Have you ever heard of Knoppix?

 

It is really cool. I am currently running it.

 

Knoppix is a Linux based OS that is bootable from a CD! You can download all the files off the Net and burn them onto a CD and then boot off the CD and actually run Linux with no installation. It comes with a ton of programs preinstalled on the disc. The only bad thing is you can't save any settings. You also can't save files to your Hard Drive if it has an NTFS formatting. Knoppix (and Linux) only work on a FAT file format. Knoppix is really cool though. It picks up a lot of settings automatically. My internet connection is picked up immediatley! That's why I am on the forum now with Knoppix running!

I have to say, Gentoo has extremely good autodetection on the bootable cd. It's only to be recommended for more experienced users though (as you've got to do a lot of the grunt work yourself) but it's definately worth it for a system that's very nice to use and is compiled for your system.

My servers run Gentoo, it's the best Linux i've used.

 

Keeping it upto date is so very easy, and because of the system specific optimisation it's nice and fast.