Talk:Live CD

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Contents 1 GoBack 2 Linux Bias 3 Representative samples: basis and purpose? 4 A Suggestion 5 Merge with LiveDistro? 6 VirtualLiveCD 7 Adding more and more Linux LiveCDs to list 8 Clean Up Entire Article 9 Requested Move (Un-Bicapitalisation) 10 Non-OS Live CDs 11 History 12 Recent section on Puppy 13 "True" Live CD 14 Tool CDs 15 Settings 16 Windows? 17 Merging issue 17.1 Vote for Merging "List of LiveCDs" to this article 18 What is "Live"? 19 history from french wiki 20 history 21 Side-effects 22 Distribution ? 23 Puppy linux multisession CD 24 Confusing statement 25 Requested move 25.1 Survey 25.2 Discussion 26 Language note - "LiveCD" or "live CD"? 27 Never Heard of LIVE FLOPPY. Why I am deleting it. 28 Grammar with the word “Data”

[edit] GoBack

I've created an article, GoBack, which refers to this article, regarding accessing non-Microsoft partitions while still keeping GoBack enabled. --Rebroad 16:37, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

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Sorted from most to least recent ...

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Gentoo 2004.3 brings gcc make vi X etc. to PPC ... but then Gentoo 2005.0 drops X, best as I can tell. Whether Gentoo really means to offer a live Linux CD for PPC or not, I'm not sure

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> let's create more up-to-date PPC livecd

Gentoo is live now, I think. Within a month they've responded with interest & fixes to my bug reports, costing me nothing but an e-mail registration at bugs.gentoo.org. Their version 2004.2 is current, in their 2004.3 by now we can hope to see a more automagic launch of the (KDE) desktop, gcc and make, fsck for HFS+, etc.

> how to write livecd

Yah I hate that term.

Yes I agree Live CD is a better way to write it. I personally find the phrase Boot and Run CD more immediately illuminating to the newbie, but I see Iomega has trademarked that phrase. I wonder if the shortest way to explain this idea is to say Linux boot CD and then add that these require no HDD to run Open Office etc.

> any interest in wikipedia livecd

I'm interested, for one. I think live CD are demo discs nonpareil. We can demo Linux itself, but also peripheral hardware of every kind, without risking unrecoverable changes to the boot HDD. For example, I see there is a live CD out there dedicating to demoing how to reprogram Lego robots. [Pat LaVarre, 25th September 2004]

Mail me for a link to a working wikipedia livecd. JureCuhalev - g@owca.info

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I think we need to decide how to write livecd .. is it LiveCD or 'Live CD' or 'live cd' or 'livecd' so it's consistent throught the article

The easiest but maybe not the best way would be to use the article name Honta 22:31, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)

--

from head -- I meant to say that I heard it somewhere once. While writing that paragraph for talk page I didn't research each claim. I have to find this person that gave me this piece of information and research some more. About emulation. In contrast to qemu-i386 you have qemu-ppc which emulates big endian so you can emulate PPC on PC. Another such product is PearPC that allows you to run OSX and MandrakePPC on i386. Well since each great project starts this way .. let's create more up-to-date PPC livecd. I'm also wondering if there is any interest in wikipedia livecd or should I stop developing it?

--

> yellowdog linux from head

Help I do not understand this English. What does "from head" mean?

> yellowdog linux from

YellowDogLinux.com is from Terra Soft.

> yellowdog linux

I notice the string "yellow" does not yet appear in the live CD article.

> About Qemu

Clear now, thank you. I like how the live CD article distinguishes "Emulation" from "List of LiveCDs". What interests Me are live CD in particular, specifically I often want to connect Linux to devices I'm developing, but without having to begin by sacrificing a boot drive. Mac live CD's interest Me because the host is big-endian, which sometimes confuses the kernel and apps. Emulation would interest me more if I believed it emulated a big-endian Mac rather than emulating a little-endian PC.

> Gentoo

Yesterday I saw "A bugs.gentoo.org administrator" tell me Gentoo by design doesn't do more than install itself. Myself, I find Gentoo plus small patches gives me X on any Mac and KDE on new Mac's and less, which is more than I get from the Knoppix live CD ... but as yet I have no gcc and no make in any PPC/ Mac live CD.

