As a standard precaution check your D/L MD5 or SHA-1 hash sum against posted hash sum, to avoid bogus material!
See Network Security - Useful & Needful Page for a hash sum generator.
It is customary for these CD's NOT to use the hard disk or install software to the hard disk. Some will only set up a caching partition, where RAM is limited. For those that do, it is advised to defragment the hard disk first! Some will save settings to floppy or a USB Flash Drive. In the case of Puppy LINUX, if the primary CD drive is a burner, it can burn settings back to the original loading cd, provided that the burn session wasn't closed!
It is advised to get comfortable with them, in the advent of hard disk failure, one can still run and access the net and data! Be prepared, they sometimes take a long time loading, 10 to 40 min, pending CPU speed, as IDE interface to CD drive is slow. But it is an effective means! It makes a really good "SAVE MY ASS" CD!! For those that sometimes borrow my pc's, I force those folks to surf off of these! Why? It saves my pc's from getting CLOGGED UP WITH SPYWARE! Plus, their PASSWORDS ARE SAFE, they are NEVER STORED ON MY DRIVES! Plus, I think ALL net cafe' pc's should be DISKLESS, for that reason - Public Safety!
In the case of SLAX and some others, they can be loaded to BOOTABLE USB FLASH DRIVES! Search ARS Technica, for the brands and models that support USB BOOTING! SEE FAR BELOW.
Tools like these have "saved the day", for many admin's! Find one that works for your machine (be sure to enable cd booting in the BIOS and set the boot order to cd before hard drive and enable USB Boot device, while you are in there) and HAVE FUN! One last (hard learned) tip: when using your cd burning program, to burn the disc image file (.ISO) to a blank disc, set the burn speed down to 4X or lower, to prevent 'kernel panics', at later bootup! This is particularly true on a few of them! If you can't burn them or on dial-up, there are places where you can order them very cheaply. Or better yet, sign up for a free cd from Ubuntu, they ship to your door, for free! So will Solaris (UNIX INSTALL ONLY)! SEE the Alternatives Page, for where to order.
Even if you don't like it, you are now prepared for your next and very enevitable hard drive crash! Now, just what IS your excuse for NOT having just one of these? Bear in mind, I DO AND WILL CHARGE EXTRA, FOR STUPIDITY, WHEN YOU CALL! And they are likely to be the SAME TOOLS, that I WILL USE TO FIX YOUR PC! I don't mind giving away SOME trade secrets, IT GIVES ME A BREAK! And you get to learn how to fix YOUR PC and SAVE A FEW BUCKS! And maybe you will be FREE of Micro$oft! Ever see a price on the Vista PRO Edition?
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