Live CD

For musical recordings, see Live album. For the Ivri

Lider album, see Live CD (album).
Boot CD redirects here. For media required to start a
computer, see boot disk.
A live CD, live DVD, or live disc is a complete bootable

erating system. This is important for the system management aspect of live CDs, which can be useful for removing malware, for disk imaging, and for system recovery. Unless such software is used, at the end of a live CD
session the computer remains as it was before. The live
system is able to run without permanent installation by
placing the les that normally would be stored on a hard
drive into RAM, typically in a RAM disk. The computer
must have sucient RAM both to store these les and
maintain normal operation.

1 History
All except the earliest digital computers are built with
some form of minimal built-in loader, which loads a proUbuntu 16.04 system running from a live DVD image, with the gram or succession of programs from a storage medium,
Unity desktop environment
which then operate the computer. Initially a read-only
medium such as punched tape or punched cards was used
computer installation including operating system which for initial program load. With the introduction of inexruns in a computers memory, rather than loading from pensive read-write storage, read-write oppy disks and
a hard disk drive; the CD itself is read-only. It allows hard disks were used as boot media.
users to run an operating system for any purpose withAfter the introduction of the audio compact disc, it was
out installing it or making any changes to the computers
adapted for use as a medium for storing and distributconguration. Live CDs can run on a computer without
ing large amounts of computer data. This data may
secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a
also include application and operating-system software,
corrupted hard disk drive or le system, allowing data resometimes packaged and archived in compressed forcovery. A live ISO is an ISO image of a Live CD which
mats. Later, it was seen to be convenient and useful to
can be used in virtual machine environments, mounted
boot the computer directly from compact disc, often with
as if it were a CD/DVD and used as the virtual machines
a minimal working system to install a full system onto a
boot CD. Live CDs, ISOs, and images usually include an
hard drive. While there are read-write optical discs, eioperating system available without charge or restrictive
ther mass-produced read-only discs or write-once discs
license such as Linux, rather than a commercial one such
were used for this purpose.
as Microsoft Windows, for legal rather than technical reaThe rst Compact Disc drives on personal computers
sons.
were generally much too slow to run complex operating
The functionality of a live CD is also available with a
systems; computers were not designed to boot from an
bootable live USB ash drive, or even an external USB
optical disc. When operating systems came to be disdrive. These may have the added functionality of writtributed on compact discs, either a boot oppy or the CD
ing changes on the bootable medium. Write-locked Live
itself would boot specically, and only, to install onto a
SD WORM systems are the direct solid-state counterpart
hard drive. The worlds rst and oldest non-Linux live
to live CDs, and can be booted natively in a media card
CD was the FM Towns OS rst released in 1989, before
slot or by using a USB adapter. Write-locked Live SD
the release of Macintosh System 7 in 1991 and Yggdrasil
systems avoid excessive write cycles or corruption by illLinux in 1992.
conditioned software, such as malware.
While a live CD typically does not alter any operating system or les already installed on a computers secondary 1.1 Origin of Linux live
storage (such as hard disk drives), many live CDs include
software mechanisms and utilities for altering the host Although early developers and users of distributions built
computers data stores, including installation of an op- on top of the Linux kernel so it could take advantage
1

USES

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. Most of the popular Linux distributions now
include a live CD variant, which in some cases is also the
preferred installation medium.

