DemoLinux has been one of the first Live CD Linux distributions. It was created by Roberto Di Cosmo, Vincent Balat and Jean-Vincent Loddo, in 1998.
The DemoLinux CD was created to make it possible to use Linux without having to install it on the hard disk. It is the first Linux Live CD making possible to use the system in graphic mode and without any stage of configuration.
There are many other Live CD Linux distributions today. One can consider DemoLinux as the ancestor of Knoppix.
DemoLinux offered to the users hundreds of applications (among which KDE and StarOffice) thanks to a compressed file system. The CD could be used without any modification on the hard disk, but the user had the possibility to use in a transparent way a space on the disc to store his personal data, and even to install new applications using the standard tools of the base distribution. Version 1 was based on Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux), versions 2 and 3 used a mechanism independent of the distribution and were distributed mainly on a Debian basis. These last versions made it possible moreover to install Linux on the hard disk, thus offering a very simple installation procedure of Debian (this principle is used today by other Linux distributions).
DemoLinux has been distributed in many computer magazines in several countries. It is still downloadable from the official website, but has not evolved since 2002.