LiveDistro

TurnKey Linux Software Appliances announced its most exciting and ambitious batch of releases yet. The 2009.02 release, based on Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS,
includes 12 new software appliance images (packaged as an installable live CD) and features extensive improvements to usability, security and stability. "We've done a terrific amount of quality assurance on our end and blocked the release until we had resolved every single bug and issue we found."

Highlights:

• New software appliances since last announcement: Ruby on Rails, Mediawiki,
  Drupal6, LAPP stack, Django stack, MySQL, PostgreSQL, TurnKey Core
  (102MB) and Bootstrap (67MB)
• Rebuilt all appliances on top of TurnKey Core, the new common base for all software appliances, which is assembled from Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS
  packages.
• Security enhancements: SSL support out of the box, regenerating
  crypographic keys at installation time, database password setting
  during installation.
• Usability improvements: phpMyAdmin included in all LAMP based
  appliances, also included many generically useful webmin modules and
  improved embedded documentation, configuration console support for
  systems with multiple NICs, and password-free login in live CD/demo
  mode.
• Many bugfixes including one that fixes a potential breakage to the
  daily auto-updates mechanism.

See full release announcement for further details.

We got this far thanks to everyone in the Ubuntu community who tried out
the previous crop of beta appliances, especially those who gave us
feedback and encouragement on the forums. Part of the
what's great about starting out small is that we've been able to keep up
with all comments and questions and personally respond to every single
one of them, even in the middle of a development cycle.

What is a software appliance?

A software appliance is a self contained system combining an application
with just enough operating system to run on real hardware or a virtual
machine (e.g., VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen HVM, KVM)..

Manual installation and configuration of a server solution can be
painful and time consuming, especially for users lacking technical
proficiency.

Some users find that using a pre-integrated software appliance is an
easier way to get up and running quickly, especially in combination with
virtual machine software.

A software appliance allows users to altogether skip manual installation
of the desired application components and required dependencies, and
instead deploy a self-contained, ready-to-use system that requires
little to no setup.

For further details see "What is a software appliance"