The most significant way to categorize Live CD is by their software management systems. Most of the Live CD's fall into one of two camps: Debian apt-based (Damn Small, Gnoppix, Kanotix, Knoppix, Luit, Mepis, Morphix, Ubuntu, Xfld), or rpm-based (Basilisk, Berry, or SUSE). It is obvious that Debian is the most popular. The apt-get program allows the user -- at least one who isn't afraid of the command line -- to easily add and remove programs, even to upgrade to a newer distribution with a single command.
There are many different distributions for Live CDs, which depend on the functionality you are looking for. The following is a list of some primary functionalities:
Desktops: provides a working GUI desktop environment with a collection of desktop programs, such as browsers and text editors. Many also include utilities for other purposes, such as home entertainment, but are only listed here because the additional functions are not their primary focus.
OS Replacement: provides an option to transfer the cd to the hard drive, or to install an OS in a different form
Education: provides a collection of educational programs, or was created to be used in the educational field
Rescue: provides tools needed for data recovery
Clustering: provides tools for making clusters
Security: contains network security tools
Home Entertainment: geared towards playing video and audio
Gaming: video games!
Medical: contains medical programs
Diagnostics: contains utilities for testing hardware
Firewalls: distributions created to be used as firewalls
Forensics: distributions containing forensic tools
Servers: distributions used for various server functions
Based on FronzenTech.com, the highest rated distributions are:
SLAX - based on the Slackware Linux distribution and uses Unification File System. The primary goal of SLAX is to provide a wide collection of useful software while keeping the cd's image small enough to be written to a 185 MB CD-R(W) medium (small 8 cm CD).
Kanotix - Kanotix is a rock-solid Linux based on Debian-Sid, which contains the newest packages and recognizes more modern hardware than any other operating system in use today. Kanotix will run as a LIVE-CD on practically any computer -- automatically detecting and configuring virtually any piece of hardware. It is ideal for analysis, data rescue, forensic work, removal of viruses on Win-PCs - or simply for safe surfing and mailing in an internet cafe. It installs to your hard drive in just a few minutes and is ideal for use on your desktop workstation or notebook, or as a server.
PCLinuxOS - an easy-to-use Live CD which carries a reputation for the overall well-polished "look and feel" of the distribution, as well as for the high quality and seamless integration of the pre-configured software contained on the CD. PCLinuxOS is designed to be effortlessly installed to a local hard drive for a more permanent (and faster) solution; hence it can also be used like more traditional GNU/Linux distributions.
Knoppix - Consists of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos.
For the top thirty distributions, you can visit:
References:
Frozentech
Knoppix