Little "Live" Linux's - The coolest things since sliced bread.

Many people know what Linux is, and many people have heard of Knoppix. Knoppix is a wonderful version of Linux that allows you to run Linux directley from your cdrom drive and not use your hard drive at all. There are many versions of these "Live Linux" distros. They all work on the same basic principle, insert the disk in your cdrom, reboot. Your operating system will run soley from the cdrom drive and the ram in your computer, never touching your hard drive. On many versions, it is possible from the boot prompt to tell your system to push all of the information directley to the ram on your computer IE: "knoppix toram". After this boots everything into the ram, you can then actually REMOVE the disk and your running your operating system just from ram, no hard drive or cdrom/cdrw. This allows you to use your cdrom for playing music cd's, burning, or whatever you need to use it for. To get your "Live Linux to boot, ou must have the cdrom drive listed before the hard drive in the boot sequence of your bios, most computers are already set up this way. If not, changing the bio's start up sequence is a needed step in order to get these "Live Linux" cd's to work.

Most of the newer "Live Linux" versions can save to hard drives, usb pen drives, floppy, cdrw, or other mediums all of the downloaded additions or created documents. Many of the smaller versions have the ability to be booted from a usb pen drive. These little Linux's have alot of uses, same as any other hard drive installed Linux does. Mostly, they are just alot of fun to play with and good recovery tools for when things go bad, and eventually, they do, and your glad you have a nice tool like these in your toolbox. They also make for a great way to introduce people to the world of Linux. A safe, fun way for them to experience Linux first hand without the worries of damaging their current system.

What I really want to discuss are the "Live Linux" distro's that are less than 210 mb's in size. These are not as well known as thier big brother Knoppix. Their small size allows them to fit onto the smaller 3" cdr's. These fit nicely into your shirt pocket, and are easy to carry. Don't let their small size fool you though, some of these little monsters pack one heck of a punch. While I'm SURE I haven't begun to scratch the surface when it comes to the total number of these available, I'd like to introduce you to a few of them that you might not be aware of. These next four little distro's I feel are outstanding, and worthy of your bandwidth to aquire them.

First of, lets start with the smallest one.

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Name: Damn Small Linux.
Website: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
Current version: 0.7.2
Size:46.9M
Download URL: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html

One of the really nice things about Damn Small Linux ,other than it's fun to say it's name ;) , is that it will actually fit on "credit card" cdr's, these are even smaller than the 3" 185-210mb cdr's. This baby will fit in your pocket with no problems. The default web browser is Dillo. It's okay, but I'm not real fond of it as it has a tendency to butcher some webpages. Perhaps it's just because I haven't used it enough. Lucky for me, you can dowload the FireFox web browser with just a click and your in business. This little guy packs a mighty big punch for being the smallest of them all. Fun to play with, it's a very usable tool.

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Name: Feather Linux
Website: http://featherlinux.berlios.de/
Current version: 0.5.3
Size:61.4M
Download URL: http://featherlinux.berlios.de/download.htm

This is very similar to Damn Small Linux, a few different applications, but very small. Nice for anyone on dialup that wants to play with a "Live Linux" cd, but doesn't want to reliquish use of their phone for a week. I haven't tried to burn this one on a credit card sized cdr like DSL fits on, but I "think" you would need to use a bigger 3" 185 or 210 MB cdr in order to run this.


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Name: Slax
Website: http://slax.linux-live.org/
Current Version: 4.1.2
Size: 188M
Download URL: http://slax.linux-live.org/download.php

This was "almost" my favorite of the four. The exclusion of xchat in favor of Kopete is what clinched it for me. All in all, this is a VERY slick distro based on slackware. One very nice thing about Slax is that it has the most "Office" type programs on it. Word processor, spreadsheet, calculator, slide presenter, address manager, and an organizer. Definately worth the bandwidth to download this.


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Name: Morphix Combined-Light GUI
Website: http://www.morphix.org/
Current Version: 0.4-1
Size: 203.2M
Download URL: http://www.morphix.org/modules/secti...ticle&artid=15

Morphix is a derivative of Knoppix, another live CD distribution. This one is my favorite "Live Linux" to date. If you don't like this particular version of Morphix, well, they have more to choose from ! You can get any of these from the download page:

Morphix LightGUI - small and nimble
Morphix Gnome / Morphix KDE - for the desktop power-users
Morphix Gamer - for the kid in you

This version of Morphix had everything I'd been looking for in a live linux distro. Mostly I was looking for specific apps, and this had them ready to go. Firefox web browser, Xchat IRC client, vncviewer, Uses XFce as its GUI. and some more specific applications that I needed. All in all, this version has won me over, but your needs may be better filled by one of the other distro's. That's the great thing about Linux... all the choices !!!

If your bored, download the Morphix Gamer :) Pretty cool !!

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Other honorable mentions ;)

Name: SystemRescueCd
Website: http://www.sysresccd.org/index.en.php
Current Version: SystemRescueCd-x86-0.2.14
Size:102M
Download URL: http://www.sysresccd.org/download.en.php

Name: Lamppix Mini cd
Website: http://lamppix.tinowagner.com/
Current Version:
Size: 111M
Download URL: http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/lamppix/

Name: Linux LiveCD Router
Website: http://www.wifi.com.ar/english/cdrouter.html
Current Version: 1.9.6
Size: 93M
Download: http://www.wifi.com.ar/download/livecdrouter/

Here is a BIG list of "Live Linux" cd's for those of you that "Just can't get enough" :D :D
http://www.frozentech.com/content/li...sort=ImageSize
Sorted for your convience from smallest to biggest.

Oh, want to make your computer into a DVD player? :) Check out http://movix.sourceforge.net/ The MoviX project is a series of three different tiny Linux CD distributions containing all the software to boot from a CD and play multimedia files through the MPlayer.

There....... that should keep you busy and your ISP cringing for awhile :)

Crouse

Original article: http://usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=29722