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Same here, drivers for some stuff is a pain. I like SuSE, Knoppix, and Mandrake. One of these days, I will get around to Ubuntu.

I keep a Knoppix disc at work to help me diagnose problems. 95% of the time, it isn't the hardware, it is Windoze flaking out. It freaks some people out when I use a liveCD. Is there a Windoze equivalent out there? If so, it is probably pricey like the rest of MS.

What Linux is great for on an old system/lap top is restarting USB ports, as boot disk, Linux is quite good.

I’ve tried DSL 3.3 and Ubuntu’s Dapper Drake and 8.0, they are okay, I think a student with time and interest in really poking around would love them and learn alot, but for me..not so much..

There are several different pre-installed environment builder utilities out there for Windows, they only require that you have the OS installation CD from which to build the bootable CD. BartPE, Winbuilder, and Windows PE are a few, the latter provided from Microsoft.

I've used modified Knoppix in the past, but mostly Helix and Backtrack currently when I need to work on a compromised system. The desktop guys use a custom windows PE build for imaging systems, data recovery, etc.

It freaks some people out when I use a liveCD. Is there a Windoze equivalent out there? If so, it is probably pricey like the rest of MS.

Nope. Since Vista, MS FINALLY made WINPE available to the masses for free, if you know how to find it. A marvelous Live Windows platform.

There have been free after-market solutions for years though. I was running a home grown network aware ntfs read/write capable Mini98 bootable from CD to fix Win2k with. It ran out of a 32mg ramdrive and it's programs were unzipped to the ramdrive when needed, then deleted when done. Pretty slick, if I do say so myself.

Then came BartPE, the first to really mimic the WINPE (Windows Pre-Installation Environment), to be offered as a rescue platform, and has been the industry standard for years in the "free" offerings.

Right now I use a modified LiveXP from the Winbuilder family, which has terrific nic card support, great USB mass storage support, and I have got my one trusty USB wireless nic to work with it for those cases where the native nic does not work. Very good application support (lots of available apps) through the Winbuilder method, very good scripting support in the build process using AutoIt! for modularization/customizaton.

While I too have a Knoppix disk in my arsenal, and while my history here will show I am no Windows hornblower, to say that WinLive disks are not represented is just not so, and if you are not using them, you are really missing out.