A Live image is a low-risk and time-efficient method of "test-driving" the
Fedora operating system on your own familiar hardware. If the evaluation
provides a pleasant adventure, you may choose to install the Live system
software to provide your normal computing environment. This Live image provides
you with an experience that is very similar to running Fedora, but there are
some benefits and caveats. Refer to and for more information. Before you use
your Live image, read the next section to learn how to maximize your enjoyment
of Fedora. You may also want to read for hints on booting from this media. Then
insert this media in your computer and boot from it. This Live system
successfully boots and runs on most computers with 256 MB or more installed
system memory, or RAM. If your computer has 1 GB or more installed system
memory, for higher performance, select Run from RAM from the boot menu. Your
computer must have the ability to boot from the device holding the Live image
media. For instance, if the Live image is on a CD or DVD, your computer must be
able to boot from the CD or DVD drive. This section gives additional guidance
for users whose experience with starting the computer, or "booting," is limited
to pushing the power button. To set up your system to boot from the Live media,
first shut down or hibernate your computer if it is not already off. Power your
computer on, and watch the initial BIOS screen for a prompt that indicates
which key to use for either: a boot menu, or the BIOS setup utility The boot
menu option is preferable. If you cannot see such a prompt, consult your
manufacturer's documentation for your computer system, motherboard, or
mainboard for the correct keystroke. On many systems, the required key will be
F12, F2, F1, or Delete. Most computers boot from hard disk (or one of the hard
disks, if there are more than one). If you are reading this document from a CD
or a DVD, then set the computer to boot from the DVD or CD drive. If you are
reading this file from a USB device such as a memory stick or thumb drive, set
your computer to boot from the USB device. If you are making changes to the
BIOS configuration, record the current boot device selection configuration
before you change it. This record allows you to restore the original
configuration if you choose to return to your previous computing environment.
The BIOS on older computers may not include a choice you desire, such as
network booting. If your computer can only boot from floppy diskette or hard
disk, you may be unable to experience this Live image on your computer. You may
wish to see if an updated BIOS is available from the manufacturer of your
computer. A BIOS update may offer additional boot menu choices, but requires
care to install properly. Consult the manufacturer's documentation for more
information. Otherwise, ask a friend if you can try running this Live image on
their newer computer. The following benefits accrue with a Live image: While
running this Live image, you are in control, and are not limited to a set of
screenshots or options chosen by others. Select which tasks or applications to
explore with complete freedom. You can experiment with this Live image with no
disruption to your previous computing environment, documents, or desktop.
Hibernate your current operating system, restart with the Live image, and
restart the original operating system when finished. Your previous environment
returns with no changes made. You can use the Live image to evaluate whether
all of your hardware devices are recognized and properly configured. In some
cases, the Live image does not offer the full range of hardware support seeing
in an installed Fedora system. You may be able to manually configure support in
the Live image, but must repeat these steps each time you use the Live image.
You can use the Live image to try different desktop environments such as GNOME,
KDE, XFCE, or others. None of these choices require you to reconfigure an
existing Linux installation on your computer. The Live image also involves some
drawbacks in exchange for convenience: While using this Live image, your
computer may be much slower to respond or require more time to complete tasks
than with a system installed to hard disk. CD and DVD discs provide data to the
computer at a much slower rate than hard disks. Less of your computer's system
memory is available for loading and running applications. Running the Live
image from RAM trades higher memory usage for faster response times. To fit
space constraints, fewer installed applications are included than in a full
installation of Fedora. Your favorite applications may not be present in this
Live image, even though they may be present and run quite well in a full
installation of Fedora. At this time, you cannot permanently install new
applications in the Live image. To try other applications, or newer versions of
existing applications, you must generally install Fedora on your computer. You
may be able to temporarily install or update applications, however, if you have
sufficient system memory. Most systems require more than 512 MB RAM for
installations or updates to succeed. These changes will be lost when you shut
down the Live image. Changes may also evaporate if your system's memory usage
forces the system to reread the original software or settings from the Live
image. This behavior is peculiar to a Live image and does not occur in a full
installation of Fedora. As you explore the the cascading menus on or around the
desktop, look for application programs you may wish to run. In addition, you
may wish to explore other capabilities. You can share data via mounting
existing storage devices, such as: floppy diskettes USB drives disk partitions 
You may use this Live image to make backup or archival copies of data, if your
computer system includes: a CD or DVD burning drive a hard disk with ample free
space Files normally in use by your previous operating system when it is
running are not in use in the Live image. Therefore you can use the Live image
to copy files that are problematic for backup software in the previous
operating system. To install the system from this Live image, run the LiveOS as
described above, and select the Install to Hard Disk application on the
Desktop. Using the resulting Fedora installation, you can customize the
software and configuration to your liking on a persistent basis.