What is Live CD/DVD?

A live CD/DVD or live disk is a CD or DVD containing a bootable operating system—the core program of any computer which is designed to run all programs and manage all your hardware and software.

Live CDs have the ability to run a complete, modern OS on a computer even without secondary storage such as a hard disk drive. The CD or DVD directly runs the OS and other applications from the DVD drive. Thus a live disk allows you to try out the OS before you install it, without erasing or installing anything on your system. Such disks are used to demonstrate features or try out a release; these are also being used to test hardware functionality before actual installation..