KNOPPIX Live DVD 5.0.1 which was initially launched at CeBIT 2006, has just been released today to general public.

For those of you who don't know yet what KNOPPIX is, it is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals.

KNOPPIX can be used as a production Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it (over 8GB on the DVD "Maxi" edition).

What’s new in this version?

• Linux Kernel 2.6.17 (rc)
• Debian (testing/unstable)
• Xorg Version 7.0
• Detection of onboard IDE-Raid Controllers and raid disk components
• udev+hwsetup for automatic hardware detection
• KDE 3.5.2, GNOME 2.12 from Debian/unstable
• OpenOffice 2.0.2 (German + English)
• transparent write access for NTFS partitions (libntfs+fuse)
• new knoppix-installer now also with the possibility to update existing installations of Knoppix
• Many other updated

Download KNOPPIX now from Softpedia.