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Which Linux live-cd do you recommend for zero level users?

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66 replies

by jdclyde

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I was talking with my Uncle yesterday, and we got onto the topic of computers. He doesn't know a lot about them, but is fascinated by them, so he likes to have these discussions with me.

I told him I was running a linux laptop, and had a few desktops that I am going to be loading linux on for my boys, and he stated that he wished he knew more about it. That was when I told him about the liveCD's, for the worry free sampling of a linux desktop.

He didn't understand about making his own disk, so I told him I would just get him one.

He has a very new laptop, running Vista, so it should be able to handle anything we throw at it, but no, I don't know what brand/model.

Which version would you recommend I set him up with?

Are there any issues he needs to know about to keep from breaking his system? :D I saw in one where it asks if you wish to save your settings. That can't/won't mess with Vista, will it?

Thanks.

jd

[i]getting on the road for support, so won't be back until tomorrow to check in on this.[/i]

66 replies

by oh smeg

Only possible problems are the standard WiFi Card may not work and the ability to Install Mandriva to the computer after you have the Desktop running.

I haven't used the Live version because that is all that comes with it I just performed the Install and it went smoothly looks nice and works well.

You can get it here but you want the Free one not the KDE or Gnome. :)

http://www.mandriva.com/en/download

Col

by oh smeg

The Summer Edition of Mandriva comes as a Live Disc which you can chose to install after the system has loaded off the CD.

One of the better ones that I've used recently as well as gOS which works pretty well as well. :0

http://mirrorlinux.net/distros/

Oh and did I say [b]Bump?[/b]

Col

by jdclyde

that comes with BOTH desktops available, right?

by oh smeg

I seem to remember starting it in Gnome and when it was installed installing the KDE because I prefer that one.

I don't think that the Gnome or KDE are Live.

Yep I did check which account I was logged under too. :D

Col

by the scummy one

It depends on different things, so here goes.

Many new users prefer a kde desktop, however the new kde s*cks in comparison to the old. I still prefer PCLOS07, however some might like Ubuntu (gnome) or Mandriva, or a bunch of others.
Basically, a suggestion -- grab a few distros on a live cd. see which one works best for that computer/user.
When I was playing around with distros, I found that on all of the HW I was using, PCLOS was flawless, installed and used everything fine. However SUSE 9 failed on 2 machines, Mandriva failed on 1 machine (interesting as PCLOS worked), Fedora failed on 3 of the 5 :0 , etc..
if one works fine, however has the wrong desktop, try a different version (desktop environment).

And NO, unless you choose to install it to the hard disk, it will not use the hard drive at all, except to read from.

Hmmm, I havent tried, however, it may write to the drive if you go in and tell it the drive is not read only, make a few changes, and re-mount it. However, it may be a hassle :)

by jdclyde

because I have not used many of the liveCDs and wanted personal experience, not reviews that may or may not be biased.

by jdclyde

just something so my uncle can play around with it, no risks involved.

by rob miners

with Mandrake, Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux but I only ran them from CD. I did try to install Red Hat once but I got confused, but that was a long time ago. We had a Lan party playing games once and one of the mates brought his young fella over. I had to find something to keep the young fella amused and I didn't have any more working PC's, so I booted up an old PC with no hard drive and ran PCLinux for him. He was as happy as Larry surfing the net and finding his way around. It kept him going for hours.

by handydan9181

Any live cd should be safe, and the whole raison d'etre for a live cd is so you can try it without installing.

That said, it is likely that NONE of them will work flawlessly on newer hardware without some post-install configuration. It usually takes a year or two for new devices to get well-supported, because the vendors usually don't release the specifications to the open-source community, necessitating some reverse engineering.
Problematic vendors include nvidia, ati, broadcom, et al.

my partisan favorive for years now has been Mepis, try the RC of Mepis 8. Based on Debian Lenny, so it's pretty up-to-date.

by john3347

I recall a couple or three years ago I was experimenting with some linux live CDs and one of them knocked out my network card even after I closed the live CD and removed the CD from the drive. I had to disconnect the computer from the wall plug to reset the network card. (the computer I was using didn't have a switch on the power supply) Other than that, the live CDs worked well for me. I didn't find a "flavor" of Linux to replace my Windows, but the live CDs worked fine with that one exception.

by boxfiddler

I've used both Ubuntu and Mint as Live CD's. Still running Ubuntu 7 (?) on my desktop, and reinstalling a newer version of Mint on my oldest lappie.

