More fun with LiveCDs.

Unlike my initial look at the Ubuntu one when I tried Mandriva

and Knoppix (both magazine coverdiscs) last night the internet

connection worked a treat.

So I could write a letter saved as a Word Document (to my tiny

little SD card attached to the usb socket), whizz through a

calculation on a spreadsheet programme, browse the internet, do

some internet banking, download a podcast (to my SD card) then

switch off, remove the DVD and unplug my SD card and walk away

without leaving a trace. No change will have happened to the

hard drive of the computer I had used - no cookies, no net

history, no recent document entries, no registry changes, no

spyware and no virus and no nothing.

So if I'm holidaying at a friend's house I could view all my

email attachments safe in the knowledge I'm not going to damage

their machine. I guess could also carry around my own preferred

settings and bookmarks etc around in my SD card).

There's one Live Distro (Puppy Linux?) that is so compact that

you can actually write data to its own disk. Or Geexbox that you

can remove after it has booted so that you can use the ROM-drive

to play a DVD or review other data.

The main use of them I think is for emergency recovery and to check out particular Linux flavours (Mac and Windows-type are also available- see this article) with your current hardware set-up.

But it's not just that: Knoppix is stuffed with 1000+ applications or something ridiculous like that.

Geek heaven.

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