I am interested in test driving various distribution of linux flavors. It is my understanding that I can run a 'live' disk and it runs off of that. Given that, I would like to know that what if, using that linux live CD, if I happen to go to a website, and there is malware, will it write to my hard drive, since my laptop drive has Windows 7 installed ? There are many viruses out there that will write to the boot sector of a hard drive. In summary, how can I safely surf the web using that live distro CD without worrying about having ANY impact on my windows based hard drive install Thank you
as long as the live disk doesn't mount your hdd partitions you are safe... 100% safe.. in fact 99% of malware won't even get a sniff anyway even with the drives mounted UNLESS you deliberately download a file then start windoze and run it... mainly because linux doesn't know what to do with dll's or exe's.. If you are that paranoid (and just why you should be as you seem to be a windoze user exposed to this crap all day every day is a complete mystery.. linux doesn't suffer malware because it's secure to start with) then unplug your hdd .. simples
Also, though there are never any guarantees, only download the images from the OFFICIAL site for that distro, or officially listed mirrors.
distro watch has descriptions of each OS as well as screen shots,you need to keep in mind what your computer hardware is as some disro's will need gruntier machines to run also bear in mind a live cd is not a true rep of it's performance as a cd is far slower http://distrowatch.com/ by the way if you ever want to install XBMC as a standalone OS use the sabayon installer it will give you that option edit: try puppy first it's a small download & once it's loaded it all goes into ram no running from cd,to be honest there's no point in stuff'n around once you find a distro you like just install it,very simple to get the windows mbr back if you need to
Yeah, Puppy's my distro of choice on my works linux box (dual monitor setup), does everything i need of it
doesn't like gamers quad core with stupid 500 watt grafix cards (or should they be called shoeboxes) rigs.. but then again.. I think people who spend that kind of money to play subscription online games are retards in the first place.. as I said.. not an exhaustive list.. better to read up what you have and what you want to do in the first place.. a live cd isn't going to run in 32mb's of ram for a start.... my record for minimal so far is installed to a box with 4 .. now sadly scrapped along with a huge heap of antique hardware.. There is working linux on 2 floppies.. thats great fun have a play with this baby http://tiny.seul.org/en/ Its the smallest practical distro.. there are smaller, but they are so basic and limited they are really only good for totally micro things like the early pocket organisers..
