BleepingComputer.com: What Is Your Favorite Live Linux?

Let's keep the fairly simply. Those of use who use Live Linux verisons veruse Full featured distros have tried atleast a couple. In my case 6 different flavors. I want just one version listed, and what makes it your favorite.
Also provide a link for the free download, and to be live it must be able to run from the CD/DVD in RAM. If you have more than one verison or the same distrbution list them but explain what makes verison 1 different from verison two.


Distribution

Puppy Linux


Features

1)Can run from a 256mb RAM drive. Needs no hard drive.

2)Can run from RAM and save a preferences and data created back to the same CD\DVD if a burner is available. This is useful if your need to travel and have computers where you go that have burns and you don't want to leave your data on several coputers. This is called Multisession.

3)Can be ran from CD but the preferences are save to the hard drive. Puppy Linux can reside on a FAT32 partition within a Windows folder. This means you don't have to create a partition to install this Linux. There is a plugin that will allow Puppy to work on a NTSF partition also.

4)Can be install on the hard drive inside of a folder inside of windows. Once again no secondary partition.

5)Can be installed as a stand alone operating system. I have put the older verison an several P-I 200mhz with 64mb of RAM and it was faster than '95. I have not tested the current verison 1.0.7. Verison 1.0.4 works very well though.

I have given over 200 copies of puppy to people that want something other than windows. To date I know that 21 of tham have format over '9x and ar using just Puppy Linux. I gave away several computers over the Christmas holiday to kids that need a computer for school. All of the were P-III 450-500mhz with 128mb RAM and Chubby Puppy 1.0.7 (A variant} and not one of them requested windows once they used it for a while.
I currently use it on a P-II 333mhz w/256mb for my second computer. If you have seen me in chat I was on that computer.
Never having use this before you can go from computer off to online with DSL/Cable in 3 to 7 mins depending what setting you need. Chubby Puppy is the same as the standard, but it has Open Office intergraded into it.
Have not found a down side for me yet.
One last note. I switched my 75 year old mother to it from XP Home and she finds it far simplier. She did not touch a computer till 2 years ago. Late August she moved to Puppy Linux.


http://www.goosee.com/puppy/ (original site)

http://www.puppylinux.org/

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT6545156120.html

hiya acklan puppy is a nice live cd i have alot of them mandrakmove, slax, onebase Go, overclockix, damnsmall linux, luth, whoppix, whax, knoppix-STD, knoppix, the list goes on there all good but i gotta say knoppix out of em all,,
its the daddy of live linux cd's its a gr8 on the fly desktop or recovery tool it can be used from cd and ram to a poorman install where you still boot from cd but it will run off a knoppix file on a hard drive if you put the file there or you can full install it
iv fixed many trashed windows michines with it and recoverd data off of windows michines that could not be saved i have knopix installed on afew of my michines and ubuntu also along with uum (cough cough) windows,, i run ubuntu the most .
ubuntu also has a live cd too but for me if im gonna use a live cd it be knoppix

great question acklan. i've been dying to rave about all the great live distros i've been playing with lately. i'm glad to see other distros mentioned, i'll be sure and give those a try. it's hard to pick a favorite yet cause i'm still pretty new at linux and i might change my mind on the next one i try. each one is more amazing than the last. it's like getting a new computer everytime i pop one of these live cd's in, loool. so i'll say my current favorite is the one i just started using tonight. kanotix 2005 -04. i've tried puppy, dsl, ubuntu, kubuntu, mepis, linspire, pclos, suse, adios, slax, elive, pingwinek, knoppix, goblinx, and vector. i even have debian and fedora i can run inside vmplayer. sorry about the list. i know you said only one. but it's kind of an old joke around linux forums. when you ask for one favorite you get a thousand, looool. i hope you don't mind.

ok, my current favorite is kanotix 2005-04 live cd. released jan 1 2006. i like the number of programs i am finding in here. it also has a package client different from the normal package manager. it's called "klik". it's basically a website with a huge list of applications that download to a file on your live desktop. they do not install. they run from the compressed file. i downloaded the ace of penguins.

this version of kanotix comes with firefox 1.5 and i can usually install all my necessary extensions in a few minutes in any live version. of course you lose all your customizing when you reboot unless you save your configuration. i need to learn how to do that.

the desktop is KDE. icewm and twm environments are available. with KDE comes most of the KDE programs. i think i saw gnome in the klik client also.

some of the cool apps are; streamtuner, vlc, akregator, skype, kopete, an excellent help system, OOo, gimp, and many others i have no idea what they are. anything missing can probably be found thru klik. i'll need at least a week to browse everything, looooooool.

usually i go back to my windows xp after running these live cd's for a few hours but i'm gonna keep this one booted up for awhile. it looks pretty good.

http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribut...th=all&year=all
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kanotix
http://kanotix.com/index.php?&newlang=eng

wanna see a nice list of live cd's
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

2 more live cd's were released just today per distrowatch news
http://distrowatch.com/

i hope it's ok to use image shack around here.