> "another nice list of ppc livecds"

Google had found that page for me too, but the showonly tag is new to me, thanks.

Should we mention that page in the article?

Its undated, and its link to SystemRescue has rotted away. Otherwise, it shows only the PPC choices we've been discussing, specifically: Gentoo LiveCD, Knoppix PPC, Knoppix-MiB. I haven't yet tried the -MiB.

--

Well, I was talking about yellowdog linux from head. This is another nice list of ppc livecds: [1] About Qemu: if you have linux installed on your powerpc you can do: qemu-i386 -cdrom knoppix.iso -m 128 and it will boot into i386 livecd. Not very helpful since it's not livecd but still usable if you want to show it to someone but don't have i386 handy.

--

Thank you. For the query of Mac/ PPC live CD that gives us Knoppix and Gentoo, leaving only the Yellow Dog live CD not found (and the Qemu alternative unelaborated).

But ouch, I don't see how I managed to lose track of the research:

19th August 2004, 16:35 GMT

"http://www.google.com/search?q=ppc+livecd+site:www.knoppix.net" thus "Knoppix Customizations" thus

A 2003-07-13 port to PPC:

http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/powerPC/

A 2003-05-22 port with privacy tweaks to PPC:

http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/KnoppixCustomizations

--

Here you have Knoppix PPC image: http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/powerPC/

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I meant that on a PC platform you may find lots and lots of interesting developments while there are only handfull of livecds for PPC. To give more specific example of this. I made wikipedia livecd for i386 platfrom. Flash demo can be found Link http://phi.livecd.net/wikipedia.html here. Yet there will be no PPC version for some time even though I also own a PPC because I don't have enough knowledge and morphix isn't yet ported to PPC. - JC

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> About mac livecds. There are ... PPC Knoppix, and YellowDog Livecds and Gentoo also.

Ouch, for PPC I find only Gentoo. Delightfully up-to-date: 2.6.7 today, close to the kernel.org stable of 2.6.8.1.

> But development in that field isn't as powerful as PC version.

Aye, no gcc, no make, no X, for me here by default.

---

1) Should I now fold your clear answer back into the article? Seems to me anyone visiting the page will want to know which answers apply to their hardware, so we should keep x86, PPC, etc. distinguished?

2) Thanks for moving my question where it belongs, this is only my third day of Wiki.

3) Only "install" CD's, no plainly live CD's, appear on offer at "linux-iso.org" for:

• "Yellow Dog"

(PPC livecd not yet found) no mention at "YD mirror README"

• Qemu (no install either)

Google says this is a virtual PC inside of which I might run Linux. I'm not sure that would help me. Me, I want to modprobe kernel code and i/o tools that I've patched.

• "Knoppix"

(PPC livecd not yet found) no hits at "PPC knopper.net"

• "Gentoo"

Doesn't look real. 2.6.7 uname -msr encouraged me, but no gcc, no make, no X. X is theoretically present, but X itself and Xautoconfig ; X doesn't work for me here (Itanium Powerbook). I'd have said something to Gentoo, but their forums require registration to talk.

4) plavarre "big-endian Linux" is my blog of where I searched fruitlessly before here.

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Yes, the listed ones all work on x86. Qemu also works on PowerPC platform. About mac livecds. There are PPC Knoppix, and YellowDog Livecds and Gentoo also. But development in that field isn't as powerful as PC version.

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Do all of these work only on x86 PC? Where are the LiveCD for Mac? - 172.199.122.159

[edit] Linux Bias

Why is this article so heavily Linux based and biased? Linux is not the only and far from the first OS to do LiveCD.

This article basically reads like an advert for Live Linuces.

Kiand 21:23, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

- Well, I haven't seen many for other operating systems. To be fair, the article does include reference to Windows, BSD, and others. If you know of any others, add them! That's what Wikipedia is about. Andrewferrier 15:13, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)

The article should be moved to Linx LiveCD's and a new one written though. This one is 95% Linux advertising.

FFS, theres a listing of "RPM Based" and "Debian Based" and so on...

