Four Linux Live CDs, The Executive Summary

prostoalex writes "ExtremeTech published a review of 4 Linux live distributions that do not require installation and run off a CD. Knoppix, Feather Linux, Gnoppix and MEPIS Linux were researched, with Knoppix winning the competition (and Gnoppix not graded, since it's still in beta)." One more (of the seemingly infinite number of live distros) I've recently tried and been happy with is called Slax, and is what it sounds like -- a live Slackware distribution. Slax worked great with my finicky older Toshiba laptop. (However, slax.org appears to be down.)

Comments

Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[corebreech]

Remember to tell people that before you evangelize them on Live CD's, or they'll come away thinking that it's Linux that's slow.

Sadly, it's a mistake I made at the apartment complex where I live. They have two computers connected via cable modem to the Internet for use by the residents. One's running Win2K, the other Win98. Needless to say, the Win98 machine started crapping out after every single piece of spyware on the planet was eventually installed. They knew I was into computers, so they asked me to take a look. I sold them on the idea of using a Live CD (Knoppix) on the premise that never again would they have to worry about residents screwing around with the system.

For awhile, this worked, but eventually people started getting frustrated. I think the speed in loading applications was the major factor (another was fear that one of the residents would walk away with the CD.) They've since gotten management to buy another copy of Win2K.

Yes, I failed it. I assumed that they would understand that since it was running from a CD, that the experience would be slower.

In hindsight, I should have exploited Knoppix's ability to be installed to the hard drive. It would have given them most of what they wanted, and it would've run at an acceptible speed.

(yes, I know, *all* Linuxes can be installed to the hard drive, but the Knoppix install is basically the CD image sitting on the hard drive as read-only, which for this application had its virtues.)

It's tragic in another sense... the apartment complex has a large number of people from all over the world who generally end up staying for relatively short periods of time, so their English isn't first rate. Good--and easy to use--i18n support would be a great help to many of them to be sure. I could have actually gotten interested in working on this aspect of Linux (really, KDE) as I've torn out quite a bit of hair trying to come to terms with this problem set, and having people who actually *use* foreign languages as my testers would have been invaluable, to say the least (I don't know a foreign language.)

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Negative Response]

but the Knoppix install is basically the CD image sitting on the hard drive as read-only, which for this application had its virtues.

I fail to see said virtues. If you are going to write to the harddrive, it might as well be a full featured Linux distro, such as SuSE or RedHat. Why the hell not?

i18n support would be a great help to many of them to be sure. I could have actually gotten interested in working on this aspect of Linux ... (I don't know a foreign language.)

With all due respect, you probably should know some foreign language to do i18n--doing stuff in English hardly qualifies as internationalization.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Think Knoppix is slow? Imagine a bootable gentoo cd. It compiles the applications when you click on them. But its faster. Or something like that.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Tim C]

If you are going to write to the harddrive, it might as well be a full featured Linux distro, such as SuSE or RedHat. Why the hell not?

Because the Knoppix image is /read only/ - so you cannot possibly install crap on it, or corrupt/delete system files, etc. I don't know how stuff like home dirs work (as I've not used Knoppix personally), but at the very least you can't mess up the system for other people.

doing stuff in English hardly qualifies as internationalization.

No - internationalisation is the process by which you prepare an application to be localised. Localisation means using icons, images, text, etc that is appropriate for a given country/culture. Internationalisation means making these things configurable - ie having text strings, image paths, etc come out of a config file, instead of being hard-coded. It is localisation that requires translators, but internationalisation needs to take account of things like direction of writing (right-left or left-right), what colours should be configurable (red in some countries is lucky, not danger/warning), etc. You need people from other cultures to point these things out, or you may miss something, and create an application that can only be partially localised.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Saiyine]

the Knoppix install is basically the CD image sitting on the hard drive as read-only

WTF? Are you kidding? Knoppix install creates a perfectly working debian system, I have a k6 as my little server out from an hd installed knoppix and works GREAT, I only have to reboot when upgrading the kernel!

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[fab13n]

Because the Knoppix image is /read only/ - so you cannot possibly install crap on it, or corrupt/delete system files, etc.

This is what root account and files ownership is all about in UNIX: not letting regular users messing up the configuration.

