I think Mint is a better choice over Ubuntu nowadays.

I just use the LTS of Ubuntu nowadays, likely in amd64. Less hassle. There are specialized distros for recovery, but it's usually an easier experience to apt-get what you need from the live environment.

Easy2Boot USB drive with ArchBang (or Manjaro) and additional packages. 😁

Puppy Linux is still updated, and they have a "retro" or "legacy" geared build (if I remember right it's called "Wary Puppy") that will boot on a fairly wide variety of machines - I've found it perfectly serviceable on a 1GHz P3 including light web browsing (like Vogons), but it also doesn't have problems booting on much newer multi-core machines. Not sure about WiFi support though - I don't have many devices that use it, so I don't really fuss with it.

I wouldn't use Ubuntu because for many reasons main of which is the information gathering tactics Canonical employs. I wouldn't use Mint because they aren't very regular with the security updates and you cannot upgrade without reinstalling the whole system. Also being Ubuntu based it has the stability problems of ubuntu.

If you want something rock solid use Fedora Linux. I've tried Ubuntu, Debian, SuSe, Mint and (obviously) Fedora and Fedora was the one that I stuck with. It's rock solid, has frequent updates, the full DVD comes with about every DE that you would ever want to install right out of the box and although it needs a little tweaking to enable the non free repos and install things like libdvdcss, it is super easy to do so.

For what you're asking -- general purpose utility Live distro -- I'd use Mint Mate IF you're okay with LiveUSB. If it has to be LiveCD... I just use any old Knoppix. Or whatever shaved-down Linux is included with any utility disk I might be using like Hirens.

Some details..

Mint Live is designed to be a demo so you can test your hardware's compatibility before installing. That's no problem EXCEPT you are user 999 -- they've made things to prevent a noob from accidentally mounting their XP drive and start overwriting files. If you want to do any writing to devices, you'll have to 'sudo caja' to start a root session file manager.

Mint unlike Ubuntu lets you install the latest video drivers without requiring a reboot. (Remembering anything across reboots is impossible for Live sessions of course. Hence this was a catch22 for testing video card compatibility with Ubuntu and several other distros.)

Mint MATE is the closest to an old-school win95 GUI. It's really fall-off-log easy to use WITHOUT hiding things, so it's a pretty good choice for a seldom used utility distro.

For Fedora/privacy things: I'm pretty sure you can flip a switch in Privacy settings or just remove the package altogether. I try to avoid RPM distros altogether - they just feel wrong to me.

For Mint: It's OK, but the developer seems to be a bit dickish. I don't get the love for GNOME 2 and the hate of actually attempting new things. GNOME 2 was OK, but there are better desktops nowdays, like Xfce, Gnome 3, Unity, i3, etc.

For Puppy: No thanks, feels sloppy and low quality, like those MiniXP ricer WinPE things.

calvin wrote:

For Mint: It's OK, but the developer seems to be a bit dickish. I don't get the love for GNOME 2 and the hate of actually attempting new things. GNOME 2 was OK, but there are better desktops nowdays, like Xfce, Gnome 3, Unity, i3, etc.

MATE is awesome. The point of MATE is to take the Gnome 2 desktop and update it with more modern technology underneath. My problem with both Gnome 3 and Unity is they try to much to bring a tablet like interface to the desktop. I hate how they do the application/start menu. If you have to type into a search box to find an App, you are doing it wrong.

I run Debian Jessie with MATE... because I'm just crazy that way.

pewpewpew wrote:

For what you're asking -- general purpose utility Live distro -- I'd use Mint Mate IF you're okay with LiveUSB. If it has to be LiveCD... I just use any old Knoppix. Or whatever shaved-down Linux is included with any utility disk I might be using like Hirens.

Well, a "live DVD" might be more accurate. Looks like the Mint ISO is only 1.4 GB; old versions of Knoppix did a much better job of filling up the whole disc. On the other hand, I guess I'd never need the vast majority of stuff included with Knoppix, but it was pretty cool having it there. In any case, it's probably better just to use a live USB at this point.

I stumbled upon this guide that suggests various other separate downloads are advisable for wifi support? That's a bit disappointing.

