Ok so I know I am little behind writting this article, I have known about and been using Linux Live CDs and USB drives for a few years now and I absolutly love them.  If you are unfamiliar with Linux Live CDs basically you copy a ISO image that is free to download off of many Linux distribution sites to a CD and the boot to it. Just make sure that your computer is able to boot from a CD. The CD will launch and boot up to a linux operating system with full functionality even wireless cards.

Aside from the fact that these are all free items you can download Linux Live CDs offer a wide range of options to help you. One big benifit of a Live CD is that everything is run from the CD so the hard drive is never used to store information. This benifit alone is what has made Linux Live CDs the software of choice for investigators when trying to recover evidence from a computer or even an IT department trying to recover files from a dead laptop.

You can get Live CDs with all different program options on them for anything you want. You can have a CD that is strictly for troubleshooting computers, one for recovery, or even one when you need to deploy a web server at a moments notice.

My real world example was that I had a Windows Vista (yeah I know) laptop that got a virus on it (big shock) and I literlly was unable to even boot the computer to retreive my files because Windows was hosed. I created a Live USB drive with Ubuntu Linux and I boots my computer to that for about a week and was able to do everything I had done before and I was even able to recover my files and put them on an external hard drive. Then I wiped the computer and loaded Linux on it, havn’t had a problem since.

The Live CD List is the best Live Linux list I have seen, this website gives you all the Live CDs you could want and allows you to sort and search them based on what you want the CD to do.

If you know of a better list or have something you would like to add please add your comment.