What is a 'Live' Linux distro?

Question

Mandriva 1 2008 spring is the only Linux distro that will run on my laptop. I am so tired of trying to dual boot windows with Linux, so I am now just going to wipe out windows and just install mandriva 1 2008 spring. However, what is a 'live' install? Is mandriva 1 2008 spring completely free of charge, along with some software that I can later install? I guess I'm asking, is mandriva 1 2008 spring like all the other Linux distros in terms of open source? How much free software is there for mandriva 1 2008 spring? Also, are there any problems with mandriva 1 2008 spring that I should watch out for? Any help would be great.

Answer 1

Mandriva 2008.1 is an absolute cracker of a distro. and would highly recommend a permanent installation providing you have 512mb RAM to get the most out of it. You can install direct from the LIVE desktop.

LUg.

Answer 2

A live install is basically where the OS loads up off the CD without changing your filesystem or saving anything to your hard drive, it just loads up off disk. You can then have a play around, albeit a bit slowly and check compatibility and choose if you wish to install or not.

Mandrake has a lot of software available that should suit most things expect Windows gaming.

Answer 3

you can boot up the cd without installing the OS onto your hard drive. allow you to "test run" linux.

Answer 4

A Live Distro is an OS that isn't installed, it loads into ram from your CD Rom. If you are worried about Open source, there are very few linux distros with a high percent of non open source code. You could always choose to use Debian Linux, it is 100% open source and has no copyrighted materials. Right now I am using Iceweasel, which is Firefox without the copyrighted images.

Answer 5

A live install means you run the OS (Operating System), in this case, Mandriva directly from the CD. You don't have to install the OS on your hard drive. You just stick the live CD in your CD drive and it'll boot up the whole OS.

Most ppl. do this before intallin' the OS permanently onto the hard drive, so they get the feel how the OS looks and works

Yes, Mandriva is free of charge

http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free

i haven't tried Mandriva but it should be great because it's the 7th most popular Linux distro (I'm usin' Ubuntu). Here's a review of Mandriva Spring 2008

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/openso...

And this is the summary of Mandriva Spring i got from the article above

"Display: Works perfectly.

Wireless: Works perfectly.

Sound: Works perfectly.

Hibernation: Works for the most part but because of the Live nature the laptop doesn’t want to fully hibernate.

Performance: Outstanding (blows away the currently installed gOS).

Installation: Quirky but simple."

Answer 6

A "Live" Linux CD/DVD is one which will boot up and load into RAM memory and run from the CD/DVD. It does not have to be installed onto the hard drive in order to run. It is fully functional. The "Live" install just means that you can install the operating system from the "Live" session. No need to reboot just in order to install to hard disk.

I am using Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring at this very moment. It is a good distro. I usually use Ubuntu but I like to dual boot and try out different distros. The version you have is the free as in no charge version. There is a ton of software available from the Mandriva repositories after you install it. It does contain "non-free" software as in not open source. If you want to use a version which has only open source free software Mandriva has one of those too.

When discussing Linux there are two types of "free" bandied around. Free as in free beer (no cost) and free as in freedom of speech or freedom from proprietary restrictions.

I am having good results running Mandriva but have found a few bugs. Nothing major though. The one thing I am having a hard time getting used to is the KDE desktop enviroment. The only thing to watch out for is if you want to dual boot. Mandriva uses the UUID in it's boot loader to figure out what to boot. If you install another Linux distro after Mandriva and the boot loader uses a different scheme then Mandriva won't boot up any longer unless you go in and fix the boot loader (GRUB or LILO). Easiest thing is just to install Mandriva second.