2 Uses
Live CDs made for many dierent uses. Some are designed to demonstrate or test drive a particular operating system (usually Linux or another free or open source
operating system). Software can be tested, or run for
a particular single use, without interfering with system
setup. Data on a system which is not functioning norCD-ROM of the LGX Yggdrasil Linux distribution release Fall mally due to operating system and software issues can be
1993
made available; for example, data can be recovered from
a machine with an active virus infection without the virus
process being active and causing more damage, and the
of cheap optical disks and rapidly declining prices of virus can be removed with its defences against removal
CD drives for personal computers, the Linux distribution bypassed.
CDs or distros were generally treated as a collection of
Although some live CDs can load into memory to free
installation packages that must rst be permanently inthe optical drive for other uses, loading the data from a
stalled to hard disks on the target machine.
CD-ROM is still slower than a typical hard drive boot, so
However, in the case of these distributions built on top this is rarely the default with large live CD images, but
of the Linux kernel, the free operating system was meet- for smaller live CD images loading the lesystem directly
ing resistance in the consumer market because of the per- into RAM can provide a signicant performance boost,
ceived diculty, eort, and risk involved in installing an as RAM is much faster than a hard drive, and uses less
additional partition on the hard disk, in parallel with an power.[1] Experienced users of the operating system may
existing operating system installation.
also use a live CD to determine whether and to what exThe term live CD was coined because, after typical PC tent a particular operating system or version is compatiRAM was large enough and 52x speed CD drives and CD ble with a particular hardware conguration and certain
burners were widespread among PC owners, it nally be- peripherals, or as a way to know beforehand[1]which comcame convenient and practical to boot the kernel and run puter or peripheral will work before buying. A live CD
X11, a window manager and GUI applications directly can be used to troubleshoot hardware, especially when a
hard drive fails, and more generally as a recovery disc in
from a CD without disturbing the OS on the hard disk.
case of problems. Some live CDs can save user-created
This was a new and dierent situation for Linux than les in a Windows partition, a USB drive, a network drive,
other operating systems, because the updates/upgrades or other accessible media. Live backup CDs can create
were being released so quickly, dierent distributions and an image of drives, and back up les, without problems
versions were being oered online, and especially be- due to open les and inconsistent sets.
cause users were burning their own CDs.
A few additional uses include:
The rst Linux-based 'Live CD' was Yggdrasil Linux
rst released in beta form 1992~1993 (ceased production
installing a Linux distribution to a hard drive
in 1995), though in practice its functionality was ham testing new versions of software
pered due to the low throughput of contemporary CDROM drives. DemoLinux, released in 1998, was the rst
listing & testing hardware[2]
Linux distribution specially designed as a live CD. The
Linuxcare bootable business card, rst released in 1999,
system repair and restoration
was the rst Live CD to focus on system administration,
high security/non-invasive environment for a guest
and the rst to be distributed in the bootable business card
form factor. As of 2015, Finnix (rst released in 2000)
cracking, stealing, and changing passwords
is the oldest Live CD still in production. Knoppix, a
Debian-derived Linux distribution, was released in 2003,
network security testing

2.3

Mounting without burning

3
Typically after booting the machine from the live CD,
the appliance either runs in non-persistent demo mode or
installs itself, at the users request, to an available storage
device.

2.3 Mounting without burning

Installation from Ubuntu 16.04 live DVD

being the primary or backup operating system for

any computer
quick and simple clustering of computers[3]
computer forensics
playing video games or running applications that re- Virtual OpenBSD machine conguration in VirtualBox with live
quire a dierent operating system
image le (6.3-Release-i386-bootonly.iso)
providing a secure server platform where crucial The les on a live CD ISO image can be accessed in
les cannot be permanently altered
Microsoft Windows with a disk image emulator such as
providing a secure, reliable platform for the perfor- Daemon Tools, or in Unix variants by mounting a loop
mance of high-vulnerability tasks such as internet device. Later versions of Windows (i.e. Windows 8 and
later), and software available for earlier versions, allow an
banking;
ISO to be mounted as a volume.
Internet kiosks and public computers, which can be After mounting the live CDs lesystem, software on
brought back to their original state by a reboot
the live CD can be run directly, without booting it, by
Bypassing parental controls and other restrictions

2.1

Thematic Live CDs

Several live CDs are dedicated to specic type of applications according to the requirements of thematic user
communities. These CDs are tailored to the needs of the
applications in subject including general knowledge, tutorial, specications and trial data too.
Some of these topics covers sub topics, e.g. IT administration breaks down to rewall, rescue, security, etc. type
of live CDs. In some cases a particular LiveDVD covers
more than one topic.

chrooting into the mounted lesystem.

A live CD ISO image can also be mounted by Virtual Machine software such as VirtualBox and VMware Workstation or can be converted to a Live USB using SYSLINUX.
Special tools can automate this process.[4]

3 Common traits
Some live CDs come with an installation utility launchable from a desktop icon that can optionally install the
system on a hard drive or USB ash drive. Most live
CDs can access the information on internal and/or external hard drives, diskettes and USB ash drives.

Live CDs are usually distributed on read-only media, requiring either copying to rewriteable media (i.e. a hard
drive or CD writer) or complete remastering to install adPackaging a software appliance as an installable live CD, ditional software; however, there are exceptions such as
or live ISO, can often be benecial as a single image can Puppy Linux which has the ability to save les to the live
run on both real hardware and on most types of virtual CD itself or other multisession media, allowing data, programs and customized settings to be written.
machines.

2.2

Live CD software appliances

This allows developers to avoid the complexities involved

in supporting multiple incompatible virtual machine images formats and focus on the lowest common denominator instead.

The term came to be used for any CD containing operating system and software which could be run without installation on the host computer; example include OpenSolaris, BeleniX and others based on Solaris.

