I’ve been investigating making a Live CD lately. The reason for this is that I could strip down my favorite Live CD version…put a few mp3’s I like in a ‘music’ file on the desktop…and bring it with me wherever I go. Then I have tunes and my favorite apps on a nice slim Live CD. Not a bad idea if you think about it.
One of the resources I found was a very large list that frozentech has been compiling full of practically every single Live CD distribution available. What a great resource! Interestingly enough, just about every single LiveCD out there can be ‘stripped’ down to include or not include anything you want. This makes it very simple to make your own CD…so I decided to look into it for making customized mp3 Live CD’s or Office CD’s with templates. For info on making your own Live CD, try the following websites:
- http://www.linux-live.org/
- http://mandrakeusers.org/lofiversion/index.php/t10855.html
- http://ibuild.livecd.net/
- http://livecd.berlios.de/?Documentation:HowTo_Create_A_LiveCD
- http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-livecd.html
- http://wiki2.archlinux.org/index.php/Build%20your%20own%20live%20CD
Hope this list entices you to try out building a Live CD for yourself. I plan on incorporating a nice IceWM LiveCD with rescue tools/forensic tools installed to serve as my own “Ultimate Boot CD”.
Another live CD Linux to consider: DamnSmallLinux (http://damnsmalllinux.org)
This distro’s nearing production level status (last I saw, it was at 0.9.2), and packs a heckuva wallop into 50 meg. Think about all the mp3s–or ogg.vorbis’–you could stuff into the remainder of the space on a CD. I’ve found its hardware detection to be good, and it can also be installed to hard drive.