<blasphemy>Except if you're used to work logged as root...</blasphemy>

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[halfnerd]

IIRC Knoppix does _not_ install the image on the hard drive. Instead it lets the user partition the hard disk and copies over the files from the cd. Once installed on the hard drive, Knoppix is as read/write as any other "normal" GNU/Linux. Knoppix can even be up/down-graded to an ordinary Debian installation using apt, because it's Debian-based.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[m00nun1t]

Slow is slow. Maybe they understand, maybe they don't. The windows 2000 machine is fast. The knoppix machine is slow. Reasons are irrelevant.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[corebreech]

See for yourself.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Ed Avis]

A normal Linux installation is also read-only, for non-root users. It's probably not quite as bulletproof as a mounted read-only disk image, but I believe that FHS-compliant distributions should always work with /usr/ mounted read-only, at least.

If there are things an unprivileged user can do to screw up the system, they are normally security holes, and should be fixed. (Not saying they don't exist - read-only mounts can still be useful if you are really paranoid.) (One thing you might worry about is hitting the reset button and corrupting the disk - a CD-ROM is certainly immune to that, though journalling filesystems should be robust against it too.)

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[corebreech]

I'd like to evangelize for Linux though, so I don't want to do Linux installs that only serve to make people think Linux is slow.

I'd like people to walk away thinking, "Hey, that Linux is pretty cool!", and then when they walk into a Walmart a year later, and they see the Linux PC selling for less than the Windows PC...

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[ParadoxDruid]

I fail to see said virtues. If you are going to write to the harddrive, it might as well be a full featured Linux distro, such as SuSE or RedHat. Why the hell not?

Knoppix installs a complete version of Debian, which I would say qualifies as a full featured Linux distrobution. I installed Debian testing via Knoppix over 5 months ago, and I've never looked back-- I left my computer dual-booting into WinXPpro, and I think I've booted into it maybe twice.

Go Knoppix!

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using Damn Small Linux right now, and it's on a Toshiba 4015CDS Laptop. Only one partition on this box, so I started at the boot prompt:
boot: knoppix tohd /dev/hda1
and the cd was copied to a folder c:\knoppix on the
win 98 fs. I use a boot disk, and now do not need the CD at all. I restore from a Memory Stick, and have MozillaFirebird, about 10 mb of files in a tarball on the usb stick. There is a menu item in fluxbox for DSL that automatically installs Mozilla Firebird and Flash 5. When done, all you have to do is edit your filetool.lst on the stick to have all that backed up.

It's fast and stable, and the scite editor included is way better than gnotepad for editing html pages for my web site. Right now, I am using the glinks web browser, which has to be seen to be believed. It is much better than dillo, but of course no match for Moz 7.

Big problem in moving my CD and stick around to various machines. Modem has to be reconfigured with #wvdialconf wvdial.conf, and of course you might not be able to get X to run.
One can start with "knoppix 2" to start in text mode and work up from there.

I installed on the HDD as I wanted more speed, and got a little tired of having the cdrom drive spin, although it's not really that bad, I just wanted more...

This setup runs almost as fast as my P4 2.8 1GB XP box, but not quite. It's not slow by any means.

One idea is to back up to a second memory stick (remove the original) then if your stick pulls a "mars lander" item on the flash memory, you still have your stuff.

I have my menu file(yes, I changed it) on the 'net at:
fluxbox_menu so you can see what this litttle distro has. I have not added anything but Moz 7 to it, yet. As you can see this setup is stable enough to make this post, using Slashdot's online "comment box", with the corrections, and additions one must make. There is no "paste" in glinks, that I could find, so I couldn't just write this in scite, and paste it here.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[IWK]

Tut tut. The parent was right. "The Knoppix install" you are mentioning in the grand-parent is in reality as described in http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/HdBasedHowTo

You on the other hand are pointing at what is at best a fun hack and certainly not the "default knoppix way". It' s also a rather pointless excersise. A normal Knoppix HD install is faster, can be updated through the apt-get update/upgrade routine and it also cannot be damaged when using non-root accounts (as you should). After all, in Knoppix-as-run-from-CD they have full access to their machine through the password-less root-console.....(wich you then should remove). The only advantage I could think of is that the method you're linking to will save you a little over a Gigabyte of HD space...