Other operating systems which can be used live include

AmigaOS 4, Amithlon, AROS, FreeBSD, FreeDOS,
classic Mac OS, macOS, Microsoft Windows installation
and repair discs, OS/2, ReactOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
MINIX 3, Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and MorphOS. There
are maintenance versions of Microsoft Windows bootable
from CD such as BartPE, Windows PE, and Microsoft
Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT), previously
known as Emergency Repair Disk Commander (ERD
Commander).

REFERENCES

Live CDs have to be able to detect and use a wide variety

of hardware (including network cards, graphic cards etc.)
in realtime, often using facilities such as udev, hotplug,
hal, udisk etc.. which are a common part of all distributions based on Linux kernel 2.6.

4.1 Boot code

During live CD initialization, a user typically may resort

to using one or more boot codes to change the booting
The rst personal computer operating system on a CD to behavior. These vary from distribution to distribution but
support live operations might have been the AmigaOS, can most often be accessed upon rst boot screen by one
which could be booted from CD on an Amiga CDTV in of the function keys.
1990.. Earlier examples of live OS are of course the operating systems used from oppy, and most widely spread
is DOS.

5 Gallery

Unlike previous operating systems on optical media,

though, Linux and OS/2 live CDs were specically de- Here are some screenshots of live CDs:
signed to run without installation onto other media like a
hard disk drive. The live CD concept was meant to pro Live CD of Trisquel 5.0
mote Linux and showcase the abilities of the free, open
Live CD of Fedora 11
source operating system on conventional personal computers with Microsoft Windows already installed.
Live CD of Mandriva 2010
On a PC, a bootable Compact Disc generally conforms
Live CD of Gentoo Linux
to the El Torito specication. Many Linux based live
Live CD of AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1
CDs use a compressed lesystem image, often with the
cloop compressed loopback driver, or squashfs compressed lesystem, generally doubling eective storage
6 See also
capacity, although slowing application start up.
The resulting environment can be quite rich: typical
Knoppix systems include around 1,200 separate software
packages. Live CDs have a reputation for supporting advanced auto-conguration and plug-and-play functionality. This came out of necessity to avoid requiring the user
to congure the system each time it boots and to make it
easily usable by those who are new to the operating system.

Comparison of Linux distributions (Live media)

Autodetection
GIS Live DVD
List of live CDs
List of remastering software
Live USB

Technique

Software appliance
VirtualBox

A read-only le system, such as on a CD-ROM has the

drawback of being unable to save any current working data. For this reason, a read-only le system is
often merged with a temporary writable le system in
the form of a RAM disk. Often the default Linux
directories "/home (containing users personal les and
conguration les) and "/var (containing variable data)
are kept in ramdisk, because the system updates them frequently. Puppy Linux and some other live CDs allow a
conguration and added les to be written and used in
later sessions.
In modern live CDs, a read-only le system is merged
with a RAM drive using transparent techniques such as
UnionFS, AuFS or EWF. Boot loaders like syslinux can
boot ISO les from USB memory devices.

Windows To Go

7 References
[1] Brickner, David (2005). Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds. O'Reilly. ISBN 0-59600754-X.
[2] HDT - Hardware Detection Tool
[3] http://www.flashmobcomputing.org/
[4] USB
Installation
Media
UNetbootin.
http://community.ubuntu.com.
Ubuntu Community.
Retrieved 11 February 2014. External link in |website=
(help)

External links
Tutorial - How to Set your BIOS to boot from CD
or USB
Bootable CDROM HowTo
Linux Live scripts
Pondering Live CDs - A BSD perspective on the
concept of Live CDs

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Live CD Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD?oldid=741537431 Contributors: Arvindn, Ghakko, B4hand, Chris Q, Rbrwr,