First three paragraphs of the Intro are fine, the fourth is advertising, the fifth is OK, the sixth is advertising, and most of the sections are again all Linux advertising.

Linux is not the be-all and end-all of Operating Systems. Just because Wikipedia uses a GNU licence doesn't mean it must forever champion other GNU licenced products.

Kiand 15:42, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Moving an article on LiveCDs to "Linux LiveCDs" makes very little sense. If the article is focusing disproptionately on Linux LiveCDs, that can be corrected -- but given that this is what you think is "advertising":

The syslinux utility is used to boot most LiveCDs as well as Linux floppies. On a PC a bootable CD generally conforms to the El Torito specification which treats a special file on the disc (possibly hidden) as a floppy diskette image. Many Linux LiveCDs use a compressed filesystem image (often with the cloop compressed loopback driver).

I'm sorry, I see a paragraph that looks at the infrastructure that is most commonly to create the most common kind of LiveCDs -- Linux LiveCDs. I don't see "advertising". If you think the proportions are wrong -- for instance, if you have more BSD-based LiveCDs to add to our current list of four -- then by all means, expand our knowledge of what the article currently fails to address. But your assumption that 'this article talks more about Linux LiveCDs than the other kinds because Wikipedians are prejudiced towards other GNU licensed products' is insulting and illogical, and your suggestion that the solution is not to broaden the overview taken by the article but to exile "Linux LiveCDs" into a separate article of its own is illogical and arrogant. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:14, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see you make the automatic assumption I'm a BSD user. Which has less basis than my assumption that a lot of Wikipedians are Linux loving Stallman idolising GNU admirers. Yes, I've got BSD installed on 2 of my boxen, I've got MacOS Classic on more of them, and I don't even touch Apple with a 50 foot bargepole.

This article, no matter how you look at it, is written as if only Linux does LiveCD's well. MacOS Classic CD's were all live. BeOS CD's are all live. Neither of them even touch syslinux or cloop. Neither of them use RPM or Debian package management.

Cut the actual stuff about LiveCD's out of this for a new article and fire the rest into a list of Linux Live CD's. It doesn't need to be here.

Kiand 16:44, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I didn't assume anything about you. I mentioned one example of some information that you might have that, if you could be persuaded to share it instead of whining that it wasn't there and the fact that it wasn't there proved our GNU bias, would improve the article. And you generalized from that one example to an "automatic assumption" on my part.

What I'm saying, and yes I do shrug my shoulders helplessly at the incredibly low chances that you'll get the huge chip off your shoulder and read correctly this time, is that the article has more detail on Linux-based LiveCDs than on other kinds, because a lot of people use Linux LiveCDs, they are enthusiastic about what they use, and they write about what they know. The answer to that is for people who know and can write about the stuff that is currently being left out to stop whining about it being left out and start addressing the imbalance by writing.

Your solution makes about as much sense as a chaperone at a school dance announcing "Well, some of you are out on the floor dancing, while others are just hanging on the sides watching. Obviously, you people out on the floor are doing something unfair to the people on the sides, so we're going to exile you to a different dance, and then this dance will be fair and balanced because everyone will be hanging out on the sides staring at the floor equally." -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:15, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Representative samples: basis and purpose?

I agree with most of [2] these changes, and I agree with the idea of splitting off a List of LiveCDs from the main article. Looking at the shortened list left in the main article, though, it occurs to me that what is most interesting about LiveCDs is the purposes they have been specialized for. What do people think of having two small lists in the main article: one listing LiveCDs that are of note because they're the most popular LiveCD versions of that OS, the other listing LiveCDs that are of note because of their specialized focus? -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:20, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A Suggestion

How about a new entry for LiveDVD? These are starting to be released now. Although there is a 2 GB limit on the primary partition of a bootable DVD on x86 computers, there should be a way to mount the rest of the disk for file storage.

IFAICT the live dvds use standard cd filesystems, and are treated by the system as just extremely large capacity cds. The Booting is therfore done by El Torito floppy emmulation. THus there is no actual limit on the boot partition, just the boot image, which is limited to the size of a floppy image, just like it is on CDs.

[edit] Merge with LiveDistro?

