claus - 6:00 pm on May 31, 2006 (gmt 0)

With all due respect - Slakware and Gentoo are probably very nice distributions, but neither of them are "for a n00b" or Live CD's.

Those were criteria asked for by the original poster, so let's try to stay on topic. The Linux world is confusing enough as it is, without us mixing matters up even more ;)

Another poster mentioned distrowatch. That site has a good standing as a neutral source of information on different linux flavours. Some of that (the fact sheets) is technical, but there are descriptions in common words, too. Here is a link to their page dedicated to LiveCDs:

[distrowatch.com...]

The only LiveCD ranking that distrowatch does is the alphabetical. However, this page has a nice beginners guide to choosing a Linux distribution, and in the sidebar right you will see some top 5 lists as well, probably measured on pageviews on the distrowatch site:

[distrowatch.com...]

My personal take on "which ones are most friendly, yet still good" (for LiveCDs only) is:

1) Knoppix, SUSE, or Ubuntu
2) Mepis, Gnoppix, or Kubuntu

(Gnoppix and Kubuntu are slightly modified versions of Knoppix and Ubuntu - basically they use another "skin", or window manager as it is.)

But, I see some others in the top 5 lists, and these names are good too. That's the most confusing thing about Linux; "everything's good" as long as it suits your personal preferences and requirements.

Last, don't be afraid to try a few different ones. That's the whole trick: If one does not please you entirely another one may. There are also differences in how well they will detect your hardware, but that will be specific to the hardware that you have. So do try a few of them before you make up your mind.