In the grand-partent you write:

"...Yes, I failed it. I assumed that they would understand that since it was running from a CD, that the experience would be slower..."

You failed your users because you didn't offer them a solution which fitted with *their* expectations. Instead you came up with a wizz-bang hack which fittted yours (running an office environment from CD! Cool!). Your users only want to have easy, hassle-free computing. A reduction in speed *is* a major hassle.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a better answer whould have been a well partitioned system with the majority of the mountpoints mounted as readonly (especially /home). Assuming that they only use it for the internet, you should also be able to trim down the system significantly.

Well what can they expect, they asked you to do it (no pay), and I doubt that the Win2k system will last for ever either against tons of spyware. Maybe they'll come around and give it another try.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[corebreech]

It' s also a rather pointless excersise. A normal Knoppix HD install is faster, can be updated through the apt-get update/upgrade routine and it also cannot be damaged when using non-root accounts (as you should).

Well, there are other considerations here. I wanted this to be set up in such a way as to demand as little of my time as possible, which the Knoppix image approach achieves. I was also concerned about liability... had I done a normal install, then I would be root, and then I would conceivably be liable for any exploits performed on that machine. Remember that this isn't my day job by any stretch of the imagination; this is me doing a favor.

And I'm not sure I buy the notion that a default install is secure simply because you're making your users use non-root accounts. I've heard of too many exploits that take advantage of local access to the box.

You failed your users because you didn't offer them a solution which fitted with *their* expectations.

Again, they really aren't *my* users. This was supposed to be about me spending less than an hour slapping the thing together and maybe visiting once a month to see if it was still running when I go to pay my rent. I was getting nothing in return from this arrangement, so considering that their alternative was wrestling with a barely-limping Win98 install, I think I did well by them.

Now, had I gotten into the second-stage of the project, that is, getting into all the i18n crap, then yeah, I'd have gone for the full install and would've worked out some indemnity arrangement with the manager's office.

Just one more note... once the system was booted and Konqueror was running in full screen mode the system was actually quite responsive. Most of the users were interested only in doing webmail and assorted browsing, and what was truly remarkable was how they didn't notice or care that it wasn't an IE box, despite (I'm assuming) that being their only previous experience. I think the people who were upset with the performance was management, because they had to turn on the machine in the morning and I guess waiting three minutes for everything to load was just too much. So, I think it really depends on the situation you're in... with just the slightest change in environment--like if they left the machine on all night for instance--it would have probably been a successful setup.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

<troll>Hey, that's like Java...</troll>

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

> Remember to tell people that before you evangelize them on Live CD's, or they'll come away thinking that it's Linux that's slow.

Of course, why do you think you have been seeing so many posts recommending Knoppix?

There are three groups pushing Knoppix:

1. People who really like Knoppix for its convenience as a Linux recovery CD, for using as a Linux demo, and other cases where they might want to temporarily use Linux on a machine without installing it. I have no doubt that Knoppix is as good as they say.

2. Trolltech astroturfers who are paid to praise anything that promotes the use of Qt.

3. Microsoft astroturfers, who would much rather have people try Knoppix, and conclude that Linux is slow, than to have people actually install Linux, and possibly carry on using it. Microsoft wants to promote the idea that switching to Linux is a big and expensive step, and if people actually install Linux they may discover how easy it is to use.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[kayen_telva]

See for yourself.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Installing Knoppix to the hard disk is not copying the cd image and getting a read-only fs. This is essentially installing Debian Linux. In fact, this is the number one reason people use Knoppix to install to the hard drive for: it's an excellent installer for debian. Once you install it, su to root, apt-get dist-upgrade and go about your business. I don't even really like Linux, but I've used it and worked with it enough to know a thing or two.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[rsheridan6]

If the knoppix live cd is too slow, maybe they could try starting fluxbox or icewm instead of the default KDE. On a slower computer, Knoppix on CD with KDE is utterly hopeless but fluxbox is okay (in my experience).

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[DaChesserCat]

Let me get this straight. They only decided a few hours ago that the flash memory in Spirit was the probable cause of the problems, and already, if a memory stick fails it:

pulls a "mars lander"

Man, even the memes are moving at Intenet speed.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[rzbx]

" IIRC Knoppix does _not_ install the image on the hard drive."

during boot in the console type "knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1" can be other partitition besides hda1.