This is great. It's kust what I wanted. I would have like everyone to fouce on one distro so that the new comers could get a first hand on the best features of the distro you emphysis but this is looking good.
Hopefully the newbies looking for a FREE '9X replacement will atleast try it.
Keep it rollig guys (and gals), and post a second if you forget something.

heres a good howto for knoppix its a quick guide on how to do first aid on a trashed michine

http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/

Well I have tried most of the "live" distros and found that
Knoppix did most of what I wanted. Until I installed it to my
hard drive on a laptop. Slow and sloppy.
Then I found PCLinuxOS and it worked flawlessly.
So good in fact that I installed it onto the laptop and everything just works.
Now I have it installed on my desktop.

What is PCLinuxOS?:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/whatis.html

Nice site about PCLOS:
http://www.denverlinux.com/myfirstlinux/

Downloads:(i downloaded pclinuxos-p92 and installed my own nvidia drivers
when i installed it,but you should download the one for your video card)
http://www.pclinuxos.com/download.html

acklan like you i refurb boxs from where i work that are getting the old heave ho! they go to those who need them. i came accross Puppy a few weeks ago and became completely excited about it.

i havn't given any boxs away with it on yet so im glad to read your feed back on it. i have a friend whos a guidence counciler for an inner city school system and he comes accross some very bright kids that really NEED them. and open office 2 is very cool for them to learn everything on. On a P-II 350 with 64 Meg it runs a bit faster than win98 (thats a clean install of win98) but it's every bit as up to date as XP and makes those old machines very usable. (i just threw some 200's away now i can kick myself.) with the linux system the users will have a hard time bogging the box down with spyware and viruses. unfortunatly it can't be used with aol AFAIK. not that im a big fan of aol but its popular with the kids. anybody know of a cheap dial-up for *nix?

but to add to the discussion:

i think SUSE live is really a nice live cd. and it can also be a complete (well basic complete) install to your hard drive if you like it. it doesn't require any additional configuration at all. at least in my experience on a dozen or so machines. open the browser and your online. no net config necessary. however like most "full" linux packages KDE needs memory so it really doesn't make a good replacement on a win98 box without adding memory. the processor is usually fine though.

My kids (the ones who receive the free computers) use local ISPs to connect without problems. Have you tried Juno. They have 10 hours free and the support Lindows. It might work with Puppy.

no ack i havn't. as i said i havn't given this os out yet. and aol or att installs with no problem on windows although im not around when this happens.

id like to know more about you local isp thing, if you dont mind. have you made a deal with them. i could probably get the schools to go for this if any action on there part was required. in the not too distant past i would include net zero which was free and would only run on windows because of the ads. they joined with juno and you might be right about supporting *nix...seem to remember that but its also 10 bucks now too. ill have to check. i also give them to shut-ins which for some reason have become rather hard to find lately but i fear thats going to change shortly.

Juno is free for the firt 10 hours. http://www.juno.com/ . Look under the second add. My local ISP charges $15/mo. No deal by any stretch.
You could try WINE in Linux.

http://www.winehq.com/
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/support_wine/?ad=21
http://mc1soft.com/linux/applications_tested.htm

Juno Platinum Internet service for Linux

Juno Platinum Internet service for the Linux operating system currently supports Linspire.

The minimum system requirements for your PC are:

* 90 MHz Pentium processor with 32 MB of RAM
* 12 MB of free disk space
* 28.8k modem
* SVGA monitor at 800x600 screen resolution.

We recommend:

* 200 MHz Pentium MMX processor with 32 MB of RAM
* At least 20 MB of free disk space
* 56K modem
* SVGA monitor at 800x600 screen resolution
* Sound card and speakers


@9.95 a month that doesn't sound like a bad deal. aol with an emulator would really knock these numbers up

I was looking at the free service. It may not work with linux though.

i use ispwest for dialup it works with linux and its cheep

http://www.ispwest.com/

If they don't make you use software like AOL or Juno does it should. Download Puppy and try yo connect.

no it dont use any software iv been with ISPWest now for over 3 years with no problems i get out gr8 on linux with an exturnel hardware modem hopefully il get cable or dsl here some day to far out in the sticks with to many trees dialups it for me here ..... for now