Giant List Of Linux-based Live CDs

nick58b writes "After searching the Internet and not being able to find a list of all available Linux Live CDs, I decided to create one. In its current form, it attempts to makes finding a Live CD easy. There are nearly 100 Live CD distributions listed so far, with functions ranging from clustering to home entertainment, and ISO image sizes from 5 to 702 Megabytes."

Hmmm.

[Ziviyr]

I guess distrowatch.com is chopped liver.

only 702 MB???

[m303]

The famous Knoppix is also available as DVD version with even more software and stuff. Dunno if it's already on the net.

Re:Growing Distros

[ryanw]

Cost. DVDs cost more and also bandwidth isn't free. So whether they're letting you download it off their site or they're giving them away at their booth... I believe just about everything you need should be able to fit on a 800mb disk. I think the ones that push over a few hundred megs just have stuff "because they can".

Re:Growing Distros

[Anonymous Coward]

One reason: there's no bootable DVD format/support.

While CD booting is now common in many Mobo BIOS, I've yet to see one that will support DVD booting. Sure, there may be some out there already that I've missed (I'll probably find out from replies that there are), but as far as I know, booting from DVD is a different kettle of fish from booting a CD...

Re:that's terrible!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had read the bottom of the page, you would find this!

Know of one not on the list? Have comments/complaints? Send me an email [mailto].

So send him the list of these mysterious CDs, if there is over a 100 live cds, with more being created every day, of course theres going to be some missing!

Forgot Finnix!

[Frogking]

http://www.finnix.org/

Yes, it's outdated but I know the guy who created it and he's pretty cool.

LinuXbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Does any of these boot on Xbox???

I checked out teh one called Plan-B. Sounds pretty cool.

[quote]Plan-B is a bootable Linux environment without the need for a hard drive, it runs entirely in ram or from the cd, based on a basic, stripped installation of Red Hat Linux and the fundamental workings of the SuperRescue CD. A list of tools and utilities are also included for projects such as: * Forensics/Data Recovery * System/Network Analysis and Security Scanning * Temporary Network Device/Server * IDS / NIDS System * Network Status Report Creation

Re:Growing Distros

[daaan]

My Tyan motherboard boots my Debian DVD with no issues at all. None at all. DVD Images (as well as CD images of course...) are available here http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/

Re:Growing Distros

[W2k]

$7.99 is really expensive for a DVD. Over here, even with out gross taxes on writeable media, one DVD-R sets you back about $2, much less if you buy them in bulk. CD's are about $.8, again, much less if you buy them in bulk. A typical CD stores 700 MB, a DVD-R stores 4.7GB. Any compression you can think of that could be applied to squeeze more data into a CD could be applied to the data on a DVD just the same. Just imagine how much you could fit on a single DVD if everything was heavily compressed! Any way you look at it, unless DVD media costs a lot more where you live for some reason, the cost argument is irrelevant after 1.5GB or so.

Re:Growing Distros

[Anonymous Coward]

DVDs boot just like CDs. Both my PCs will boot a dvd. Linux Format has been putting bootable dvds on their coverdisc for the past three months.

Why I passed on MEPIS

[muyuubyou]

1) I had knoppix and to make a HD install is simple enough even for my mom with only minor instruction. Quick, easy and functional and I know it. I knew and had installed Debian before but it's not that because my peeps didn't and they could get it installed.

2) MEPIS website. Sucks bigtime. They list 7 different ways to buy it but not a single way to download it. FAQ doesn't stand for "how to buy it" or "questions I'd love to be asked." After 15 minutes trying to find an FTP download and failing miserably I gave up. Because Knoppix worked anyway and has real support in their and other's page. If I'm kind enough to dedicate my time to trying their distribution out despite having several working alternatives I already know, they should at least don't piss me off with their bullshit.

Re:Sorting the Distros

[Albanach]

does this mean that http://freecache.org/http://www.frozentech.com/con tent/livecd.php should help

From the Freecache FAQ:

What files are being served by FreeCache?

FreeCache can only serve files that are on a web site. If the link to a file on that web site goes away, so will the file in the FreeCaches. Also, there is a minimum size requirement. We don't bother with files smaller than 5MB, as the saved bandwidth does not outweight the protocol overhead in those cases.

So if he were hosting the distros, rather than links to the distros it would help. As it is, his page is way too small for freecache to get involved.

Re:Forgot Finnix!

[jointm1k]

And he's forgotten Openwall Linux [openwall.com] too. It is not the prettiest LiveCD, but it allows you to do most things in order to recover from disasters. And to install Owl ofcourse ;)

crashrecovery.org

[mobius_stripper]

I've been using CDs from Crash Recovery Kit for Linux [crashrecovery.org] for a while, for both crash recovery (obviously), and for quickly booting up Linux on assorted machines for debugging, network connectivity or other tasks.

Krishna

Re:Why I passed on MEPIS

[Ziviyr]

Sorry you got snagged at the website. It is available though, and real smooth install wise once you have the iso/CD.