I'm kind of surprised that the original poster who suggested a merge didn't post anything on either page, but I think that's a good idea. Please voice your opinions about the merge. --Bash 04:44, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

LiveDistro should be merged here, not the other way around. LiveDistro implies Linux, whereas LiveCD is more generic.

Darrien 20:42, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, I meant LiveDistro was going to be merged into LiveCD, not LiveCD merged into LiveDistro. I'm willing to go ahead with the merge. Anyone object? --Bash 00:03, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

From the Talk:LiveDistro page:

"Both are good and valid Wikipedia pages.

A LiveCD is a LiveDistro on a CD. There are also LiveDVDs LiveUSBs."

I don't see how the term LiveDistro implies Linux. It seems to imply a live operating system distribution. There are LiveDistros based on kernels such as Hurd, BSD, Solaris, etc. Thus either LiveCD should be merged into LiveDistro, or it should focus on distributions that are distributed strictly on a CD, similar as the page about bootable business card LiveDistros focused particularly on LiveDistros distributed on business card CDs. Personally, I think a merge is not necessary since they are distinct phenomena. What would others think about these ideas?

Something has to be done about LiveDistro. The article it's in a sore state and there are only couple of pages that link to it. I think it should either be merged with LiveCD or it should be made a kind of disambiguation page that directs to LiveCDs, LiveDVDs, LiveUSBs etc. Any opinions. -- AdrianTM 05:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

A LiveDistro is a Live Operating System Distribution, regardless of flavor (Linux, BSD, Mac, etc.), and it can be distributed in many different formats: a LiveCD, a LiveDVD, LiveUSB, etc. A LiveCD just happens to be one media format. LiveCD is more ambiguous than LiveDistro. Additionally, a live cd has more conventional meanings already well in use, such as a musical live cd (though that would also seem to lend towards the term "live (musical) show" in similar respect as LiveCD does to LiveDistro, the specific to the general. If what the content of this article pertains to is software, it seems clear LiveDistro is the more universal term for an operating system distribution packaged on a variety of media formats which don't require installation to a hard drive. What do others think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.25.165.164 (talk) 14:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VirtualLiveCD

anyway we can boot a live cd with virtual server (say, qemu or bochs or UML or xen?) then, after that livecd boot, we can boot another (multiple) livecd from it, each under its own virtual server.

the idea is to boot a system with qemu, then boot a firewall (like devil-linux or sentry firewall) then boot a server (like lamppix) then boot desktop (like damnsmalllinux or austrumi or slax) all running in the same machine at the same time.

how this be done?

-- DennyHalim

[edit] Adding more and more Linux LiveCDs to list

When I read the page, I missed on the list PuppyLinux. I believe it should be there althrough the wish of not adding there more (especially not very widespread) LiveCDs. It has rather unique feature of writing on LiveCD itself. That's why I added PuppyLinux into the list.

--brozkeff

right, thats notable enough; but Mandrake (nothing notable), Rock (PPC only) and that kiosk mode one didn't seem different -enough- to be mentioned individually, so they're gone for the moment. List was getting too big. --Kiand 21:55, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clean Up Entire Article

I don't mean to be a jerk but this is a terrible article. Terrible!

"A LiveCD is an operating system..."

It's not an OS, it's a CD with an OS ON IT.

The original term was LiveDistro and that referred to a live operating system distribution, regardless of media type. It was the software bundle itself that was "the operating system" I think the author referred to, not the physical media, a LiveCD. Thus, the LiveDistro (as it was) *is* an operating system which is stored on many different media types. The phenomenon described on this page has little to do with a CD-ROM or any physical media whatsoever. It's about the distribution of software, that which comprises an operating system with the characteristic of being "live" - executed upon boot. Am I off on this?

"stored on a bootable CD-ROM or DVD-ROM that can be executed from it,"

Does this sentence even make any sense to you at all? It shouldn't! Break it down a little bit. An Object is an Object stored on an Object or Object that can be executed from it. I mean, really, do you guys see how vague that is? Whoever wrote that should be extremely embarassed.

"without installation into permanent memory, such as a hard drive."

Referring to a HDD as memory is taking a pretty huge liberty. This is a technical article, it should be more percise.

"It does this by placing the files..."

Ok the "this" being referred to is the act of rebooting to the old OS after the cd is ejected. Does the LiveCD actually do that? NO. Come on now. Maybe you could say "This is accomplished by..." You guys should know better. This article is a huge embarrassment. Why is there a discussion on emulation? This should be a simple short article. LiveCD's are pretty simple things and I can't see how this article got so screwed up. It's disjointed and incoherent. It's extremely difficult to understand what the heck it's talking about even for someone with ample computer experience. The friend I sent here just got even more confused and the article didn't explain anything useful at all.

[edit] Non-OS Live CDs

There are non-bootable live CDs (without operating systems on) which allow you to run (non-OS) software from the CD on your own OS without installing it first (e.g.: TeX Live). Should the definition be expanded to include these?

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 19:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

There is heaps of software you can run from a CD, an example isn't needed. You can pick a random program and just burn it to CD and then run it. That doesn't make it anything special. Live CDs are bootable. Rav0 08:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think bootable is part of the definition of "Live". Also see Life. Put the non-bootable ones under "See also"? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find a definition for live CD or any specifically software-related definition of live in dead-tree or WWW dictionaries, but non-bootable CDs are sometimes referred to as live, so maybe we should at least mention this fact in the article.

I was assuming that live meant executable here. What exactly is your opinion of what live means in relation to software or CDs? Regarding your reference to life, IMO, any analogy to biological life seems very weak, but I cannot think of anything analogous to booting in biologcal life that is a neccesary component to be considered life, so if you could indulge me...

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 04:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence of the article says this: "A live CD (or liveCD) is an operating system (usually containing other software as well) stored on a bootable CD or DVD that can be run directly from the CD or DVD drive, without installing into permanent memory, such as a hard drive." Maybe you should should create an article that lists applications that can be run from single files and don't need to be installed. --Mutley 09:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

When was the first use of an operating system that ran entirely off a CD? I can see that operating system installation CDs would have been among the first to be bootable, but I think the relevant one here would be, which one ran entirely off CD first? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

First version of MacOS to come on CD would have been the first OS to run fully off CD. 7.5 or so, I believe this would be. On x86, it was BeOS R3, 1998. --Kiand 17:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

How can we pin this down to a source? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 00:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent section on Puppy

Hi, just somewhat copyedited this section:

Another distro called Puppy Linux makes liveCDs in the size range of 39 MB to 90 MB and Puppy boots very fast.

Can anyone confirm that Puppy boots faster than DSL? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 10:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "True" Live CD

dyne:II is not going to be the first "true" LiveCD, as SLAX and Morphix have had modular ISOs for years. Also, the line about LiveCDs not being modifiable is wrong. Many current popular distros use UnionFS and similar filesystems, allowing them to be modified when they are running. Knoppix, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, SLAX, DSL, Puppy, MEPIS, and Kanotix are some which can be modified. Saying that "most of them are nothing more than a demo" is just plain wrong and an insult to they many developers who work on them. I am going to delete this section for these reasons. -Nick58b 02:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tool CDs

What about "stand-alone single-purpose tool CDs" like stress-test suites (e.g. Memtest86) or virus scanners or "firewall-on-a-CD"s or similar? Do these count as LiveCDs? — Tobias Bergemann 09:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

 Nope --SkyWalker 22:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Settings

If I wanna boot ubuntu as a CD, how can I save my settings? I have a USB HD, is there a way I got run my profile off that? RealG187 15:51, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows?

Does Windows have a liveCD or liveDistro? I have never heard of it, and I can't see a reference. (80.202.255.81 04:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC))

Yes see bartpe and winpe--Mutley 09:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging issue

I think we either need to merge List of LiveCDs to this article or move the list from this article to the List of LiveCDs article.

• Perhaps we create an article called List of LiveDistros? A list is a useful article, distinct from a summary article. There are a lot of list articles on Wikipedia. The list would just list the livedistros, whereas the LiveDistro page would summarize the phenomenon of a LiveDistro. Thoughts?