Nowadays, Wifi just works, at least with Atheros and Intel stuff. Broadcom is the hard part, but they're getting more obscure at this point.

I've never had luck with Live USB, always problematic. I just stick with DVDs.

Jorpho wrote:

I stumbled upon this guide that suggests various other separate downloads are advisable for wifi support? That's a bit disappointing.

That's /years/ old. Both Mint LiveUSB and Linux wifi support have moved on. I would ignore that page entirely.

I've never found current relevant info on those green community pages myself, FWIW. Just go to the official Download page.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

See the linked Release Notes, and there's also a linked User Guide. IF you've got a question/problem that's not in the User Guide, hit the Forum to get current advice.
http://forums.linuxmint.com/index.php

And yes, as stated above, wifi just tends to work these days.

I only tried Debian Linux versions so i can't say anything about Fedora, so i would also recomend Mint. Gets the job done and its pretty snappy.

laxdragon wrote:

calvin wrote:

For Mint: It's OK, but the developer seems to be a bit dickish. I don't get the love for GNOME 2 and the hate of actually attempting new things. GNOME 2 was OK, but there are better desktops nowdays, like Xfce, Gnome 3, Unity, i3, etc.

MATE is awesome. The point of MATE is to take the Gnome 2 desktop and update it with more modern technology underneath. My problem with both Gnome 3 and Unity is they try to much to bring a tablet like interface to the desktop. I hate how they do the application/start menu. If you have to type into a search box to find an App, you are doing it wrong.

I run Debian Jessie with MATE... because I'm just crazy that way.

Lol I love MATE also I use it on Fedora since it can be installed right when you install the system with no effort. It's probably the best DE out there imho. You are crazy if you are running Debian though. 😜

LXQt is actually the most light, still complete DE I have ever tried.
And personally I can only see manjaro (arch derived) as choice.

I keep forgetting: the nicest thing about Knoppix is that it has Wine pre-installed and ready to go. Is there any other live distribution that has that?

Of course, if I use USB, then I suppose I could just use persistent storage and install it myself, but that's somewhat inelegant.

Slax? Though it's been ages since I tried a live anything and I have not touched Gnome3 with a 6934 foot pole. The KDE4 launch was enough for me to quit linuxing as a main OS and go back to Windows.

My personal favorite WM is QVWM because it's just like Windows 95. Unfortunately due to the whole 'don't be windows' fallacy philosophy it's left for dead and removed in most repositories.

King_Corduroy wrote:

I wouldn't use Ubuntu because for many reasons main of which is the information gathering tactics Canonical employs. I wouldn't use Mint because they aren't very regular with the security updates and you cannot upgrade without reinstalling the whole system. Also being Ubuntu based it has the stability problems of ubuntu.

If you want something rock solid use Fedora Linux. I've tried Ubuntu, Debian, SuSe, Mint and (obviously) Fedora and Fedora was the one that I stuck with. It's rock solid, has frequent updates, the full DVD comes with about every DE that you would ever want to install right out of the box and although it needs a little tweaking to enable the non free repos and install things like libdvdcss, it is super easy to do so.

What are your thought about debian?? As for myself, i had tried ubuntu.. Some part i liked it, but iam not really fond of put every app or program shortcut to the `taskbar`

Debian is pretty good, but they are always a bit behind on updates with programs, plus if you are using the stable version and not testing prepare to be light years behind everyone else in terms of features and programs. It can be pretty stable but personally I had some problems with it not liking my AMD Sapphire 7790HD Gfx card for some reason and it really buggered up bad whenever I went to update. That's what made me change to Fedora, that and like I said programs are always many versions behind on Debian and not having steam because debian didn't have recent enough libraries available and it refused to run is a problem.

Ubuntu I tried for a while and yeah I didn't like the menu on the side at all. The interface is a lot like gnome 3 it's not intuitive at all, everything is hidden until you search for it like Windows 8 and it drove me insane. Also it broke horribly when I tried to do something as easy as install Gnome 2.

Jorpho wrote:

the nicest thing about Knoppix is that it has Wine pre-installed

So why not Knoppix, then? Is there anything it's lacking for you? It sounds like it's what's you want.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix742-en.html