Ubuntu is a breeze for a newbie like me, and Mint is just as easy breezy.

edit: I think Mint is a Debian derivative, too.

edit again: forgot the link.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

by jdclyde

do other cd's burn properly?

what brand of blanks were you using?

what speed did you burn them at?

were you chewing gum while trying this?

by jdclyde

]:)

Downloading it now, if for no other reason than to be able to use that title. :D

by oh smeg

Now I'm going to have to find that one and download it. :^0

Defiantly will not look on the Mint Page though. ;)

Col ]:)

by dumphrey

Its derived from Ubuntu, so it has a broad package base, and decent hardware detection, but its main advantages are a unified "control panel" for system settings, and a default install and set up of ndiswrapper for many common wireless cards. Also, the non-lite version includes all the proprietary codecs for media playback. (required note to check legality of said codecs for your area)

by boxfiddler

I used it first on the machine I was dedicating to Linux. It found and identified all my hardware, even the WinModem it couldn't use. I was impressed.

by willcomp

I intended to add a few more comments but got interrupted and just left original response short and semi-sweet.

I use Knoppix to test new builds prior to installing Windows. It's a great way to test a new system and is compatible with most hardware including newer CPUs, mobos, and video cards. Also a great way to differentiate between hardware and OS problems when troubleshooting.

by notsochiguy

I've used it to help demonstrate 'what that whole Linux thing is' to a few people that were curious, but didn't want to 'break' anything on their Win systems.

by jdclyde

so that he can try a few of them.

going to add this to the list, thanks.

by t34.mod.85

I would suggest any Ubuntu live distro.
It's fairly simple to use and manage. Just like any other live distro, pop the cd and boot it. :)

As for the system settings getting messed up, don't worry it will not affect the windows configuration or anything on your filesystem (unless you want it to)

Darko

by jaqui

on what he is used to.
any live cd that defaults to gnome, only if he uses a mac.
[ so ubuntu is a gnome based distro. ]

if he uses windows, pick one with kde.

the similarity of default desktop will make it more comfortable, no matter which one he uses.

by boxfiddler

I'm primarily a Windows user, and I prefer Gnome.

I don't think there's much similarity between either of them and Windows. And naming conventions suck. My biggest gripe with Linux. No way a purely Windows user is going to have an easy time of it with Linux, no matter the distro they use.
Doesn't mean it's not worth the challenge...

by jaqui

said issue free, but that the desktop similarity itself will make the end user more comfortable.

most people are afraid of change. so having it mostly appear the same reduces that fear.

It adds frustrations if they try to fix a problem, since that will emphasize the differences, but in general use, it feels more comfortable to most to have a similar gui.

by jdclyde

and what does he have to be so happy about?

Dang cultural differences! :D

by rob miners

that someone determined. Happy as Larry is supposed to rhyme. We seem to need some fictional character or object to relate to when describing something. The horse bucked so high that I could see that Mrs Ryan was cooking sausages down her chimney. A bit of exaggeration there. Bloody cultural differences. ;)

by oh smeg

Larry was a stooge who was put up for Election by a Political Party here in a No Win Seat. He was expected to spend his money in large amounts to get elected with Bugger All Help for the Party.

He won the seat and ever since the [b]Happy as Larry[/b] has been going around. Though I have no idea who this Larry fellow was but that is what I was told. May not be correct but it's defiantly not meant to rhyme.

Col

by jdclyde

If I am not sure if it is a problem with the HD, the OS, or the rest of the hardware, I will boot to my puppy CD. If it still crashes, I know it is in deep doo doo.

And I know EXACTLY what you were doing with two posts, sniffing for two thumbs! ;\

by the scummy one

I had to re download PCLOS07 2x recently, the first one just didnt work. I had the same problem with Mandriva actually. And for some reason, I gave up trying to get SUSE 11. it would not download properly at all, I tried several servers, and several versions.

by jdclyde

What speed do you use, and what blanks do you buy?

Do you do the burn and test, or just the burn?

I always slow down to 32x, try to stay with a name brand blank, and ALWAYS do burn and test.

by jdclyde

if anything is running on your system while you do the burn it can toast it, including "screen savers" and AV scans.

I wonder if it really was your ISO, your download of the ISO, or something on your end.

by the scummy one

everything else. With SUSE, I couldnt finish downloading it. With PCLOS, I changed servers and it was fine.
Recently from MSDN, it shows downloaded successfully as well, however the file formet never changes from .tmp, so it is unuseable.
second try worked fine??

The build is both in Vista and XP. I tried downloading SUSE from a PCLOS box as well, and still errored after a couple of hours.

by boxfiddler

How about me not knowing what I'm doing? :D

No, I don't chew gum (anymore).

by jdclyde

you did select in your burning software to make from ISO instead of just burning the iso to a disk, right?