Breakpoint, Eurleif, MichaelJanich, Pagingmrherman, Mac, Ronz, LittleDan, Julesd, Nikai, Evercat, Htaccess, Guaka, AC, Enigmasoldier, Samsara, Bevo, Shizhao, Pakaran, Ldo, Frazzydee, AlexPlank, Robbot, Chealer, RedWolf, Naddy, Markcollinsx, Zidane2k1, Bkell,
Hadal, Boarder8925, ElBenevolente, Jleedev, Tea2min, Mlk, David Gerard, Alerante, Honta, DocWatson42, Jacoplane, Djinn112, DavidCary, Yama, Kenny sh, Greyweather, Fo0bar, MichaelHaeckel, JimD, AlistairMcMillan, Darrien, Pne, Crazysim, Zzo38, Slowking Man,
Beland, Joeblakesley, The Inedible Bulk, Maximaximax, Yggdrsil, Bumm13, Burgundavia, Sam Hocevar, Troels Arvin, Bluefoxicy,
Ozzyprv, Jiel.B, Duja, Slady, RossPatterson, Antaeus Feldspar, Gronky, Schloob, TerraFrost, Elwikipedista~enwiki, CanisRufus, JureCuhalev~enwiki, Kiand, Tverbeek, Dbreakey, Sietse Snel, Razor X, Smalljim, RAM, Brim, Jkh.gr, Millsdavid, Boredzo, Minghong, Hesperian, JoelRSimpson, Blindcoder~enwiki, Csabo, Guy Harris, Xalfor, Cjthellama, Darrelljon, Kocio, Wtmitchell, Stephan Leeds, Suruena,
Freyr, Nightstallion, Forderud, Kmself, Firsfron, Woohookitty, Lost.goblin, Arky~enwiki, Sweets~enwiki, Peng~enwiki, Thorpe, Pol098,
Optichan, Marudubshinki, Kesla, Graham87, Poobah, Colin Hill, Leonbrooks, FlaBot, SchuminWeb, Nick58b, Gurch, HelzBelz, Ahunt,
Jer, Chobot, YurikBot, RussBot, Hede2000, NewFrank, Gaius Cornelius, GSK, Bkil, Dark glaive, JRey, Janizary, Tyrhinis, SmackBot,
Mumblefuzz, TheBilly, Wlindley, Brozke, Trof, Thumperward, Haidut, Nbarth, Frap, Rav0, Plustgarten, Stiles, MichaelBillington, Freedom to share, T, Mutley, Narj, AThing, Zemyla, Treehel~enwiki, Peyre, Kurtali, Dreftymac, Biiaru, AdrianTM, Mr.aluminumsiding,
SkyWalker, CmdrObot, Iokseng, ManiacalMonkey, Cydebot, UncleBubba, A3li, Underpants, Kozuch, Mikewax, Bot-maru, Balihb,
FreeOsFan~enwiki, JAnDbot, DuncanHill, NapoliRoma, VoABot II, Marko75, NicholasBrand, Cur, CommonsDelinker, Woodega, Bobber0001, Ja 62, 28bytes, VolkovBot, Mercy, RedRabbit1983, AHMartin, Fanatix, SieBot, Pdmtford65, Nopetro, OKBot, ClueBot, Eriksiers, Wendy.krieger, Arjayay, Grkan Myczko, SF007, Wwwolf3, SilvonenBot, Heramba11, Good Olfactory, Addbot, Ramu50, Nuno
Brito, LP, Grandscribe, Merendoglu, LaaknorBot, CarsracBot, SpBot, Tassedethe, Lightbot, Legobot, Yobot, Jerebin, Nyat, AnomieBOT,
Gtz, Gc9580, LirazSiri, Bluerasberry, Dlonceveau~enwiki, ArthurBot, LilHelpa, Xqbot, Gorrin, Wikante, Nasirkhan, LAMurakami,
RibotBOT, WilliamTheaker, Spazturtle, Boyquote, Winterst, Skyerise, Fat&Happy, Banej, CountZer0, Aoidh, Ripchip Bot, Soma-sk8,
EmausBot, Tuankiet65, WikitanvirBot, Puppyite, ZroBot, Hydriz, Samesatunda, , Palosirkka, ChuispastonBot, Colejohnson66, Matthiaspaul, Jebethe, Reify-tech, Penyulap, Linuxtech, Helpful Pixie Bot, BG19bot, Bob Re-born, Tesssla, Popescucalin, Momposi, AK456,
Codename Lisa, Nozomimous, Lagoset, GeorgeV73GT, Suspender guy, Randomuser0122, PerfectBike, Rh73, Froyocomputer, JahrA90,
IAmJeerson and Anonymous: 231

9.2

Images

File:Lgx_yggdrasil_fall_1993.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Lgx_yggdrasil_fall_1993.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Ralfk
File:Question_book-new.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Ubuntu_16.04_English.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Ubuntu_16.04_English.png License:
GPL Contributors: Ubuntu ISO le screenshot Original artist: Canonical
File:Ubuntu_16.04_Install_screen.PNG Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Ubuntu_16.04_Install_
screen.PNG License: CC BY-SA 4.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Kesperuna
File:Vbox160debian.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Vbox160debian.jpg License: Public domain
Contributors: Own work Original artist: Vamp898

9.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0