It will then copy the CD image to that partition and run it from there. This is using the newest Knoppix btw. Check out the boot command cheatcodes
http://download.linuxtag.org/knoppix/k noppix-cheat codes.txt

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

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Becomes Slashdot

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Now, with your link:

Cheat Codes

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Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[jaseuk]

No its not.

The copy to hd feature of knoppix copies only the (KNOPPIX) image file to the hard disk.. (knoppix-hdinstall utility is a bit different)

The advantage of copying to HD is you get some extra speed and the CD does not need to be in the drive, while maintaing some of the read-onlyness that is beneficial from running from the cd, eg: people not powering down the system properly and changing files and settings.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Damn Small Linux, and have done this at boot to copy the cd to a folder in Windows 98:
boot: knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1
What you get is a folder with about 50 mb in it.
If used with a DSL boot floppy, the CD is no longer
needed, and there is no speed penalty. It runs MozillaFirebird better than Windows 98 can on the same box. There is very little hard drive activity, compared to when I am booted into Windows 98. I have the fluxbox window manager, which I have customized, and bring that and all other configs back with a restore from the USB memory stick. That is to say that I start out new each bootup, exactly as on the CD, and after my restore, which takes only less than a minute, I have MozillaFirebird, my own menu, my own fluxbox configs, and all my other files that I use on a daily basis. Without that boot floppy, and memory stick, the box boots into Windows 98, and nothing of mine is accessable. There is that c:\Knoppix folder with the contents of the CD in there, and that's all. It sure is a pleasure to have a laptop that runs quietly for a change. Windows 98 is fairly hard on the HDD, as I only have 160 MB ram.
Damn Small Linux installed like I have uses about 100 mb of ram, according to "top" just now checked.Of course I am making this post from this system. I'm not sure that Knoppix itself could be done this way as the CD has a lot more on it, and the folder created in Windows would be very large, surely not just 50 mb as mine is. So, they could run in ram, but that again takes a lot more memory. DSL is the answer for me.

Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand

[unixformat]

"Remember to tell people that before you evangelize them on Live CD's, or they'll come away thinking that it's Linux that's slow." Knoppix ought to put a pop up message each time an application is run from CD warning its users that it is highly likely that the application they are running would be faster if it was phsically installed on a hard disk.

wow.

[SinaSa]

"However, slax.org appears to be down."

Obviously the sysadmin for the slax.org webserver is some sort of psychic and chose to take the site down than receive a slashdotting.

Re:wow.

[zelbinion]

Er, no... perhaps the site has simply Moved

Knoppix is okay, but I really like having a very usable distro on one of those 185mb cd's. The small cd's actually fit in your pocket (typically of my coat) so I can have a useable linux distro wherever I go, AND it works on old hardware (read: PC's that can't boot off of usb keys).

I don't have a laptop at work (don't travel enough to warrant the expense) but when I do travel, I usually end up having to "borrow" someone's PC when they aren't using it. This is pain to say the least. It is great to say: "hey, let me just use that old junky one in the corner." They usually respond: oh, you can't use that one, the hard drive is broken. Which is when I say "Perfect!", and they give me this very strange look....

That said, slax is the only 'small' distro I've found that includes the utilities I need:

1. dhcp
2. Web browser that supports ssl AND PROXIES!!! (most small distros use the dillo web browser, which does not support proxies. Without proxy support, I can't get outside the corporate firewall, which sort of makes it hard to read slashdot.)
3. ssh
4. multi-desktop window manager [click to focus] (yes, I started on windows, flame me...)
5. vnc viewer
6. reasonably workable xterm (konsole and rxvt are my favorites)

Also nice about slax is that is has full PCMCIA support. When I've used it on laptops (belonging to other people, of course) I've been able to use PCMCIA network cards (10/100 and some wireless cards) and it supports flash memory (so I can copy over my ssh keys). I love to have these features in one of those 50mb business card distro's, but they never seem to include a functional web browser, and do include a bunch of utilities I don't care about.

(sigh) I guess I'll have to build my own distro, if I only knew how/had the time to learn...
Until then, however, slax is the best distro I've found for what I need.

Re:wow.

[Visualocity]

"Obviously the sysadmin for the slax.org webserver is some sort of psychic and chose to take the site down than receive a slashdotting."

