are using qpartd to open up some space uder Win and installing; then removing from Windows all information about the internet and using Linux to browse, email & cetera. After all Ulead graphics, Quicken and a few other things are simply done better, err, elsewhere not to mention that there are no decent transpoortation tools Win->Linux even for Thunderbird.
‘OS Replacement’ needs at least a new category, ‘OS Cohabitation’
Is anything other than Kanotix in all the categories of
Live-Demo, Install, OS Cohabitation
?
J
It detected and configured everything down to the wifi card. I am posting using it just now. Neither knoppix nor mepis managed that.
Other cool surprises are the presence of apps like skype and Limewire.
I’ll keep playing with that one.
DLasio said:
“Kanotix is NOT based on Knoppix. It does use Knoppix autodetection but that’s about as far as it goes. It also supports ALOT of hardware that other live distros don’t. Also comes in 64bit flavor!
”
Where is the 64bit version? I didn’t see it on their download page.
Are there any other 64bit livecds?
I’m getting a new 64-bit system tomorrow and I’d love to be able to try it out in the shop.
“My friend is on mandrake and want’s to switch to deb simply for it’s pkg mgmt.”
Do him a favour and point him at http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/UrpmiResources/ and http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ . From the responses I’ve had to questions posted here, there are precisely two things Debian’s package management does that urpmi doesn’t; suggested (i.e. optional) dependencies and pinning. Both are neat, but hardly essential. Equally, there are some things urpmi does that apt doesn’t, notably parallel functionality (which is in the same category). There are many reasons to prefer Debian to other distributions, but package *management* is no longer one of them.
I think PCLinuxOS would at the moment be your best choice. … and if you install it onto your HD you get all the cutting edge software.
Installing on a hard disk is not an option for me at all. I need to be able to run a web browser (preferably Firefox), Java (with Swing, so preferably Sun), and some random word processor, with JetDirect printing support, directly from a CD on computers without hard drives or drives I don’t have permission to touch, and need good hardware detection, since there are at least 5 models of computer I need to support. I am at a school, so I have permission to do this but don’t own the computers. I can use USB-connected drives to store my user settings (FAT-formatted required for cross-platform), but must run off a CD (and not a DVD).
I’ve tried SimplyMEPIS as it comes with Java, but it’s old (uses Mozilla instead of Firefox) and doesn’t automatically support a home directory on a USB drive.
I could rig up an equivalent set up as a Windows live CD, but don’t know enough about Linux to do this myself, and I don’t have time to learn how. So, I need an existing distro. Does anyone have any ideas?
You do know that BSD is not linux, don’t you.
BSD != LINUX
Additionally, it may be possible to employ more than one “overlay file system” (cramfs in .cmg) within the LiveCD.
Thus, perhaps squashfs in addition, romfs in addition, or ramfs in addition.
Perhaps even multiple kernel instances of just cramfs..cramfs1, cramfs2…cramfs(x).
This klik system is not just for one LiveCD type,..PCLINUXOS is not Knoppix based and can accept the klik system. Archlinux is a desktop system and it accepts klik and runs the .cmg apps. STUX also accepts the klik files and runs them.
It is close to pure linux.
I hope this comment serves to amplify the usefulness of Live CD regardless of the OS in use through the mechanism of the klik system.
I earnestly hope that more “overlay file systems” can be initiated in the Linux kernel, multiple instances being the easiest to apply.
Using LiveCD in this manner opens the door for whatever the user desires in applications. User can use it and then delete it, call it back again..whenever!
Linux=57 Varieties x 64 Flavors
FreeSBIE is based on FreeBSD! How ignorant can you be?
I was very surprised to see this article leave out so many nice features about DSL. While it’s design IS to be a fully functional desktop in under 50 MB’s, which explains the mix of cli and gui ( it tries to have an app for each ) , there was no mention of the large repository, or the myDSL system, which is very much like KLIK, in it’s click-n-run style. Nor was the mkmydsl remastering tools mentioned, which allows me to create my “own” DSL, with all the apps I want in it. My latest custom” remaster was a 4GB Bootable DVD-R with the 100’s of the latest apps, dozens of 3D games (UT2003/2004 – Q3A – RTCW), and they are all one click (mountable) installs. Any of you play Quake3 or UT from a “liveCD”? Works great at lan/office parties, and is so configurable and customizable. I did NOT see anything about it’s “Install to Pendrive” options, either. DSL ROCKS booted from a 128MB pendrive, and with qemu in the 5 way boot, you can even run it IN XP!
I feel that there is a LOT under the hood of this little distro that you miss in a 30 second test-drive.
..Try again..
Since when is FreeBSD a Linux flavour?
– first off –
Great review. I have had great luck with Mepis. EASY! but also powerfull.
– PPC –
I run Yellow Dog 4.0 on my 12″ powerbook g4- I looked for ever for a ppc livecd, but no luck.
