2 replies to this topic

[Endymion_Mallorn]

So, silly question:Who here knows what LiveCD is the "best" for day-to-day use? I'm not looking to get rid of Windows, but I figure I might as well figure out some of this nonsense. Hence, the drive to use a live disk for a while. BackTrack is good for cracking WEP/WPA (WiFi) security, I know that. I'm planning on downloading it for that purpose only.But I'm still looking for one that will be able to work as a "normal" OS.Things I'm looking for:+ "Windows-like" GUI. The more it looks like Windows 98/2000, the happier I am. Taskbar on the bottom, please.+ Native support for Windows software. This is incredibly important - I'm on XP. If it's going to be more than just a "I'm using this for 'stealth'" thing, I need software support - not emulation.+ NTFS as a default filesystem. This is less important, overall, but my HD is NTFS-formatted. I want to be able to access it simply.+ FAT and FAT32 support. My USB lashdrives are FAT32.+ Flash. If you don't know why, there's a problem here.+ USB support.Things I will not put up with:- Coding / Compiling. This is my main resistance to Linux, still. I don't program, I don't want to program. I just want to have simple .exe programs that run when told to, as told to.- A text-only interface. I love DOS to death. But I've gotten so used to the GUI I don't know what I'd do without it anymore. I like to have both.- Not being able to download new software from within my browser from the location of my choice (see compiling above).Something I would like:+ ClamAV, preferably enabled so that I can choose to run a boot-time scan from the CD. It's nice to know that you have the ability to clean your machine out quickly.I'm planning to write this to an 800Mb CDRW.I'm on IBM Thinkpad. If I can't run it, it wasn't meant to be run.

[RCramiro]

You could always try Ubuntu (or preferably Xubuntu, since it's a bit easier to get your desktop environment to look like Windows that way). Ubuntu offers full support for Flash, and programs can easily be installed via a package manager without you ever having to compile anything or mess around with a text terminal. Although the default filesystem is ext4, you can opt out for NFTS during installation. I don't know what browser you use, but Firefox and Chrome both work perfectly on Ubuntu. Unfortunately, there's no way to make Windows programs work natively on any Linux distro unless you use emulation (such as WINE, and that requires quite a bit of tinkering to get to work) or a Linux version of the program exists. You could easily circumvent this issue by dual-booting Linux alongside Windows, or by running Windows inside of Linux using a virtual machine.

[MONKEYMAN8]

so you want to use windows then? Go get Bart PE or something then though having to actually download it might be a bit too much for you it seems.