Its not a live CD but in my opinion one of the easiest distros to use and maintain is Xandros. Download via bittorrent or buy the CD.
Since XP can not be keeped up to date very easily via a dial-up connection, I have been looking at the various Live CD Linux distributions.
I also ran into a bootable XP distrubution called PE Builder that looked interesting..
Maybe someone can point me to a distrubution that comes close to the following requirements.
All my parents do with there computer is read Email and browse the WEB via dial-up access; therefore, they only need something along the line of the following:
A web browser that supports HTTP and HTTPS.
A good easy to use POP/IMAP Email Client.
A CD/DVD burner application with a easy to use GUI frontend.
Printer support. NOT sure if there Inkjet printer is windows only?
Modem/dial-up support. Their modem is probably a WinModem, but I have a real external USR modem I can give them.
Maybe Openoffice in case someone sends them a office document.
A picture viewer.
I will need to set up an area on a fat16/32 disk partition to store their user information, IE.. email settings, email for offline reading, WEB favorites,
pictures they might want to save/print.
Bottom line the full Knoppix distrubution is nice, but they will not use even a small portion of it capability.
It would be nice if LiveCD was small enough to run on a system with 256MB of RAM, IE.. Have the toram boot switch.; likewise, have the tohd and fromHD boot switches.
Any pointer in the right direction will be greatly appreciated.
Ron
Its not a live CD but in my opinion one of the easiest distros to use and maintain is Xandros. Download via bittorrent or buy the CD.
Knoppix certainly would do all that you ask, and then some.
However, something small and easy would be DSL (DamnSmallLinux).
DSL uses 50MB on a CD, preferably a business card size CD because that's cool, but any CD will do.
It runs Live and can be persistent or run from a USB pendrive. The forum support at www.damnsmalllinux.org is great, in contrast to others we may or may not frequent.
Give it a look.
Mepis is very good choice, http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mepis
If you haven't bought the hardware yet, I'd go Mac.
jd
Yes, Mac would be ideal... I'd suggest also Mepis and for the lighter system Xfld's brand new distro http://www.xfld.org/Xfld/en/index.html - it's a Knoppix with Xfce. And yet one smaller would be MorphixCombined-LightGUI-0.5-pre4.
serious..
I've used the Linspire Live CD a lot - to troubleshoot simple stuff..
and it's pretty nice/friendly.. esp. for older peoplel, I would think they'd like it.
you tell me..
Best for ease of booting and provides fast browser with no need for ID or passwd is Puppy Linux. It runs in RAM as well and the desktop is not busy.
I am 79 and I like it. My wife will soon be using it. She is 78(shhhhh).
I've been using Mepis on a second HD and I've had people over who nothing about computers and they feel just as comfortable with Mepis as WinXP. In fact the file system in KDE is easier than windows. I think Mepis is the best overall. Try it see... http://www.mepis.org
But do like Knoppix and Kanotix for live CD use! I just think Mepis has a easier wizard for HD install.
I haven't used it in a while but Xandros also has very good built in support for winmodems.Originally Posted by mmaki
Lenovo ThinkStation P520 Workstation Xeon W-2123 3.6GHz 16GB RAM 2TB WIN10
$209.99
HP Z420 Workstation Xeon E5-2690 v2 3ghz 10-Cores 64gb 512gb SSD 4TB Win10
$239.99
Dell Precision T5600/t5610 Xeon E5-2670 2.6Ghz 16GB DDR3 RAM NO HDD Nvidia
$80.00
Lenovo Thinkstation P510 E5-1620 V4 16GB RAM 512GB SSD DVD Quadro M2000 W10 Pro
$164.95
SR1XP Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 12 Core 30MB 2.5GHz LGA 2011-3 Grade A Processor
$3.97
Intel Xeon E5-2697 V4 2.30 GHz 18C 2011-3 2400MHz 45MB 145W SR2JV CPU Processor
$49.99
Intel Xeon E5-2697A v4 SR2K1 2.60GHz 40MB 16-Core LGA2011-3 CPU Processor
$39.99
Xeon E5-2699v4 CPU, SR2JS, have 16 total
$140.00
Intel Xeon E5-2673 V2 SR1UR 3.3 GHz 8 Core 25 MB 110 W LGA 2011 CPU Processor
$40.00
Dell Precision 5810 Workstation Xeon E5-1650 6C 3.5GHz 16GB 500GB Win10 K2200
$124.67