Chapter 5. Looking Inside Live CD Components

Although many of the components you find in live CD systems are the same ones you find in installed Linux systems, some components are of particular interest to live CDs. Live Linux CDs are different than installed systems in these areas:

  • Boot loaders—Isolinux (part of the Syslinux project) is the boot loader most often used with live CDs because it implements the El Torito standard, which most BIOSes understand, for booting from CD-ROM. Other boot loaders, such as GRUB or LILO, can be used as well but tend to be less popular for use with live Linux CDs.

  • File systems—Issues related to file system types relate to the facts that live CDs are typically a read-only medium and that they have much more ...

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