why? live-media different from installed distro

[SaintDanBert]

I booted a live-media edition of Mint-14 Cinnamon 64-bit edition and played around. The live-media run went okay as did my playing so I decided to complete the install.

During and after the install, I noticed several differences between my live-media experience and the install experience. MY POST IS NOT ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE DETAILS BUT THE EXPERIENCE IN GENERAL.
I can explain some of the differences as follows:

Code: Select all

A live-media edition has a requirement to boot and run regardless of the available hardware.
An install will inspect that actual hardware, configure to use it, and load the corresponding software.

A live-media edition's applications will run against the run-regardless hardware and drivers and parts.
An install edition's applications will run against the actual hardware and drivers and parts.


By themselves, these two distinctions can result in major changes in how things look.
Now my question:
How are we supposed to test a workstation using a live-media edition when so much of what is under the covers is likely to be different after a full install against the same workstation?

Thanks in advance,
~~~ 0;-Dan

[cwsnyder]

Turn that around. What if you didn't have a Live install? How would you be able know what you were getting without doing a full install? You also don't need to install from the Live DVD at all. Simply keep running from the DVD and store your data on another drive. Of course, you couldn't update without re-burning an .iso.

You can also burn the Live DVD to a flash thumb drive with persistence, which would be a compromise between a Live and a full install.

A Live DVD is from a read-only medium, yet must be able to run, with the operating system, drivers and many applications compressed, running mostly from RAM.

[SaintDanBert]

I agree with everything cwsnyder had to say. While valid it does not seem to address my question.
(Likely, I did not express myself well.) I'll try again.

I thought that one purpose of the live-media editions provided a way to test the new distro edition against your hardware without sinking or otherwise making changes to your current workstation configuration.
If that is a valid expectation, then how does one accomplish such a test since the live media and a full install are so different at their most intimate (with the hardware) levels?

Thanks in advance,
~~~ 0;-Dan