With some great foresight too;)

The domain's pending deletion from the PIR registry, so it's likely been off for a couple of months. Often when a domain is expired, its DNS is inactive. Domains usually are not deleted at the registry level for 70+ days after expiry.

Re:wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not entirely down, slax.linux-live.org
Slax is by far the best live-CD I've used, keep up the good work (fits on a 20 min / 8 cm cd too).

Re:wow.

[Patik]

The small cd's actually fit in your pocket (typically of my coat) so I can have a useable linux distro wherever I goThat's gotta be one of the geekiest things I've ever heard. Congratulations.

Re:wow.

[Patik]

The small cd's actually fit in your pocket (typically of my coat) so I can have a useable linux distro wherever I go

That's gotta be one of the geekiest things I've ever heard. Congratulations.

Re:wow.

[Afrosheen]

You can build your own distro, and not to evangelize but PCLinuxOS 2k4 makes it easy.

Basically you setup the distro the way you want it, apt-get rpms via synaptic (yes that's right, apt-get and rpm in the same sentence), setup all your bookmarks, address books, etc. Then you run the mklivecd shell script and voila! Your own distro, with everything you want and need and nothing you don't.

Go to pclinuxonline.com and hunt down the left side for the pclinuxos download link and forums link.

Re:wow.

[OwP_Fabricated]

The site moved, but well, that's been mentioned already. I'd just like to say that Slax kicks ass. It's small enough to fit on one of those small-form CDR's, so you can carry it in your pocket should you need it. Slax is a really nice, fast tool for fishing data off of damaged/dying drives when you just can't boot.

Re:wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Dillo _does_ support proxies. It's just nestled deep inside the dillorc file.

Re:wow.

[#undefined]

if running debian...

apt-get install bootcd

it creates a bootcd from your currently running distribution, and with the version in testing/unstable, a distro within a chroot (from outside the chroot, simply by pointing bootcd to the base of the chroot).

i needed this because i support a debian server running the root fs on lvm, which means to change the size of the root fs, you have to boot to something other than the root fs, like a boot cd. knoppix includes lvm, but it's based off of testing, and the version of the ext2/3 tools on testing are incompatible with those in stable (already burned me once).

so on a debian testing workstation i created a chroot, installed debian within the chroot (as described in the debian woody install document), and pointed bootcd to the chroot.

i installed a bunch of "rescue" apps on the boot cd: parted, fdisk, e2fsck, etc. the live cd is not as smooth knoppix, but then again knoppix has been hand tweaked for a single instance of an installation, where bootcd is generalized for anybody's installation.

now i can effortlessly create a debian testing live cd.

DSL?

[crache]

Im surprised they left out Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/). It packs a complete desktop package in 50 megs. This includes:
browser
word processor
email client
picture viewer
image editor
file manager
instant messenger
spreadsheet
PDF viewer
mp3 / cdplayer
irc client
ssh clients games
sql database
web server
vncviewer
nintendo emulator..

really knoppix packs a lot of stuff, but do you need it all? 50 megs will fit on an infamous "business card cd"

Re:DSL?

[crache]

almost forgot; Dsl is small enough to load into ramdisk, eliminating the speed problems of a cd, and even outperforming your hard drive.

Re:DSL?

[FePe]

Im surprised they left out Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/).

Maybe it has something to do with its name? ;-)

Re:DSL?

[Walkiry]

DSL is absolutely great. All the power of Linux in the small business card CD.

It does have a small con, and that is the hardware support, which is somewhat a bit more limited tham the latest Knoppix. I've run this on a few machines and ran into a bit of trouble with some of the more exotic hardware, but it really shines when running in old boxes (we got a Pentium 100 to boot with this thing).

I'd highly recommend this if you are going to go around showing Linux to people, giving it a try first while having the full-blown Knoppix as a backup.

Re:DSL?

[amembleton]

Damn Small Linux is very usefull. I have a copy of Knoppix with me at home, but its not something you can keep on you at all times as its too big. CD is larger than pocket.

However DSL fits onto a buisness card CD that I can keep in my wallet. If someone is having problems and Windows won't boot for whatever reason then I guess its geek to the rescue. Normally I'd have to go home to pick up the Knoppix disk but now I can use DSL. Tis good.

Re:DSL?