Finally this last week in the slashdot article on ubuntu release of the livecd I saw that they had a ppc version-
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
download it there-
for a livecd in general – It was alright
for a ppc livecd – best I have found
hope that helps
Thanks, perfect timing! I’ve been looking for a distro to use on a bootable box for all my flatmates so that I don’t have to worry about viruses or maintenance. Their use would be similar to an internet cafe, so a kiosk style fullscreen Firefox would be all I’d need.
If you’re just running one application (firefox) is there any need to have a window manager?
So today I downloaded the firefox distro from livecd.net, morphix light, and stallion 2. All the md5s were fine but only morphix booted! (I use a shuttle SN85G4, athlon 64, 1G ram, Radeon 9600).
So I’m grabbing Beatrix now. It seems all the livecd.net distros are flakey. I wish beatrix’s website had some screenshots about their default configuration, because that stuff matters more when you lose all your settings upon reboot.
Anyway, thanks for the beatrix suggestion.
I have a bootable cd with around 20 small cd/floppy distros on it. Basically, just copy all the stuff onto one cd, and then merge the isolinux.cfg files.
On slax and speed, slax won’t automatically set up swap like knoppix does. If you do a swapon /mnt/disc0part1/knoppix.swp (or whatever), assuming you’ve run knoppix and set that up beforehand, you’ll find it’s much snappier.
1. _Oddballs_
2. A couple of quick comments on the distros I don’t recommend.
3. Kanotix and Knoppix. Nothing wrong with them at all, and both have rich communities. Just not to my taste. But they do run on lower-capacity machines.
Not to your taste? Now what kind of review is that? How can anybody decide if they are the right thing for them? Why don’t you recommend them if there’s nothing wrong with them?
I think this article should have also treated or at least mention how remastering friendly these CD-based distors are.
Last time I knew, FreeBSD was UNIX, not Linux. So why’d it get listed in an article about Linux based live distros?
The only Live CDs I ever use are the ones with a special purpose, such as Knoppix STD (http://www.knoppix-std.org/). The “neat” factor on just surfing the web, and sending instant messages wears with other live cds wears off fast.
—
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http://www.fresh83.com/conga/
“Kanotix and Knoppix. Nothing wrong with them at all, and both have rich communities. Just not to my taste. But they do run on lower-capacity machines.”
According to the Kanotix website, it is optimized for i586, not for older CPUs.
Kurumin Linux is a Brazilian run-from-CD Linux distribution. Based on Knoppix, but in ease of use for newbie I think it is much better. Especially with tons of script for winmodem driver (HSF, HCF, Intel, PCI), USB ADSL modem, wireless, this is the real M$ killer.
With Magic Icons, we can install so many apps just with one click. Easy to install to HD and remaster.
Its version 3.1. only 198MB fit in mini CD.
All LiveCD distros are great, but Kurumin is definitely one of the best.
The only con is it does not support English
Just chek it out, and you will see how brilliant it is:
http://distrowatch.com/kurumin
http://www.guiadohardware.net/kurumin/
Looks like an overall concensus of:
1. XFLD
2. Beatrix
3. Others
From my experience, my opinion is:
I have found that Suse is a very nice product. I am not saying it is perfect. For example I have found it takes a bit of work to play my DVDs I bought but is fine with my home made family videos because of CSS encryption. I guess Suse doesn’t want to, or cannot fight a fair use case for it’s customers.
Any way I have tried the 9.x versions of Suse and they ran fine on all three of the computers I could test it on. For comparison Mandrake has more trouble for me and to a lesser extent PCLinuxOS on just one of my machines.
Other distributions are great on my hardware except for one device I have. I can not use all the features on my ATI All In Wonder 9600 Pro graphics card. No drivers have been developed for the multimedia features -like video in, and hardware acceleration of encoding- for this card. But there is other products that can make up for this. Nvidia has better support although ATI is improving a bit. Many multimedia products work with video4linux.
Wow, hasn’t the number of LiveCDs exploded over the past few years…
Anyway, just a few extra bits about Morphix:
– has an installer and partitioner, you can find them in the morphix control panel
– has a network configuration tool, which also (should) work for wireless connections
Oh, and we have a new Gnome version since yesterday. Not as lean as my personal favorite Xfce4, but might be more useful for powerusers.
rock on,
Alex
I forgot to mention that klik is useable on firefox as well.
It is generally KDE based but the full gamut of useable systems has not been researched.
Furthermore, .cmg files of windows apps are possible but not distributable.
The .cmg files can be generated with cramfstools by the user on the applications of his or her choice.
This makes LiveCD of many different OS builds able to grow with the 64 flavors of Linux available to all users..no straightjacket.
Long live linux!
Sorry for my stress but, why not just say thanks for the time and patience spent on this very very nice, long and useful evaluation ?!
