Distribution of the year - PCLinuxOS!
 

As Editor in Chief of the PCLinuxOS Magazine (mag (dot) mypclinuxos (dot) com) I may be a bit prejudiced, but after two years and more than 100 distros installed (or not in some cases), I settled on PCLinuxOS and haven't looked back. There are many other good distros, but this one meets ALL of my needs, and the forum is by far the friendliest I encountered during my long search for a Linux replacement for that other OS.

If you haven't tried it, please do and see if it meets your needs as it does mine. And hang loose, as 0.94 is due out soon.

(Even if you don't install/use PCLinuxOS, check out our magazine. You might find something useful there.)

Tim Robinson

PCLinuxOS, all the tools of knoppix and a large repo of additional software. Whats not to like?

Puppy - easy to mount drives, easy to network. Even I can do it!

Where is the option of Zenlive in the poll??

PCLinuxOS - because all my hardware was detected and configured automatically by even by the live CD.

Puppy! w00f! Because it is PRIMARILY a livecd linux distribution.

For a very light distribution, they put ALOT of effort to make the GUI nice, complete and useful. It has plenty of options for anything you're looking to do. I always have a Puppy CD near by.

Austrumi I think

Sabayon!
 

I have converted more people with my sabayon disk than any other livecd. I work for a communications company, and while troubleshooting internet problems, I toss in Sabayon. I get more ooohs and aaaahhhs with the beryl cube flying around. It's eye candy, yes. But it's perty.

Dyne:Bolic for its uniqueness.

if you use linux and still want to use linux then use puppy ... but , if you use linux and still want to use windows somewhere then use pclinuxos ...

to think about it further , dsl can also be considered as the first catergory linux ... hmm , whatever ...


.

Puppy for me
 

Puppy has got to be a top choice. Its fast, Its simple to learn, the forum is great.Heck it even helped me save the information off a hard drive the so called "Experts" said could not even be accessed, while I was still an absolute newbie.

Hi Jeremy!
What about Mepis? It is live too, and can be installed too. From the same CD of course. Please include.

I chose Ubuntu... coz simply the fact that they'll send it to your door for free impresses many Windows users... they can fool around with it... and if they decide to install it, it really is a breeze :-)

Hooray to Ubuntu for spreading the seed!

Well, I'm not Jeremy, but fwiw I agree. Mepis had the live/install cd nailed down well before ubuntu got their act together. Probably to late to change the poll now.

Of course there are no bad choices among the ones listed.

*Go Knoppix*

SimplyMEPIS is the second option in the poll.

--jeremy

Once again it is vector standard 5.1 Gold live CD

Which is not represented in this poll.

For live distro of the year *2006*, DSL is a winner. Always gets better.

BTW My *favourite* distros (Mepis 3.4.3, Kanotix 2005-04))I didn't vote for as they came out before 2006, and I don't think Mepis/Kanotix did much that I like in 2006.

Lol. Having already voted the choices weren't visible to me.

So how did I know they were all good ones? Simple. This site seldom gets it wrong. ;)

PCLinuxOS
 

It is the best out of the box. Nothing else compares whatever the hype.

I would have to say Slax, great hardware detection (in my experience anyway), customisable and Slackware based. What more can you want? Joint 2nd place to the granddaddy and grandma of live distros, Knoppix and DSL.

I love this Puppy!
 

Just discovered Puppy. Can't believe it. Click..BAM! (Loads from ram). It even let me use my LT modem in my Thinkpad and I was on the net! I have a lot to learn so I will be soaking up a lot of information about this distro.

PCLinuxOS
 

it's the only one that truly caters to the windows migrant. suse is gorgeous and nearly as easy to install, but by no stretch of the imagination as easy to configure. mandriva is easy to install and, to a large extent configure, but trails behind pclos by a wide margin.

the rest are for more experienced users and geeks.

:study:ing for ultra-geek :D

I know korora is quite discussed, due to its binary drivers, but it really is good to show people as an eyecatcher.

Puppy is not just for older machines....
 

I just thought I would comment about a couple of statements about Puppy Linux being good /aimed at older hardware... while it works well with older hardware puppy is no slouch with the newer stuff either, Barry K and the Dev's of that marvel are doing some real innovative stuff,example 'dynamic driver loading' Check out 2.13 to see what I mean.

I now return you to your regular schedule .......

Jase

Knoppix i'll vote for knoppix .........

Hmmm. Was it there before? If it was, than sorry. My mistake.

Trobins2006

Thanks for the link to the PCLinuxOS mag. I have used PCLinuxOS. It is a great distro!

fos

DSL is AMAZING on my thumb drive!

PCLinuxOS .093a Big Daddy

I voted for Knoppix, then read all your posts about Puppy. So I gave it a try, and wow! Now here's a live distro that really has some creativity. I'm really impressed at how much Barry was able to pack into a 86MB iso file. It's so small, so fast, and works so well. Really impressed by its hardware detection and ease of setting up network. I'm glad I read this thread and found out about this great live distro.

