[PLUG] What is a "live distro"?

[Richard Owlett]

Fred James wrote:
> Richard Owlett wrote:
>> Is it correct to say a "live instance" is:
>>       a. an emulation?
>>       b. a virtual machine/other?
>>
>>
> I don't like to miss the opportunity to muddy the waters, so here goes ...
>      (1) "live distro" ... live in this case (as in Linux) usually means
> a complete and self-booting Linux OS and applications, all on one CD (or
> DVD, or USB memory stick, for that matter)
>                 Just boot and run as is without installing, although many
> of these do offer an install option.
>      (2) "live instance" ... an instance may be an instantiation, or copy
> of (fill in the blank), and a live instance is one of those that is
> currently live(???)
>      (3) "emulation" ... in the computer world, emulation is usually a
> software layer that pretends to be something else ... example: a layer
> over the underlaying OS that pretends to be a different OS
>      (4) "virtual machine" ... VMWare is a good example here ... say your
> OS is Linux ABC (the host OS), then you install VMWare to run on top of
> that.  Then in VMWare you install one or more "guest" OS's ... these
> guest OS's are virtual machines in that none of them talk to the base
> machine, and any or all of them can crash without disturbing the base
> machine or "host" OS
>      (5) "other" ... oh, now that is a long list
> ... is any of that any help at all?
> Regards
> Fred James
>

Actually, YES ;)
It eliminated potential non-productive trains of questions.