[edit] Vote for Merging "List of LiveCDs" to this article

• I agree. The List of LiveCDs should be merged with the LiveDistro section. --Mark Alfred 01:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• I vote for. -- AdrianTM 02:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• I also vote for. It would be better to concatinate the two lists of LiveCDs into one article, that way it won't be possible for the LiveDistro article to somehow end up with more list entries than List of Live CDs. --Theslash 01:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
• I agree. LiveDistro is a more accurate term as both lists should include OS's that can be loaded from DVD, or USB memory sticks. LiveCD should be redirected to the LiveDistro page JColeson 13:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

My oppinion never matters.... ever take a look at meta-reference ever take a look at the 'uses in popular culture' section? The list is out of control... never merge lists as it only creates complications.

• OK, I merged and redirected List of LiveCDs to this article. Case closed. -- AdrianTM 00:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is "Live"?

The real question is how is 'Live' defined. The LiveCD page seems to define 'live' as: "that can be executed from it, without installation into permanent memory" - I guess a cd is not memory, rather media? But if it runs in ram, isn't that memory?

RAM is memory but is not permanent -- AdrianTM 06:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Should be marged. Both articles complete each other.

[edit] history from french wiki

Le concept de Live CD Linux a été utilisé en premier par Slackware dès 1995, puis fut développé de 1999 à 2002 par DemoLinux. Ce n'est cependant qu'avec la Knoppix (réalisée à partir de Debian) que ce type de système a pris son essor, aux alentours de l'année 2003. D'autres distributions Live CD ont rapidement suivi.

[edit] history

Shouldn't Yggdrasil Linux get a mention here? It was the first distro released on CD and claimed to be able to run live.

My first exposure to a really eye-opening live CD was demolinux, long before knoppix was out. Their FAQ page was last updated in Nov 2000 (as I check it Mar 13,2007). It helped a lot with my Linux advocacy.

[edit] Side-effects

Are there any side effects of using a LiveDistro? Since it uses the ram, isn't there some sort of footprint left after using a livedistro? And what if you don't exit the livedistro properly? wouldn't that mess up your computer?

also, can't you install things from the internet as well as other things online, thus modify your HD? \

Any of these things should be included in the article. --165.230.46.151 22:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Distribution ?

Is it really distribution? Distribution is Linuxism and there are BSD's and Solaris' LiveCDs which represent preinstalled on CD operation system. There should be some other word describing it. --Tigga en 08:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

"Distribution" comes indeed from "Linux distributions", but I think it can be very well used (and it is) to mean "OS distribution". -- AdrianTM 14:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with this question, out of all the LiveCD and Knoppix books and websites available, the only time I have seen the term "LiveDistro" is on livedistro.org and here. Even a google search shows these two sites as the only ones perpetuating the new term. I'm not against an all-encompassing new term for LiveCD/DVD/USB etc, but if we're going to create one, I agree that the Linux "distro" slant will be confusing, especially with Windows, OS X, DOS, Darwin, BSD, Solaris, Zeta, and ReactOS LiveCDs currently available. LiveCD (or live CD) is the most encompassing term used today for both OS and media type, and would be the term I would have expected to find on Wikipedia. Some examples are:

• Christopher Negus' Live Linux CDs, the most comprehensive book on LiveCDs, also covers LiveDVDs and LiveUSB, but does not mention the term "LiveDistro"
• Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Debian all have LiveCDs, LiveDVDs and LiveUSB, not the term "LiveDistros"

--NicholasBrand 20:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

WTF? Using the term "LiveDistro" for everything LiveCD and LiveDVD related sounds like advertising for livedistro.org. Is there a procedure to ask for cites on the naming of a page? Sorry, forgot my password. --69.17.124.2 19:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Puppy linux multisession CD

I am not a heavy Linux user but what I think is worth mentioning in the article is the Puppy Linux multisession LiveCD or DVD. With this you are able to store data on the CD or DVD (whatever you use) so that you can use it later on. I don't think other LiveCD's have this same possibility. But since I am not an expert, I leave it to others to write about it. Wereldburger758 16:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing statement

From the "Emulation" section of the article:

"Both but VMware are free software under GPL license."

What exactly does that mean? If it said "All but VMware..." I would understand it, but I've never seen a sentence worded "Both but VMware...". It doesn't make grammatical sense to me. ::Travis Evans 01:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Language note - "LiveCD" or "live CD"?

