Using "Live" version of Linux.

dos2unix

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What's a live version of Linux? Are some versions dead? Hmmm... that could be a trick question. :D

In this case, all "Live" means is, that you can run it from a USB thumb drive. You don't actually have to install it to your hard drive.

If you go to a site like
... and you look at the list on the right side of the page, you will see a list of 100 Linux distro's. The list doesn't show "the most popular".
It shows which distro pages got the most hits recently. The list changes order from time to time, and the distro that got the most hits last week, isn't necessarily the one that will get the most hits next week. There are more 100 Linux distros. (distributions) out there. This is just this week's "hit list".

Yesterday, I wrote an article about to burn a Linux distro to a USB drive from Windows.

The question inevitably becomes... "which distro do I use?" The dreaded distro question.
Well, I'm going to go ahead and recommend a few here. Not because they're better than other distros, but because you can run them "live".

There are several advantages to live distros. It's a good way to get your feet wet without diving in over your head.
Maybe you won't even like Linux. It's not for everybody (am I allowed to say that on Linux site?). But this is an easy way to try it without installing it to your hard drive. If you like it, you can always install it later. Another advantage to doing this, is that you know if all your hardware works with Linux. Your video card, your network chipset, your wi-fi, your sound card, all the things you want to work
when you're using your computer.

Another advantage to running "Live" versions of Linux, is that you can try many different distros easily. If you happen to have 4 or 5 USB thumb drives laying around, put a different distro on each one and try them all. If you only have one or two thumb drives. You just "over-write" the distro you tried yesterday and try a different version today. Keep trying until you find one you like.

The main disadvantage to "Live" distros, is that they are meant to be "light-weight". They don't have a lot of stuff installed on them. Typically you get the minimum number of applications. A desktop, a browsers, a command line, some network tools to get you on-line, and maybe a couple of office type applications like a word processor. If you're lucky they might have one simple game. If you have a discrete video card like an nvidia geforce or an AMD radeon, chances are, the "Live" version won't have your video drivers included. Linux will still run, you just might not get the best video performance out of the box.

When you go to a distro's web site. You will often see a choice of different versions of the same distro.
It's not bad enough that you have to pick a distro. Now there is an additional choice of which version of that distro do I use?
When I say version here... I don't necessarily mean which release. I'll explain.

Often Linux distro sites, will have iso's that you can download, and they will say something like...
workstation.iso, or server.iso, or boot.iso or netboot.iso, and usually something like full-dvd.iso. Which one do we use. You want the one that says "live.iso". You can always install the "full-blown" version later once you find a distro that you like.

The other thing, is you will see different releases, like release 2023 or release 2024, or maybe release 33 or release 34. As a rule, I recommend the newest/latest version unless there is a specific reason not to use it.

Finally, there is sometimes a 32-bit version, and a 64-bit version. If you're not sure, go with the 64-bit version. I would guess 95% of the people reading this have 64-bit computers.

Hopefully all of this makes sense. it's a lot to digest. So here we go, these aren't necessarily in any order.

Mint-live. - https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php - The current version is 22.1
One thing I don't like about the Mint website, is that it makes you pick a desktop environment before you do anything else.
For Mint, I would recommend the "cinnamon" desktop. "mate" would probably be my second choice if you're not familiar with
the different desktops. The next thing, is you have to pick a mirror. In my opinion, this should be automated, because you don't really know which one is the closest to you, so about the best you can do is pick the country closest to you, but that will usually work fine.

Puppy-live - https://forum.puppylinux.com/puppy-linux-collection, they have a weird versioning system, based on the distro that the version you download is based on. (how is that for confusing?) Any of them are fine, but I would recommend the 12 - Bookworm - BookwormPup64 (64-bit) version. One of the great things about Puppy Linux, is that it runs in RAM. This is handy if you have a slow hard drive, or in this case, a slow USB drive.

Porteus-live - http://www.porteus.org/downloads (warning, this is not a secure web site). You would think they would fix their SSL certificate.

Fedora Live Workstation - https://fedoraproject.org/en/workstation/download - you'll probably want the x86_64 version.

Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop - https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop This is larger than most of the other images. Almost 6GB,
make sure your USB drive is big enough. 4GB won't work.

MX Linux - https://mxlinux.org/download-links/ - I would recommend the Xfce-MX-23.5_x64 version for MX.

Parrot Linux, - https://parrotsec.org/download/, click on "Live", then click on "Home Edition" and finally click on "AMD64".

Debian Live - https://www.debian.org/CD/live/ - Under the "stable" section, I would recommend either the "Live-gnome" or "Live-KDE" iso.

So there you have it. Those are my recommendations. Not because they are better than other Linux's, but simply because they have "Live" versions. I know Kali has a live version, but I did not include it here. If you're not familiar with Linux, it's not the distro to start with. There's nothing wrong with that distro. (I have it on VM right now), I just don't recommend it for those not familiar with Linux.

I'm sure I missed a few other distros that have a "Live" version. If you know of one, please feel free to post it below.
But now that you know where to get a "Live" Linux version, and you know how to burn it to a USB drive. Nothing should be stopping you from giving Linux a try.
 
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What's a live version of Linux? Are some versions dead? Hmmm... that could be a trick question. :D

In this case, all "Live" means is, that you can run it from a USB thumb drive. You don't actually have to install it to your hard drive.