Of course some distros were out, some of we love or hate… they were out. period. Why not post useful info like your evaluations, instead of saying this one is better, this one is older than other, etc ?! What about post some worksheet comparing all evaluations with some important issues ?!
One of the downsides of all of the “live” ISOs is the fact that you get a pile of applications someone else selected. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone came up with a way to build and download a custom, on-the-fly ISO? I’m imagining a web interface with a set of selection boxes in different columns:
Browser? Netscape, Konqueror, Firefox
Email App? Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail
Kernel? 2.4.?? 2.6.??
MultiMedia? XMMS …
You get the idea. Select the parts you want, it gets assembled and a link is generated to download the ISO. I imagine a bare-bones kernel, with additional CD sessions on the ISO for your selections. The bootup sequence assembles the pieces off the CD image.
It’s something I’d be willing to pay for…
Just an idea…
One user is planning to produce .cmg apps from MAC applications.
Then you can have all three worlds on LiveCD, Win, Mac and all forms of Linux to suit your tastes..
No better than other LiveCD’s with .cmg’s…just click and run them.
Berry Linux, also based on Fedora, wins the prize for the most entertaining CD start-up routine. First you get a marijuana leaf, then a jackhammer, then a heart, then …
Goddamned people, it’s not a cannabis leaf, it’s Japanese Maple.
http://www.washington.edu/home/treetour/jmaple.html
Thanks for the comments everybody. There were lots of things I could have and should have covered (especially following through on the USBhome idea), but I agree with an earlier comment. If you have some special area of knowledge, write your own article, and I promise I’ll read and learn from it. As several people pointed out to me, there’s another couple of Live CD uses I didn’t touch on at all: PC recovery, and network administration. I’m sure OSAlert would welcome some authoritative writing on the topics.
I did follow up on one suggestion: I was keeping a spreadsheet of the comparisons as I worked through them. I’ve posted it at:
http://www.jlarue.com/live_cd_chart.html
As for the marijuana leaf, all I can say is, see http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_potleafs.shtml
But the Japanese maple leaf is beautiful. A botanist I ain’t.
Actually,
A Damn Small Linux user named Fordi created a custom build-it-on-the-fly livecd web site.
It works exactly as you hoped.
You are presented with a list of applications and a radio button for each name.
When you are finished selecting your chosen applications, you press the Build It button and the web site spits out a custom livecd ISO made just for you.
Or you can use the standard DSL try-before-you-buy approach and download and test your new applications and then build your own customized livecd using your own computer system instead of a web site.
I’m surprised the author left out Puppy Linux.
Only 50M but does everything, including print.
The most unique little distro out there, and a build system is currently in beta that makes it real easy to build a custom live-CD — someone already has build a 35M web surfing Puppy with Firefox.
Also, it’s *not* based on Debian!
http://www.goosee.com/puppy
Regards,
Barry
Not long time ago I make an article explainig how to put together various Live Cd distros. The article was composed of the article itself and one zip archive (401Kb) containing the folders and menus strutures to put together the diferents Live CD named in my article.
http://www.nautopia.net/archives/es/linux_distribuciones/custom/col…
The article was writed in Spanish but if someone is interested in translate it, feel free to do it, if not I could do it by my self in a pair of weeks if people are really interested and if you can forget the mistakes sure I’ll made in writed English.
Best regards.
AUSTRUMI is small (50MB) live CD based on Slackware Linux. After booting the CD will be automatically ejected, then everything is running very fast. The window manager is fvwm95, nice, familiar and simple.
Default in Latvian but with one click in the menu, it can be changed to English. The package included: office, network, internet, multimedia, games, etc. My dial-up modem connect faster using Austrumi.
Try this unique, nice, lite and simple liveCD here:
http://cyti.latgola.lv/ruuni/index_en.html
SuSe 9.2 LiveCD Gnome: a slow startup but otherwise works like a dream. Pretty too!
SAM: works ok.
Xfld: superfast startup! Didn’t recognize a 3Com940 10/100/1000Base-T network adapter which is bad.
BeatrIX: problems with several video cards and LCDs, didn’t work.
If you dont know is a firewall implementation but its so modular and allergic to network windows thats its its own food group. Uses a floppy for boot information, but I reworked it to run w/o one.
I think it will save the planet…
The 1.3 version is in fact very slow, but the 1.40 gets you to the gdm login prompt in ~ 1Minute (ok, on a 1,5Ghz with 256 Mb of ram)
So far, i recieved no complaints about speed for the 1.40 version, so i`m very interested other expiriences.
Please check: http://www.linux4all.de
Best Regards,
Dirk Westfal
It is sad that no one even mention Vector which is based on Slackware 9.1 or even 10
I use it everyday on my 128meg notebook Compal/Spectec N20u-13
and I also have tried many a distro….
The newest Vector is SOHO 5 rc2 and is a fantastic work of art in my opinion (which is probably not yours…. grin )
There is also a very fast smaller one too but it is still in development — Vector is my definite choice!