If you look at the disk, does it just have one large iso file on it, or does it look like an install disk?

Because the purchased disks worked, I have to assume it wasn't a BIOS booting order issue.

by boxfiddler

Don't know what the problem was...
Don't really care, given how cheap they are to buy.
My time is worth far more than money.

Sometimes they would run as Live distros, but then when I chose to install, the install wouldn't proceed. Sometimes they would only partially boot from CD, then just hang forever.
Bah. Buy 'em and be done with it. Haven't had the problem since I gave up 'making my own'.
Apparently, I'm only 'so good' in the kitchen.
]:)

by ---tk---

I see alot of Great posts! However, I don't think that the user will be best served with a live distribution.

You are probably going to run into a few issues which has been brought up already... Such as the wireless issue and (I dont know if anyone has touched Video) Graphics, and web surfing...

One great thing I love about Linux is the effects you can run on such little hardware. With a live distro, you will not see the power of Compiz/desktop cube... Also by default flash is not installed in FF3, which if he surfs the web, its going to be painfully slow rendering and/or alot of pictures are not going to show up... So in all honesty, I don't think a live distro is going to sell him...

If anything I would tell him that this is a base, and you can build the OS from this point on... also, if his Graphics card is ATI I would not recommend Ubuntu... Another distro might handle it differently... Nvidia however is a different story...

If he does jump into it couple things to search for is ENVYxx (xx= letters that I cant remember, it recently changed) will find the best graphic drivers for your PC, compiz, + the compiz manager (visual candy), VLC (DVD's, MP3's ect...), adobe flash (obvious) and WINE....

by jdclyde

right now, he only has heard the name mentioned, and wanted to fine out some more.

If he likes the liveCD, I will give him one of the many systems I have in my basement and load it up for him. B-)

So he is at the "pull" of information, not a "push" on my part. :D

by jdclyde

No wonder you are having issues, if your connection is so slow as to take hours.

An iso takes me about 30 minutes at work and 20 at home. The connection is timing out.

I wonder if you tried a downloader agent, it would be more likely to send the "keep alives" so the server doesn't think the connection is dead.

by jdclyde

I don't have to WAIT a few daze to try it out. :p

by rob miners

have a Y on the end. Close enough. That's Aussies for you. ;)

by the scummy one

and it states the transfer is successful. And it is the slowest, taking on average 4 hours to download an OS.

SUSE took more than 2 hours, because it hung at about 2 hours.
PCLOS took about 45 minutes.
and PCLOS from home took less than 1/2 hour (I didnt time it, but I was watching Southpark and it was done before the episode was).
didnt I mention the sh!t network here? To open Word/Excel, etc. even on the local system, without unplugging the LAN takes 2-5 minutes. And Outlook -- Holy Cow -- I can jog 2 buildings over and stop for lunch before it opens and updates.

Edit#2: And just to mention, I thought it was my system (XP) so I rebuilt the thing last month -- after loading all of the corporate cr@p (forced installs) the same thing. Immediately after patching the system is sloooowww. Too slow to even consider it useable by most companies, however here, it is the standard :0

The system itself is a dual core 2GHz XP system with 3 GB RAM and a 140GB HDD (7200rpm). I did a few upgrades from standard just to try to help speed it up a little. I didnt notice any difference though :(

by jdclyde

heck, many of our systems are between pIII700 and a P4 1.4, all running xp.

crazy crap they have loaded.

have you looked what is running at startup? :0

by notsochiguy

... much like the little boxes of cereal. Go through them all, pick out the favorites, and buy the big boxes (or in this case, load a winner or two onto a system).

Good luck!

by lewdsquirrel

Hi, I'm a (Windows) network admin for more than 10 years now and wanted to try that "Linux thing" as well. After reading a lot about it I decided to try Linux Mint. It's absolutely great, even for a complete Linux newbee like me. Almost everything works out of the box (had to fight a little bit with my ATI video adapter for 3D- but seems to be the same with any other distro), it comes with all the multimedia stuff, is very intuitive, nice and fast, and also has an active online community for support and troubleshooting. This is now my main system on my home (multimedia ) laptop (not even dual-boot). Give it a try, you will love it!!!

by jdclyde

Already have it downloaded and burnt, thanks to Boxies recommendation earlier, but good to hear that it was an easy distro for you to pick up.