(Just one thing I wish Puppy had was WPA_supplicant because I use WPA Personal at home. But I think in the README, Barry mentioned he's still working on the wireless stuff.)

BTW, I like the puppy bark sound when you boot into the system. Neat. =) Wonder if that was from Barry's own puppy.

Puppy rules!! I use it in a class I teach, and it gets the job done fast and well.

Cluster_knoppix
 

CLUSTER_KNOPPIX ALL THE WAY!!!! grrr... guess i'll have to vote knoppix since it is a derivative, but really, cluster knoppix is the coolest (as are some of the other live-boot clustering distros).

not too relevant to list them since they are obviously an extreme minority. would still be fun to see what % they command :D

Which version do you use?

I like my Linux from Scratch live cd. It's the only one I own that will run on my oldest systems without a massive slowdown. It actually has a ton of useful stuff on it, and its zippy even when X is loaded thanks to XFCE.

sabayon because it was novative, I mean an easy way to go into gentoo

I'm voting for Knoppix as it's the only live release I've tried. I use it regularly for maintenance and customer recovery sorts of things. The comments on this forum will likely lead me to try a couple others when I find time.

I have to cast my Vote for Puppy Linux.
Not only is Puppy the Quickest Distro around but it also makes it easier to learn how Linux works.
It has the most friendly helpful forum and you may even get a reply from the Creator of Puppy himself.
I am sending this vote to you from an installed version of Puppy and have added with help from the forum alot of extra Packages.Gimp, Open Office, Opera, Qcad, amsn,xaralx, Mplayer, VLC Player, Audacity, cinepaint, realplayer, gtkpod, acrobat, gqview, xnview, drawswf and more!
Did you know Puppy plays Encryted DVD's has Winmodem support (using it now!) comes with alot of Win32 codecs as standard. Lets see Mepis, SuSe, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora do that. I use to be a Mepis user but got sick of friends sending emails with attachments Mepis just didn't want to open. Not good enough.

As Puppy seems the closest to Slackware then I vote Slackware as my runner up.

My advice is keep an eye on Puppy as things are only going to get better from the coming year.

Fav Live
 

Simply Mepis.

This distro has saved many a Winders user's files.

Live dist ???
 

Been using mepis.... saved my ass once...
but got into Puppy a month ago...
Havin' a lot of fun.....
If ever there was a "LIVE" Dist... it would have to be Puppy... in just about every way!
Regards,
Stocky

I'm voting for Knoppix. Its the best distro ever according to me. Been using it for over 3 years now and it has saved my life on various occasions. I always have it on me. I once even had to boot up on Knoppix to make a presentation, there was a harddrive failure on the university's PC. No need to tell you people the success I had after that. Hehe ...GO FOR KNOPPIX

Helix
 

I would have votes for Helix, but it wasn't available. So Knoppix, the Helix core, gets my vote. Problem is Knoppix is bloated and the menus are not very comprehensive.

Helix fixed that, for what it's for: data recovery on crapped-up Winders drives. Helix is a $$$ maker!

Puppy is my favourite
 

I have found Puppy is very beginner-friendly, is small enough to download quickly, and has everything I need, and I have had excellent support from the forum.

For me I would have to say the livecd that I built myself Rhino Desktop Linux based on slackware 11, it runs KDE, clamav/klamav for fixing those special machines that seem to have problems with virii all the time. Has squashfs, unionfs and loopAES encryption support in the kernel, and is around 580mb, just the right size to fit on a cdrom. Has a graphical installer, although having a few problems with the installation at the moment.

But since mine is not on the list I would have to say Knoppix would definetely be a second runner up for me.

I guess Helix doesn't show because it's a customized Knoppix, am i right ?

Yes, but kannopix is also, and it is listed. Helix is slick as snot for forensics and system recoveries, which is a large part of my own bread and butter.

Never got Puppy to run. I guess it's too "beginner friendly," as I have run Linux exclusively since Mandrake 7.0 came out. :confused:

whats your favorite live distro?
 

I would have to say Damn Small Linux,because thats the only distro that will work on my lapop.All the others would boot and partially work,but DML is the only one that works out of the box. I oould'nt even get ubuntu to work.

Under the radar: the best live distro for me is Austrumi Linux. It is very cool with its cutting edge Enlightenment Window Manager.

So far, Suse Linux is the only version I've found that I don't have to go out and d/l additional software in order to get my basic servers up and running. I use my suse box to manage a basic home network comprised of both linux and windooze machines. I've tried other distributions, but with them I've always had to go out and d/l sendmail, pop, or some other software required to get the functionality I required for my basic network needs!

Puppy just keeps getting better, faster, and with loads of derivatives. I've tried to re-install windows XP and it has been more hassle than Puppy!
Only reason I'm putting XP back on is for Dragon dictate when I have to do large amounts of typing (I have RSI), everything else is Puppy.

opensuse live was just amazing to me. it made me slowly switch to it as my main distro.