Hakin9.live is a distribution from the creator of the Hakin9 magazine out of Warsaw Poland. This latest release, Hakin9 2.8ng is based off of the 2.6.12.5 kernel and was released on 11/15/2005. You can check out the Hakin9.live English site by going to http://www.haking.pl/en/index.php?page=hakin9_live.
Hakin9 is a Gentoo based distribution that boots directly to Fluxbox if no other option is made upon booting. The other option available is to boot to text mode. One thing different from other distributions is that Hakin9 has a few desktop icons in Fluxbox. They are all setup to open on one click except the Docs and Packages which seemed to have trouble opening for me. The hakin9 menu provides a very easy way to find the security tools that it was downloaded for. You make a simple right click and go to the option labeled Hakin9. There you will see that the distribution includes a good overall range of tools including forensics, IDS, Wifi, and more. The network analysis option has the longest list of tools. The Hakin9 website indicates that the Rox desktop is also installed but they provide no easy way to switch over to it nor do they tell you how to get there. When at a command prompt you can type Rox but that just gives me a Gtk Warning saying it can't open the display. Stick to Fluxbox and you shouldn't have a problem, except maybe trying to get Firefox open.
Hakin9 2.8ng is a well rounded distribution that incorporates many aspects of security. However, it does not seem to excel at any one aspect. It does not include any exploits or a large document set that would help you learn as you go. In comparison with other distributions Hakin9 falls a little short.
If you are looking for a distribution tell learn on and that will provide you everything that you need, Hakin9 is not for you. If you are an experienced live security distribution user then Hakin9 provides a good well rounded and updated set of tools.
Positives
Well rounded set of applications
Negatives
Lack of documentation and learning materials