Live CD

A Live CD is one that contains an operating system that is run upon boot. The operating system is not installed to the hard disk, but rather runs from the CD.A Live CD does not change the operating system already installed in the hard disk or any of the data on it. It only changes the data on the hard disk if it is asked to.

When Windows was the common Operating System and Linux had to be installed on the computer, the disk had to be partitioned for the Linux Operating System. This became a tedious process and even though the Linux Operating System was an Open-Source one, nobody used it just because of the complexity of partitioning their hard disks. The first Linux-based live CD was Yggdrasil Linux (went out of production in 1995), though in practice it did not function well due to the low throughput of then-current CD-ROM drives. The Debian-derived Linux distribution Knoppix was released in 2003, and found popularity as both a rescue disk system and as a primary distribution in its own right. Since 2003, the popularity of live CDs has increased substantially, partly due to Linux Live scripts and remastersys which made it very easy to build customized live systems^[1]. KNOPPIX is a bootable CD or DVD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals^[2]. Knoppix was the first major Linux live CD that was produced with security interests in mind, although it has been used for many other purposes. Many of the tools regarding Live CD were based on Knoppix to some degree.

The Live CD is much more secure than an ordinary operating system on a desktop/laptop as the vulnerability and the threat involved is lesser than that of a normal desktop/laptop and hence the risk is lower as the OS is separately on the CD and difficult to hack into the information that is available on the hard drive. Live CD’s are unique in the sense that the computer running a Live CD could run without a hard disk drive having a huge capacity.

Hence the Live CD contains an Operating System that can be directly booted from the CD which involves having a much lesser risk and is secure to that of a desktop. It is also not necessary for a Live CD to be installed onto a computer to work on it which makes it easier to work with.

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD

[2] http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-info/index-en.html

[3]http://unokitty.freehostia.com