jd

by treibs

Ubuntu 8.10 has a new feature that allows it to be easily installed to a USB drive. Prior to 8.10, installing to a USB drive was a lot more work. Just put a Ubuntu 8.10 cd or dvd in your drive with the computer off, turn it on, and it should boot into Ubuntu as a live cd. Plug in a (preferably empty) USB drive into a USB slot, and Ubuntu should find it. Then select the option on the Ubuntu startup screen that offers to install to a USB drive. It takes a while to read from the live cd and write the whole Ubuntu Linux operating system to the USB drive. When it is done, exit from the live cd, and take the cd out of the drive. Then, with the USB drive plugged in, boot up into Ubuntu from the USB drive. Ubuntu now runs nearly as fast as if you had it installed on a hard drive, whereas you spend a lot of time waiting for a cd to be read if you use just a live cd.
I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on a 4 GB drive, and it works really nice. Just plug it into a USB on nearly any computer, turn on the computer, and it runs. If you have a problem making this work, make sure that your BIOS is set up to boot from USB before it tries to boot from your hard drive. Of course, to boot from a live cd, the BIOS must be set to boot from a cd in the drive before it tries to boot from the hard drive.

I put Ubuntu 8.10 on a 4 GB USB drive, but 2 GB is probably enough, and maybe even 1 GB. A larger one is ok too. The USB drive will allow you to write to the drive when live Ubuntu is running; you cannot write to the live cd.

If you want to put Ubuntu on your hard drive, there is an option on the cd or USB at startup, and also an icon on the desktop to install to your hard drive. Before you commit your computer to doing that, try the live version first.

by oh smeg

Granted this works well on any Computer than can boot from a USB Device but much of the older hardware doesn't have this option as well as the fact here that the OP said he wanted some hints to what others where using for an Uncle not himself.

So giving away several CD's is virtually nothing but doing the same thing with Thumb Drives is a lot more expensive even if you stick to the smallest ones currently available they still cost a lot more than a CD or DVD Blank.

Col

by treibs

I am sorry that I did not make it clear that I suggested using USB drives for speed of operation. I have always found that running Ubuntu, or maybe any live Linux, from a CD is painfully slow, whereas running Ubuntu from a thumb drive is almost like running from a hard drive. The uncle might give up on Linux just because it runs so slowly on a live CD, accompanied by intermittent running noises from the CD drive.
Yes, thumb drives cost a lot more than CDs. At least in the US, the price of thumb drives has decreased substantially in the last few months. Discounts of 50% or more from previous prices have been common in the last month. And you can always reuse a thumb drive when you tire of using it to run live Linux.

by jdclyde

for older pc's that don't boot to a USB device, they have a floppy iso that loads first.

Downloaded, but never got around to trying it.

What I would love to so is make a live CD that could run off of a mini-cd (185meg). :D (for my personal use, of course)

by rob miners

the true meanings. :D

Now that I understumble it could be KIWI and not Aussie. ;)

by oh smeg

Back then NZ was a Territory of AU controlled by the Bank of New South Wales as a fully owned Subsidiary of AU.

They stole a lot of our sayings and so on claiming it as theirs but as they where an AU Territory they had to have everything passed in AU and even printed. They didn't have any Printing Presses or any means to make paper. Then about 50 years after this event when they developed a Unnatural Attraction to Sheep we had to cut them loose with the hope that they would become extinct as you can not breed with sheep.

Unfortunately they did which just proves that they ain't Human after all. :^0

Col

by abdallasamer

Hi there,

it's obvious that your uncle dosen't have that much experience with computers; since that i wouldn't install linux, i'm a linux user and don't believe it's easy enough for entry level users. Windows xp will be a good alternative. i also see your point of installing linux since it's free. it's your call!

by jdclyde

that make perfect linux users.

He enjoys technology, and so while I don't think he is looking to make a switch, he does want to know more about linux.

And as I said originally, he is already using Vista, so XP is not a consideration.

by jdclyde

it is something to consider later on.

He already understands that it will run slower because of running off of a CD instead of a hard drive. The trade-off? You don't have AV software running in the background taking up a lot of processing. B-)

by peconet tietokoneet

Look in your newsagent look for the Linux mags and get him a subscription. This will give him more insight to Linux than the software, plus there will be a troubles page that he can look into and slowly rectify problems given time of course. The best Linux i have (paid for i might add) is Xandros, really good at finding your graphics card(s) and getting them to work, but since this will be on a laptop Xandros might just do it for him. But for the FREE versions i would say, download them, and give him a choice of which he likes/dislikes and then go from there.

by jdclyde

I haven't had a magazine subscription in a long time.

Last one was "Guitar for the practicing musician". :D

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