<snip>

But now that you know where to get a "Live" Linux version, and you know how to burn it to a USB drive. Nothing should be stopping you from giving Linux a try.
Thanks for that "gigantic" rundown.
It's probably worth noting that live disks are put together at a specific point in time, and though they will usually bring up a robust linux system when installed, because linux, and technology generally, is such a moving target, the installation from a live disk is almost invariably going to be out of date to a degree by the time it's installed. It could be weeks, months or even a year or so. That's not necessarily a problem if one upgrades the installed system after installing the live system, especially to install the latest security updates, but I think the optimal approach after installing from a live disk is to upgrade using whatever means or package manager the distro provides for doing that. Otherwise, I think there are unnecessary risks.
 
the installation from a live disk is almost invariably going to be out of date to a degree by the time it's installed. It could be weeks, months or even a year or so.

That's a good point. But I guess the question is... is the update part of the install? Or something you do afterwards?
 
That's a good point. But I guess the question is... is the update part of the install? Or something you do afterwards?
The live disk that includes a more or less fully-featured system, invariably runs, and if installed, installs just what's on the live disk, and updating post-install is best advised for that I think. For a net install disk, it's different since the installer will download the latest packages as the user selects them on the menus in that install medium, say for gnome or kde or a window manager. But that's for installation, and not live sampling of the distro.

It's technically possible for a fully-featured live disk to offer to install latest packages, like a net install live disk does, but I'm not familiar with that ever happening other than with net install disks.

One could try a fully-featured live disk, and then if they wish to install that distro, get the corresponding net install disk which will install the latest packages.

For trying a linux distro, it's possible to use the fully-featured live disk which can be run offline (without being installed) as well as online. If it's run offline, then the user will have the choice of configuring it to run online which may be just a few clicks, or could be more involved I guess depending on the software the distro's provide. Then, if the user wishes to install it, they can, but the installation will be of the packages on the live disk.
 
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For a net install disk, it's different since the installer will download the latest packages

True, but I specifically wanted to use a "Live" distro, for sake of simplicity. For servers, I almost always do a "net install". Sometimes for workstations also. But for a Live distro, I think it's easier just to run update/upgrade after the install.

Maybe that's another section, I don't know? But it is a good idea to update/upgrade immediately after the install. I guess I'm just so programmed to do automatically that I really don't even think about it.
 
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Excellent topic. Back in the days when I was still searching for the 'perfect' OS i used to go for the live versions to test them out. If I liked it I'd go back to the distros' website and download the latest version and install it on a USB stick or in a VM.

For me, personally, a live version is only to get a feel for the distro and never used it for daily use.

The benefit of course for a live system is that it leaves no trace on your machine but as said it may be older and lacking some security updates which could be risky.
The principle of not leaving any traces on my machine appeals greatly to me so for that purpose and intent I use easyOS (which is my all time favorite OS).
 
But it is a good idea to update/upgrade immediately after the install.

When you use a live system, it's invariably out of date. Software on the disk will not be the newest versions because that's how it works. They were new when the .iso was made but are no longer new.

I think that was the point Osprey was getting at.

But, as for this question, some installers have the ability to grab updates during the installation process. I always pick that option, even though it may take longer.
 
They were new when the .iso was made but are no longer new.

I think that was the point Osprey was getting at.

It's a good idea to download the latest. But even the latest is "out of date" a day or two after it is released.
But as long as it's the same release as whatever is current. ( Mint 22.1, Ubuntu 24.10, Fedora 41 for example )
I just run apt upgrade or dnf update and I'm good to go.
Actually, even that's not really true. You have to keep doing this.... (forever?) every week or two is generally when I do it.

Some distros will support updates to the next version. It would be interesting to see which distro's support this and which ones don't. But I suspect most of the mianstream distro's do?
 
I just run apt upgrade or dnf update and I'm good to go.

I don't. I probably should, but I don't. I have no idea how other people go about it.

You have to keep doing this....

Yup...

It'll never be perfect but it's a bad idea to worry about perfect when we have something that's better than other options.

I actually use automatic updates where possible. I am not even remotely worried about doing so. I also sometimes tell the computer to update itself. That's mostly out of habit or just because I happened to notice an open terminal.

It's a never-ending cycle. I consider it a social responsibility to keep my devices updated in a reasonable manner. The 'netizen' concept is lost on some folks, like those who insist on using stuff that hasn't been supported for years - and do so on a device that's connected to the public internet.

While they're slowly passing away, there's a subset of people who have, to this day, insisted on using XP on their computer - one that they use online, in fact. Fortunately, they're small in number - but the results of them doing so can impact people on a far greater scale. It's these folks who are, in part, responsible for things like DDoS attacks (as they're part of a botnet), spam relays, etc...
 
I think it's very important that Linux beginners learn about the Live Session and how to use it.

There are many things we can do with the Live Session...not just install the Distro. We can do many things that windoze users can only dream about.
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Why update the Live Session...what I use it for requires no updates...
https://www.linux.org/threads/the-mint-cinnamon-live-session.49417/

1739141252337.gif
 
A further thought...

Once after booting from a USB stick, one of the options was Upgrade, in addition to Install it to the HD.*

On this occasion —thinking that I was going to upgrade the files on the stick— I chose Upgrade. My hope was that it was going to update everything on the stick.

Wrong! That only upgrades what is in RAM! Silly me. That USB is read-only. Reboot it, and nothing was upgraded. ;)

*It was either Debian 12 or an older version of Manjaro.

Sorry if this post violates any rules by taking it off-topic. I couldn't find those rules again.
 
Wrong! That only upgrades what is in RAM! Silly me. That USB is read-only. Reboot it, and nothing was upgraded.

See? You learned something.

Sorry if this post violates any rules by taking it off-topic. I couldn't find those rules again.

We're pretty easy-going but we do have rules. Basically, they boil down to 'be civil'. If you meander too far off topic, that would be impolite. I'd say you're fairly on-target with your comment. So, as the kids say these days, "It's all good."
 


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