Its understandable from the MEPIS point of view, if its easier to buy it than to find it on the site, they get more funding. If you're strapped for cash its nice that it's available if you're willing to look for it.

You seem to fit in caterory three, you won't pay for it, you're not worried enough to give it a good hard look and you have an alternative that you're happy enough with.

For those discontented few with little inclination to pay...
Heres where to get the CD images. [mepis.org]

new game: find the live CD trojan Distro...

[SethJohnson]

I dunno. All this random live CD distro stuff is seriously diffusing trustworthiness. if you ask me. When there are only 5 supposed users of one of these Live CD distros, it's quite possible a given downloadable distro could be a trojan. It might either fdisk your hard drive or do any number of things on your LAN. It would be hella-easy to modify a Knoppix to put the ethernet card into promiscuous mode and then forward all interesting data to some IRC server in Bulgaria. Happening while your cousin experiences linux for the first time on a computer at work.

All I'm saying is, stick with the live CD distros coming from as reputable sources as you can possibly find. Avoid the obscure ones.

Tivo CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the several Tivo Boot CD's. These are specifically designed for various Tivo related tasks, such as upgrading Tivo drives, installing networking drivers, etc, etc.

Re:Wifi out of the box

[pinguirico]

Knoppix supports wifi out of the box. At least some wifi. Knoppix 3.1 and 3.2 to recoginze my wifi card (an old school PCMCIA Aironet 340). However I did have to downgrade my card firmware to get knoppix to see it, though I believe that was a 2.4 kernel limitation, not a knoppix limitation.

Great Job

[kompiluj]

Great job, brother!
But I would also add:
SUSE LINUX for i386 Live-Eval [suse.com]
MandrakeMove [mandrakesoft.com]
or were you fishing only for non-commercial ones (or Knoppix derivatives) or something?

Salvare isnt listed

[Leoric]

I use Salvare. It is great, and is loaded with apt, so you never miss any software. Its made for credit card sized CDs, so I am always carring one in my wallet. http://salvare.sourceforge.net/ Salvare is: "Salvare (from the Latin "to rescue") is a small Linux distribution designed for small, credit-card sized CDs which typically hold around 34MB. More Linux than tomsrtbt but less than Knoppix, it aims to provide a useful workstation as well as a rescue disk."

Re:Growing Distros

[MoogMan]

This is a potential misconception from a lot of people. The problem with bootable DVDs arise because the DVD sometimes hasnt enough time to spin up in time for it to be read by the bios. My laptop will boot off a DVD, whereas my main box will not for example

Re:We dont need more LiveCDs!

[bmsleight]

I would like to see a live Boot CD build system which allows you to customize the payload *easily* (easier than it is to actually 'install' something on a local dedicated machine, individually, and administer it, anyway)

This is just what Morphix [morphix.org] allows you to do. It basically takes away the hard work of re-mastering a Knoppix CD.

The base, the Knoppix part contains the kernel, kernel modules, hardware detection, etc. This base is left untouched. You can either a change a mainmod or add lots of minimodules.

The are four basic images [sourceforge.net] to start off with. So making you own LiveCD is much easier.

Brendan

Re:LinuXbox

[dfn_deux]

Dynebolic will boot on an Xbox.... I might be mistaken, but I believe that all the kernel hacking bits to make linux work on Xbox have been accepted into the main 2.6 tree so the next generation of live CDs should theoretically all be Xbox compatible.

Gentoo liveCD

[Anonymous Coward]

The gentoo developers are working on a program that can do just that. Go take a look at the Catalyst homepage:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/catalyst/

How cheap do you want?

[soundman32]

I can buy DVD-R in the UK for UK0.32 (~UD$0.50).

That's only 12p more than a CD!

How cheap do you want it to be?

Neil

LiveDVD .. coming soon (maybe)

[tkdack]

Still somewhat in it's infancy .. Catalyst [gentoo.org].

It is usable now, just requires a little effort to get everything working smoothly.

Re:Wifi out of the box: MandrakeMove

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know if any of these distros have wifi support out of the box?

I tried this with MandrakeMove. It worked right out of the box. They have a free download edition and a purchace edition at a fair price with various USB keys. And the USB integration is well done.

Good luck!

See also

[arvindn]

Wikipedia entry on LiveCD [wikipedia.org]

X-Box live distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't there more live distros for the X-box? I can only think of dyne:bolic [dynebolic.org].

Live CD's

[Techen]

Well, i'll be honest. I'm not a huge Linux fan. I'm not a computer geek. I'm just an average joe that likes to pudder around with his PC. That said, I am forever in debt to slashdot for showing me Knoppix. That CD has saved my bacon so many times. These LIVE CD's are gift to all us computer amatures. When we need to correct/save something we just screwed up, it offers a stable way to make the changes.

WTF!

[Accipiter]

While SLAX is listed in that list, the author didn't note that Disc 2 of Slackware [slackware.com]'s 4 CD set is a bootable live CD.

Go Slackware!

Linux Live

[quinkin]

The Linux Live [linux-live.org] bash scripts were used to create the Slax [linux-live.org] live CD. There is of course the Gentoo live CD site that others have posted.

