Operating systems which fit onto one diskette and live-CDs.

2-Disk X window embedded Linux is a tiny net-centric Linux that aims at portable secure remote system usage. It contains many utilities including: X Windows, vncviewer, rdesktop, a Web browser, a file manager, a text editor, a terminal, a window manager, a menu system, a dialog system, X scripting facilities, and many others. It aims to work from 1 or 2 floppy disks in any remote location.

AdvanceCD is a bootable live CD, DVD, and USB disk that contains a minimal Linux distribution containing the AdvanceMAME emulator. You can boot it on any PC and play the contained games without any installation.

blueflops: This is a two floppies Linux distribution with a graphical web browser and a popular irc client. The kernel is with most of the Ethernet drivers compiled in (as modules) and PPP support (for dial-up connections). The C library is uClibc, busybox is a slightly modified (logging is disabled), the kernel image is compressed with UPX. You will be able to check your Yahoo mail account thanks to OpenSSL ;). The main feature though is the configuration procedure. The scripts are all accessible by a 'setup' script, and have a nice 'dialog' front-end. Once the setup is completed the configuration can be saved, loaded, erased, its name changed (you get the picture...).

BLAG is a single-CD Linux distribution that has a suite of graphics, Internet, audio, video, office, and peer-to-peer file sharing applications. It is based on Fedora Core, Dag, Freshrpms, etc. It is up-to-date with all Fedora errata updates at the time of release, and uses apt/synaptic for easy upgrades and installation of new applications.

BYLD - This is a little package that helps you to build a Linux distribution on a single floppy disk to use as you want (net client, rescue disk...). This is not a complete distribution: it was made only to build a mini distribution on a floppy.

Compact Flash Linux Project is a Linux distribution designed to run on a compact flash card in read-only mode. It is as small as possible, and currently needs around 14 MB. It includes OpenSSH, quagga, iptables, hostap, madwifi, wireless-tools, pppoe, tcpdump, bridge-utils, and more.

Devil-Linux is a special Linux distribution which is used for firewalls/routers. The goal of Devil-Linux is to have a small, customizable, and secure Linux system. Configuration is saved on a floppy disk, and it has several optional packages.

Diskless Remote Boot in Linux (DRBL) provides a diskless or systemless environment for client machines. It works on Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, and Fedora. Unlike LTSP, it uses distributed hardware resources and makes it possible for clients to fully access local hardware. It also includes Clonezilla, a partitioning and disk cloning utility similar to Symantec Ghost.

Feather Linux is a Linux distribution, based upon Knoppix 3.4, that can fit on a Mini-CD or on a 64 MB USB pen drive. It aims to have a wide range of applications for desktop, rescue, and administration uses

fli4l is a single-floppy Linux-based ISDN/DSL/ethernet-router. It features configuration with some simple ASCII-files, several possible connection-flavors (in/out/callback, and raw IP/PPP), channel bundling (an extra channel can be added through a Windows/Unix-client), configuration of multiple networks, least-cost routing, automatic choice of provider, display/calculation of connection times and costs, and a Windows/Unix client to control dial/hangup, monitor traffic and monitor incoming calls on ISDN (see screenshot).

floppyfw is a router and simple firewall on one single floppy. It uses Linux basic firewall capabilities, and has a very simple packaging system. It is perfect for masquerading and securing networks on ADSL and cable lines, using both static IP, DHCP, and PPPoE, and provides a simple installation, which usually involves editing of only one file on the floppy.

FREESCO - (stands for FREE ciSCO) is a free replacement for commercial routers supporting up to 3 ethernet/arcnet/token_ring/arlan network cards and up to 2 modems. Freesco is the easiest to use, one disk Linux system available.

Injector Linux is a single-floppy Linux system, which supports many filesystems -- currently approximately 25. Because of its wide range of supported filesystems, it is very useful for disk rescue operations.

KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI devices, and other peripherals. It can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, etc. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk due to on-the-fly decompression.

Linux LiveCD Router allows you to share your broadband connection and use WIFI. You can use it with DSL, cable modem, T1, ISDN, and dialup connections. You can build an access point using most WiFi cards. It does not require any installation, but boots your computer straight from the CD.

Menuet is a fully 32 bit assembly written, graphical RTOS for _assembly_   programming & distributed under General Public License. Since Menuet fits to a single floppy, you only need one blank 1.44 M diskette.  Your hard disks are not affected in any way.

m0n0wall is a project aimed at creating a complete, embedded firewall software package that, when used together with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of commercial firewall boxes (including ease of use) at a fraction of the price (free software). m0n0wall is based on a bare-bones version of FreeBSD, along with a web server, PHP and a few other utilities. The entire system configuration is stored in one single XML text file to keep things transparent. m0n0wall is probably the first UNIX system that has its boot-time configuration done with PHP, rather than the usual shell scripts, and that has the entire system configuration stored in XML format.

muLinux is a minimalistic Linux distribution, suitable for old computers. X11, GCC, VNC, SSH, Samba, Netscape etc. are supported on additional addon floppies. It can be installed from DOS/Win9x or Linux, without repartitioning. The "mu" stands for a Greek letter (see Unicode Latin-1 char 0x0b5) frequently used for indicating the millionth part of something. for example: "mu meter" (µm) stands for micro meter and is the one millionth part of a meter. The reason for the name "muLinux" is its tiny size.

Peter Gutmann (Professional Paranoid) - My research interests cover the design and analysis of security techniques and systems, with a sideline in various obscure security-related areas such as the recovery of deleted data from magnetic media, and whatever else happens to catch my interest. To view some of the documents referenced on this page you'll need a copy of the free Adobe Acrobat reader software (note: This link takes you to Acrobat 5.1, which avoids the very buggy and unstable Acrobat 6.0 that Adobe will force on you if you get it from their main download site). See also.

RIP - You can get the RIP Linux rescue system here! Linux, Free BSD.

theWall - Single floppy or compact flash based firewall for home DSL / cable modem users based on PicoBSD. Platforms includes embedded PCs with or without video and keyboard support such as the Soekris Net4501 as well as old PCs. TheWall is a collection of PicoBSD configuration trees and prebuild binaries for various platforms that provides NAT and firewall services for a small network. The goal of theWall project is to allow a user to get going quickly without having to learn the details of building a PicoBSD release.

Ultimate Boot CD allows users to run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives.