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Though other bootable CDs like morphix look promising, I'm impressed with the rate at which Knoppix moves forward. Knoppix has consistently displayed nice polish visually and in terms of usability.

As it's debian-based, I'm hoping some more of the hardware-detection, auto-setup, and visual polish can make it to stock Debian (yes, I know you can "upgrade" to full Debian after booting knoppix). The boot process is cleaned up and functional for new users to Linux, and the speed is remarkable for loading a compressed image off a CD (so long as you have 128+ megs of RAM).

Kudos to those who work and contribute to Knoppix for producing such a quality assembly of open source software in such a useful form.

There are other knoppix remasters of gnome. See the full list, or try a few direct (morphix has had gnome for a while) links.

However, the only thing I sometimes miss are good Linux-based RTS-games. Starcraft works perfectly using Wine, but thats already pretty ancient by todays standards.

Oh, and for those causal gamers, try out the Morphix Game-flavour livecd. It's full of open-source games, and the 0.4 one has Enemy Territory, with modules available for Q3 and UT2003-demo's. It might not convince you completly, but it's fun to just have a cd full of games to take with you, or to get those kid's quiet. Best of all: you don't need to install a thing, it just boots and works.

And now back to our regular programming

I think the parent poster means something a little more like the way the Cygwin installer works, not just the option to roll your own if you know what you're doing.

I agree that would be super cool. I've thought about rolling my own with Morphix, aimed at apache/perl/postgres development with minimal CD access (ie, cooler laptop). But it seems like a big project and I haven't got time.

So, Dark Lord Seth, here is your opportunity for fame and/or Profit!

Make such a critter.

Better yet, make the "Custom Live Linux Maker" live on a miniCD itself, fetching the required packages from Debian or wherever, storing everything in an approved space on the local HD, and burning a nice CD at the end.

Morphix is a modular variant of Knoppix. The FAQ explains the differences between Morphix and Knoppix. Simply put, Morphix is much more flexible than Knoppix.

I did an HD-install of the KDE (3.1.1) main-mod. The only problem I had was the with boot configuration (I have an unusual setup), the problem was solved by downloading the boot-disk image that contains the ever-useful Smart Boot Manager (I wish that more distros would, at least, include this as an option).

Minor problem asside, the install went smoothly, it was much, much easier than installing Debian from DVD. You also get much more recent versions of the desktop packages.

Debian, Knoppix, and Morphix are all excellent projects.

Then again, kids really love the Game iso. Show them Pingus 0.6 and you'll have a few hours extra on your hands (only problem is that they might commandeer your PC to play it on...)

Another option would be to grab a new shiny Xbroadcast minimodule, giving you the option of one XDMCP server and a network of Xclients. Easy administrating once the server has been set up, centralised logging in, and a X client can work on a Pentium 100 without breaking a sweat. Throw in Knoppix hardware detection and no need to install anything on the clients (livecd's people, pay attention) and you have a sure winner.

Yeah, i really need a life, but honestly, making your own liveCD's is nearly as addicting as nethack. Oooo, off for another iso...

Although dyne:bolic seems only to provide free software, it's a little short on packages. Morphix (which is based on Knoppix) avoids non-free software as well, but includes more packages. This makes it more useful as a demonstration for free software, I think.

If you like Linux on CD, you may want to check out Morphix. I don't know if there's already a release, but I guess if you ask it on #dutch at irc.chatjunkies.org, you may get a copy.

Knoppix is great but it's quite monolithic. Morphix is Knoppix-based (with the same great hardware detection) but it is based on modules so you can customize your ISO very easily. For exemple there is a Gnome module, A KDE module, A light GUI module (with ICEwm) and so forth ...

It's also nice because it's a clean Debian unstable whereas Knoppix was (i don't know about 3.2) based on a mix of stable/unstable packages.

The default Gnome2.2 install is very simple and straight-forward, Keeping It Simple is a lesson well-learned, but KDE has it's heavily intergrated desktop that tends to attract Win32-users some more. IMHO, the people trying out linux on their own now are people fed up with MS, but want to still have the idea of control over their system. People just wanting the computer to get things done should feel more at home with Gnome2. But then again, i'm a gtk-fanatic ;)

However, both these desktops need a decent amount of RAM, and for 64mb and less systems icewm does a reasonable job. Would be interested in peoples experience with XFCE4, with it's CDE-look it seems easier to learn for new users (just that i can't get used to it) and it's more attractive than icewm. Rox is great, but their program-install-method is a bit unconventional. A pity, as it's desktop is great (and gtk2 :o)

If the site is a bit slow, check out the mirror, kindly hosted by xs4all

I was playing around with the idea of making chroot-ed jails for a server-based module, but using UML might be the way to go. I'm still working out the installing-procedure, trying to make up my mind if i want a regular debian-distro after an install or a setup like what you are describing.

And yes, it is based on KNOPPIX. well, the 33MB base module is :o)