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Medicine for a Sick Linux Box
Squidgee writes "This is the site for "LIAP: Linux In A Pillbox". It is an interesting recovery distro made in the vein of pharmaceuticals; each floppy based 'minidistro' cures one specific Linux ailment. Or, as Luke Komasta (The creator of LIAP) puts it: "My Linux project contains "pills". Each of them is good for one disease, but it doesn't work good enough for another. When you know what you need a Linux for, you may choose a good pill. And of course, as you know, there is no drug which is good for treating all diseases." It's an extremely interesting approach to Linux recovery, and one that appears to be more effective than the other varieties of floppy/mini-cd based recovery systems. Worth downloading in case you ever need it!"
What pill does it nead for a good slashdotting?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Well, for those who don't have enough experience to correctly diagnose what ails their box, it seems logical to make a diagnosis diskette, one that doesn't fix anything, but might give them a clue which pill has the best chance of fixing their problem.
And does the blue pill disk install windows ??
What disk do you use if your floppy disk drivers break?
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http://www.dennistighe.com
Don't tell me. Lemme guess.
The "Blue pill" returns your Linux machine back to normal function. The "Red pill" puts a trace on the kernel, and "shows you just how deep the rabbit hole goes...."
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I'd rather have everything I need at once, rather than having to switch floppies and reboot for a different function.
For me a bootable CD solution like Knoppix is a much better choice for a recovery disk.
I'd always thought, to a large extent, the frustration of dealing with Windows and Mac had been due to their perverse propensity for the use of abstract metaphors which complicate rather than explicate problems. That may be helpful for new users, but new users Linux users do not tend to be. Do Linux users want to be treated like babies all of a sudden? I know I certainly don't. And, somehow, I don't believe the linux community in general is going to be too impressed with useful utility encased in meaningless, obfuscating metaphors.
It's a new approach at building those emergency boot disks, so that you get exactly what you need/want. I dont' care what you can fit on two floppies; there will be times when you don't have what you need. This tries to address that problem in a rather interesting(if not terribly intuitive) way.
put the what in the where?
suppositories
Instead of lecithin, vitamin and insulin, we could have crack, lsd and heroin. You could even have a marijuana distro, which of course would be a gateway distro.
More than a recovery disk/CD, of which several already exist, I would love a comparison disk. It would be for use after suspecting an attack.
It would boot from floppy or CD, guaranteeing that it would be in control and not trusting the hard drive for anything at all.
It would contain Tripwire-style keys for every system-installed file in the distribution. When booted, it would check each file against these keys, and output a list of files that do not match.
So, if one has been rooted with a good rootkit that modifies the operating system to cloak hacked files, one could then boot this disk/CD and be sure of being completely in control with a known good operating system. All files on the hard disk would be able to be accessed honestly, for a true comparison!
Does such a tool exist already?
It would be fairly easy to add this to the Red Hat installer. In addition to having an option to install, it would have an option to compare an existing system. It would go through the standard installation steps (choosing partitions, etc.) but compare instead of copy. A byte-for-byte comparison could then be done, for true honesty. If any mismatches are found, it would complain loudly, and give you the option at the end of simply overwriting the changed files (under your control, of course, and on an individual basis).
What do you think? Does such a tool already exist? I would love to use it if it does.
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
The link to its ftp server seems to be missing...
If you want some working linux distro in a floppy you may look at Tom's. It's my favourite, it helps me install Gentoo Linux on some boxes cannot boot from CDROM.
Besides, you can find list of Linux floppy/CD distros here
Personally I prefer SuperRescue http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/superrescue/ for system recovery, works remarkably well on a system with a CD-ROM. Give it a shot :)
They are metaphors, they were meant as metaphors and they are still primarily used as metaphors.
Jargon does not start as jargon, only after it's used has been established in their technical context are they considered the "jargon" or idioms of the field.
Jargon terms have only three origins:
- Metaphors: process, kill, zombie, kernel, pipe, thread, batch, stack, etc.
- Codes and Acronyms: tcp, lisp, java, pc, minix, perl, etc.
- Idiotic Puns: more, less, archie, most shell commands.
Some, like GIMP, UNIX or GNU have mixed origins, but I'll let you decide which origins are present in the mix.
Not only are most computer science terms based on metaphors, very few people expect you to understand them properly without the metaphors. That makes learning concepts more difficult, and makes knowledge incomplete and not-portable.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Tell me if I'm imagining unlikely things, but for those of us for whom linux is still mostly a mystery, how about a diagnostic that checks to see what's wrong, then applies the right "pill(s)" ??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?