Q.

Re:Wifi out of the box-Knoppix 3.3.

[jarich]

I've used Slashdot, Debian, mandrake, gnoppix, earlier knoppixes, pcliveOS, etc and so forth.

Knoppix 3.3 is the ~first~ to support most of the hardware on my laptop. The wireless card worked, the dvd player worked, cd burner... it even saw my wife's digital camera!

All this without patching a kernel, downloading a utility or compiling anything. I know that to most hard core linux users, that's okay. But I want a distro that I can use not that I can spend time setting up.

It didn't support the power features of the laptop, but I guess I have to do ~something~ to the kernel to make it feel like linux. :)

Re:For those with Linux installed . . . see Bart!

[jarich]

Of course!

http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

Bart's bootable CDs

I haven't used it but a friend of mine swears it is trivial.

Re:Business Card Distros

[Anonymous Coward]

That wouldn't be Damn Small Linux [damnsmalllinux.org] would it? Seriously, I use it, and it works great on older pc's. The /knoppix folder is only 50 mb or so.
New version 0.6 just out this week.
I currently use 0.5.3.1, DSL is easy to set up to place your restore tarball on the hdd. After that, you can boot without the CD, just use a boot floppy. Very fast that way. I run MozillaFirebird on mine.

Re:How cheap do you want?

[yerfatma]

I have a hard time finding them in the US for anything close to that in small (= 100) quantities. Between $1.00 and $1.50 is as low as I've found. Not expensive, but not so cheap they're throwaway. By comparison, my girlfriend just picked up 50 CDs for $1.00 (after $10 rebate).

Re:Growing Distros

[axxackall]

There is no bootable DVD/UDF (I haven't find it yet). But you still can do a bootable DVD/ISO. It still limits you with 2GB (FAT inheritance).

I am looking now for the way to combine a bootable ISO partition with an additional UDF partitin on the same DVD. I think THAT would solve a problem.

Another feckless list

[Anonymous Coward]

I found several sites with Linux distribution lists online without too much searching. The distribution list at LWN [lwn.net] is more complete (over 300 listed) and more informative. LWN's list includes CD based, floppy based, Zip based, embedded, country specific, etc. Check it out....

Two omissions

[kg4eyf]

Flonix [flonix.com] and Puppy [goosee.com]. These are both small, and capable of being run off of more than a cd, but they do have bootable isos. They both have flash drive versions, which I have taken looks at while designing my USB pen drive distribution RUNT [ncsu.edu].

When I'm doing something people don't understand they don't question whether or not I'm doing my job, because it is my job to do all the things people don't understand.

Re:Live CD Demos

[jarich]

Many of them do that already.

The latest Knoppix (3.3) has a feature to 1) copy the cd into RAM and run from there. 2) Copy the cd to a hard drive partition and run from there or 3) run from the hard drive partition you already copied it to.

I'm not sure how well they play with other distros on the same partition tho

Re:How cheap do you want?

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Try OfficeMax, they regularly have DVD-R discs on sale.

They recently had a 50 pack of 1x rated DVD-R General Use discs for $29.99 prior to a $20 mail in rebate. My sister provided me with a $10 customer appreciation card that brought my total cost down to $1.21 plus the cost of a stamp, after rebate. That works out to just over $0.03 per disc.

I also check the local computer shows where I can regularly buy name brand DVD-R General Use v2.0 rated at 2x or higher for no more than $1 each in packs of 50. I usually pay $45 for a 50 pack of whatever brand they happen to have that month.

Re:Growing Distros

[elgaard]

There are Knoppix DVD's.
The LinuxTAG dvd has Knoppix on it.
I just tried a DVD from a local mag with a Knoppix image on it.

Knoppix is about 2.8 GB so an uncompressed DVD would only double the capacity.

Besides on a DVD a compressed filesystem is probably faster.

Re:Growing Distros

[Pikhq]

It only needs to be UDF for a DVD-Video disc. If you just want DVD ROM, you can use iso9660.

Re:Growing Distros

[dargaud]

> What I think would be really interesting would be multiple LiveCD distros on one CD

The Ultimate boot CD [ultimatebootcd.com] contains various images of boot floppies onto a CD. Let's do the Ultimate boot DVD of various boot CDs !

Re:Growing Distros

[ClioCJS]

To clarify, when I said "This paragraph", I meant paragraph #2.

And the cost I have always gotten for cds is 15 each, DVDs 61 each, which for me is 46M vs 73M per penny.

But I have not bought cds for over a year. That last batch of 1200 was it. I bought about 4000 or so and that's it. (Now, I've purchased over 600 DVD-Rs in the last year.)

To buy? Go to Pricewatch [pricewatch.com] and click on media. My stated costs include shipping as discs are surprisingly heavy. I usually end up buying from AllMediaOutlet [allmediaoutlet.com].

overlooked a list of 56 at lwn.net

[merriam]

LWN's list of 56 CD-based distributions [lwn.net]

This is a section in a list of distributions of various types with short descriptions.