IMHO the name should be Live CD, and in the text live CD should be used. This is both per WP:COMMONNAME, and per English capitalization rules. This article is not about some concrete LiveCD but about various types of live CDs. Compare with Sun and suns; God and gods.

However, because of a merge of previously existing Live CD to LiveDistro, which in turn has been ranamed to LiveCD, such move is not a trivial operation. How to perform it, while preserving edit histories of Live CD and LiveCD? --Kubanczyk 14:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Never Heard of LIVE FLOPPY. Why I am deleting it.

I'd like to delete the reference to "live floppy". It might be replaced by "boot floppy," but it should probably be deleted altogether. The reason they weren't called "live" is because from the earliest days of the consumer market, 5.25 and 3.5 floppies contained, and were used to boot operating systems. (can someone provide a reference for "live floppy?") In fact DOS stands for Disk Operating System. Before IBM PCs, Apple IIs and Commodore 64s needed to boot from specially designated 5.25 "boot disks" in order to load any software at all. Hard Drives became available for PCs and were affordable before CD drives, and so Operating Systems were installed directly onto hard drives. Even though some Operating Systems came on on Bootable CDs, the CD Drives were generally much too slow for running major applications. The first bootable Linux CD I ever encountered was a Debian 2.1.9 distro labelled "Slink and a half" in 1999, and it was not "live." It would boot specifically and only in order to install the system on a hard drive. Even though MS-DOS with utilities, a stripped-down barebones Macintosh OS, and other OSes could be run directly from CDs, this was mainly done to run diagnostic and repair utilities. There was little reason not to install directly on a hard drive. However, in the case of Linux, the OS was meeting resistance in the consumer market because of the difficulty and effort and risk involved with installing an additional partition on the hard drive, particularly the ext2 filesystem. The term "Live CD" was coined because after typical PC RAM was large enough and 52X speed CD drives and CD burners were widespread among PC owners, it finally became convenient and practical to boot the kernel, run X11, a window manager and GUI applications directly from a CD without disturbing the OS (generally Windows on FAT32 or NTFS) n the hard drive. This was a new and different situation for Linux than other OSes, because the updates/upgrades were being released so quickly, different distributions and versions were being offered online, and especially because users were burning their own CDs. Copying Linux from the installation media was also encouraged instead of actively hindered and discouraged with such things as requiring the input of long and elaborate serial numbers and lengthy and complicated installation procedures. Hopefully I've answered some questions, or at least provided some hints for researching the etymology of "Live CD", and went beyond justifying the deletion of a couple of words in the article. It seems likely in the future, the specific term "Live CD" is going into disuse as "boot floppy" has, so the point may be moot! ;) Cuvtixo 04:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Root cause of most problems with any article (and especially with this one), is a poor definition. There is a reason why WP:MOS requires an article to start with a precise definition, preferably in the first sentence of the lead section. It creates a common ground for everybody to contribute. Another thing, it should be backed by reliable sources, otherwise there is no point whatsoever in including it in Wikipedia. Then let's see how this one starts:

"LiveDistro or Live CD is a generic term for an operating system distribution that is executed upon boot, without installation on a hard drive."

So... Every OS, that isn't installed on HDD is a LiveXXX... Nice one. Historically insightful. Oh, somebody should inform people of 1960s that they used LiveTapes back then. And modern embedded systems? They obviously use LiveEEPROMs, hmm? --Kubanczyk 17:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar with the word “Data”

A recent edit changed “On computers, optical discs were originally intended for storing data,...it was mostly installation files...” to “On computers, optical discs were originally intended for storing data,...those were mostly installation files...” with the rationale that “data” is plural. Although I know “data” is plural, referring to “data” as “those” sounds strange to me (and I'm a native English speaker). Can anyone shed some light on this? ::Travis Evans 23:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not native English speaker but I think you are right: "data is good", "time is money", etc. -- AdrianTM 01:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, as a non-native speaker I checked this in the Wiktionary. "(1) Colloquially, this word is often used as an uncountable noun with a singular verb. (2) In formal or scientific writing, this word is usually a plural noun, with singular datum." --Kubanczyk 06:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)