The below table is a comparison of three different Live CD distributions, Slax 6.1.2, BackTrack 4, and NST (Network Security Toolkit) 2.11.0 minimal version. Each of these distributions have their own pros and cons, but they can all be useful to a security professional in a variety of different scenarios.
Slax is a modularized distribution that cuts right under 200 MB for the basic release giving the user flexibility and superb performance, along with a online ISO customization portal with tons of different applications in a variety of different use categories. Slax also has built in network connection configuration (when hard wired) and auto internal disk mounting.
BackTrack, on the other hand, needs a bit of network configuration to get up and running on the web, along with the need to manually mount your hard disk. BackTrack is considerably bigger in size, but with good reason. BackTrack has over 300 security geared tools that allow as user to do everything from packet sniffing, protocol analyzation, penetration, digital forensics, VoIP analyzation, spoofing, fingerprinting, port scanning, just to name a few.
NST is smaller than BackTrack in size, but contains a lot of the same applications. While NST doesn't have a nifty GUI, as well as not being customizable like Slax and BackTrack, security professionals should find NST to be useful in it's own right. If I absolutely had to chose one distribution out of the above three, I would have to lean towards BackTrack. It is one of the most comprehensive security geared distributions on the open source market today. For myself, the graphical user interface in BackTrack provides as a better navigation and overall use when compared to that of NST.
http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/127892
http://www.slax.org/
http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=slax
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=view&parentID=25042
http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/
http://wiki.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nstwiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid14_gci1301195,00.html?track=NL-422&ad=621619&asrc=EM_NLT_3145395
http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html
http://www.slax.org/
http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=slax
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=view&parentID=25042
http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/
http://wiki.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nstwiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid14_gci1301195,00.html?track=NL-422&ad=621619&asrc=EM_NLT_3145395
http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html
