CD-based distributions and Live! Linux CD-ROMs are fast becoming popular ways to implement diskless nodes. These distributions use a compressed file system and boot off a CD-ROM. Note that they require over 128 MB of RAM for satisfactory performance, and they eliminate the possibility of workstation users having any storage facilities. They also depend on a pre-configured DHCP server if they are to have any kind of network capability. Also, for internet access, the additional task of configuring a proxy server is introduced. Despite these inherent limitations, CD-based distros are popular for the singular reason that they offer a painless software upgrade scheme: to get a completely new operating system, the user just trashes the old CD and starts booting from the new one.
A few extremely popular CD based distros are listed below: