I am a linux newbie and a public school teacher.  I am looking for a
good, stable linux distro that is easily customized into a live CD.  I
want ot be able to work with students to alter the distro to include
applications, content, look and feel, etc based on oru requiremnts. 
We are hopign to make a CD for every parent. Any suggestions for us to
get started???

Thanks,
Clint Kennedy
Stonington, CT

Blessings

 First: do not try to 'customise into LiveCD'. Start with liveCD or liveDVD,
        customise that to fit your needs. 
         (There is a lot of hardware detection software
         in LiveCD, which is not easy to develop).

  There are many liveCDs on the market, some made for schools (in
several languages):
http://www.livecdnews.com/?cat=3
http://www.livecdnews.com/?cat=21
Here is full list:
http://www.linux-sec.net/Distro/frozentech.livecd.php.html
http://www.pelttech.com/security/knoppix.htm

Some main distribution come in both forms, instalation and live and
two most popular ubuntu and mandriva are both good choice (see right
column at)
http://distrowatch.com/
Ubuntu is debian based and Mandriva uses RPMs, I suggest you try both first
as they have different feel and philosophy.

This one may be easier for parents to be converted.
http://www.free-bees.co.uk/article.php?n=linspire5

Finally, you may want to join the Freedduc community
http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/06/17/1950257&tid=13&tid=127

You are not alone in your quest and Open software is about sharing.

Clarification request and/or rating appreciated.
Good luck

Hedgie

---

Clarification of Answer by hedgie-ga on 15 Dec 2005 05:51 PST

There is one more (new) site of potential interest:

http://edubuntu.org/

The Edubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to
schools, through its customised school environment.

How about K12linux???

However, there are already a number of live CD's with different
personalities and functions. I would not recommend starting to build a
new live CD until you have examined those already available for
suitability. In what way would your needs be different from
well-developed ones in existence, such as Kanotix or Knoppix or
Ubuntu??

I read a posting recently on a linux forum. A man uses Kanotix
exclusively for his household computing needs. Each member has a saved
configuration file on the HD, and when that user logs in, that config
file is read. Otherwise, the HD stays in read-only mode and all work
is done in RAM. When it is turned off, everything is gone if they
didn't print it. No attacks; no security problems. No spyware.

take a look at feather linux...

http://featherlinux.berlios.de

0.7.5 is the current release...

The image is small so it wont take hours to rebuild... which i guess
would be ideal for class work...

I am currently the maintainer of feather linux, and a student at the
new jersey institute of technology ... learning linux from feather was
great, so when the original author decided to give up work on the
distro i picked it up... the next release will include both the 2.4.27
and 2.6.8 kernel... as well as the updated knoppix autodetection
scripts... this was a distro that was ranked in the top 1/3 of all the
distros rated on distrowatch.com ... my ratings are slipping since i
don't have as much time to devote as i use to...


Bob Pickel
Robert.Pickel@gmail.com