Best Live CD Linux

alan4cult

I'm not ready to change fully to Linux yet but just wondering what is the best Live CD version of Linux i.e. the ones that boot from a CDROM?

ethernet

I'd suggest Ubuntu or Knoppix.

Most live CDs now have a shortcut on the desktop for you to commit to disk, including Ubuntu.

It's a great way to see if your hardware will work and to get a feel for it. Just don't forget that performance won't be blisteringly fast as the OS will be running from a CD.

Oracle

I'd also recommend the Ubuntu live cd: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/GetUbuntu Goes on smooth, looks slick and everything works- sweet!

djmarkus

personally mepis, mp3 support out of the box

alan4cult

Could I buy an external hard drive say 40GB and put UBUNTU onto it and boot from the external hard drive without interfering with Windows XP on the internal Hard Drive?

Khannie

alan4cult wrote:

Could I buy an external hard drive say 40GB and put UBUNTU onto it and boot from the external hard drive without interfering with Windows XP on the internal Hard Drive?

If your bios supports it, yes.

pickarooney

I'd say MEPIS, or Knoppix. Or any of the multimedia-oriented LiveCDs with codecs pre-installed. I've found the Ubuntu LiveCD pretty terrible - no automounting of hard drives, bad video detection and no possiblity to change the display settings, no music...

There's a good comparative list here.

alan4cult

Khannie wrote:

If your bios supports it, yes.

What kind of support would it need USB-HHD/USB-ZIP? Or is there any way I could boot it as a HDD like an internal hard drive?

Capt'n Midnight

knoppix - have a look for the poor man's install if you have a FAT32 partition and can spare 1GB you boot into DOS and then load the CD image off the hard drive.

big no-no with knoppix is updating it , as it's tweaked up so much that apt-get will nicely trash lots of stuff

h57xiucj2z946q

If you like ubuntu and want a more windows xp like desktop then get kubuntu. As for live cd's I like Knoppix. There is a Fedora live cd out now which should be worth checking.

mwrf

im a fan of beatrix linux, small, simple and fast compared to ubuntu and knoppix.


http://www.watsky.net/

MarkR

Ubuntu for me, but I'm still a novice and haven't used those other ones. Ubuntu does have a lot of help available through it's forums as well if you do have questions.

melekalikimaka

ubuntu, then quickly install automatix and your away

sound_wave

For a lightweight Live CD, I go for Damn Small Linux, 50 megs, based on Debian with Fluxbox as graphical manager. Used it recently to get at a hard drive on an old old machine.