Lifehacker readers apparently love a live CD that is all work and no play. Backtrack, a security-oriented live CD packed with useful tools, took home the crown for top live CD.

This week we want to hear about the Live CD tools that have made your life easier, saved you time, or both.

I was window shopping in a high street electronics store a few days ago. I was delighted to see a shelf display full of netbooks from vendors like Samsung, Acer, Dell, Advent and Asus (of course), to name a few. It looked like the Asus EeePC had launched an idea whose time had come and in the process possibly heralded the long withdrawing roar of the live CD.

More news about Lenny is that the Debian-Live team headed by Daniel Baumann is working on official live images. With these distributions users can employ Linux off the CD without needing to install it.

Firefox in DSL will move from the current version 1 to the GTK 1 version of Firefox 2. Thats a big deal because a lot of Web sites require at least Firefox 1.5 for full functionality. It means, for one thing that itll be possible to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets with Damn Small Linux.

Part of this growth can be chalked up to the trend of the LiveCD, a bootable disk image that users can download and burn to a CD to test the software. Most of the popular Linux makers release software on LiveCDs, and many also ship physical CDs to curious users anywhere in the world for free or for a nominal fee.

Everyone can easily create his own version of Fedora with the re-spin tool Revisor. OpenSuse also develops a tool with a similar purpose, KIWI.

GOSHEN, Ind. – RedPost inc., an Indiana-based tech startup, today announced the launch of RedPost/Kit, a do-it-yourself digital photo frame kit that comes with everything you need to get up and running.

Following the addition of PXE network booting to the ultra-lightweight Puppy Linux distribution, a group of enthusiasts offering Puppy customization and support services has revealed plans for “Minipup,” a project aimed at ultra-low-cost diskless hardware such as sub-$100 PCs.

My proposal is to construct a graphical user interface that can be used in conjunction with live-helper to build Debian Live systems, allowing editing of existing configurations and including a ‘wizard’-style walkthrough for the first-time user.

Providing less experienced users with the opportunity to easily create live distributions will generate more exposure for live-helper, providing more valuable feedback for its developers and ultimately helping Debian’s image as an extremely flexible and free operating system.

But I’m not a full card-carrying geek, so I’m not all that crazy about going to the command line with no help whatsoever just to get freakin’ Internet flowing into the box with a live CD I’ve never run before on an OS I’ve also never run before.