[Darlington]

That's good, because I would hope that any live CD containing a CD player application would, you know, not hog the CD drive.

Re:DSL?

[damiam]

Many computers these days have multiple CD/DVD drives. My main box has 3 (a CD-RW, DVD-ROM, and then an older CD-RW).

Re:DSL?

[scrote-ma-hote]

Yes, but how many notebooks have > 1 CD-Drive? Don't forget mobile users, I'm one of them.

SuSE Live

[FePe]

I once tried SuSE Live (I think it was version 7.0, but I don't remember). It didn't work. That is my experience with Linux Live CD's :-)

Re:SuSE Live

[Fafnir_b]

I once tried SuSE Live (I think it was version 7.0, but I don't remember). It didn't work.

You sure do know what you're writing about... Actually, knoppix works more than fine. When my university was hosting the particle physics conference of the national phyisical society, we set up two "internet cafes", one featuring ordinary PCs, the other a bunch of notebooks, all running knoppix with no problems. And that was a year ago. I used knoppix when I bought my notebook, which came without windows preinstalled, but I wanted to see it worked before I took it home, so trusting in God or whoever else is responsible for making things work, I just popped in the knoppix CD and bootet the computer. Actually, I was an idiot and didn't see the pixel failure in the middle of the screen, but I won't blame that on knoppix ;-)

If you want to have a gnome desktop from a live CD, try the Morphix Gnome module. Last time I downloaded it, it worked nicely, definitely better than Gnoppix. This distro's work seems to have been interrupted for a while but they are just reemerging from the sort-of-dead.

my Well, as a software engineer on MECD experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an old PPro 200 running Win98 that I brought back from the dead with Linux.

I tried Knoppix, but Christ, that thing ran slow, perhaps because it keeps going back to the CD.

Then I decided to take the plunge for real, and holy crap, SuSE is the greatest EVAR. First time I'd ever tried to install Linux of any sort (besides the aforementioned Knoppix) and everything just worked. And despite some dire warnings I got from friends, KDE runs fine on a PPro 200. I love KDE - its similarity to Windows means that I find things where they are supposed to be.

Propz to SuSE and KDE!

None of these work for PPC

[radicalskeptic]

Has anyone had luck getting a Live CD for PPC to work? I've tried Gentoo's, and it didn't boot properly on my PowerBook--but oddly enough booted up in my roommate's CD drive just fine... which is really odd considering we both have the exact same model PowerBook!

Re:None of these work for PPC

[Anonymous Coward]

... which is really odd considering we both have the exact same model PowerBook!

Does the back of your PowerBook say "made in china?" Sad to point out, but probably yours is Chinese clone, BowerPok.

Peace...

Re:None of these work for PPC

[pvdabeel]

Probably your roommate hadn't applied the OS X update which installed a broken firmware, incompatible with linux.

Current livecds should be compatible :-)

Slashdotted?

[zonix]

Slax worked great with my finicky older Toshiba laptop. (However, slax.org appears to be down.)

So, slax.org seems to have been slashdotted before the actual story was posted? Hmmm, I'd say that's a rather curious temporal anomaly? :-)

z

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. I am developing a new program to figure out what future slashdot posts are going to be so that you can view the site before it gets slashdotted. I guess too many people downloaded the code:-(

Re:Slashdotted?

[t0ny]

So, slax.org seems to have been slashdotted before the actual story was posted? Hmmm, I'd say that's a rather curious temporal anomaly? :-)

Maybe somebody used a r00t exploit on 'em...

Re:Slashdotted?

[Visualocity]

"So, slax.org seems to have been slashdotted before the actual story was posted?"

Their sysadmin must have incredible foresight;) slax.org has likely been off for a couple of months. The domain is pending delete with the PIR registry, and this normally doesn't happen for 70+ days after the domain expires.

Domain ID:D93147523-LROR
Domain Name:SLAX.ORG
Created On:16-Dec-2002 01:17:30 UTC
Last Updated On:22-Jan-2004 11:56:14 UTC
Expiration Date:16-Dec-2004 01:17:30 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:R71-LROR
Status:PENDING DELETE
Status:HOLD

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that they have already found a cure for the nervous tick that lets you post those "r00t exploit" twitches all the time. Dear moderators: a good flamebait-trashing on the back of the head of this poor subject could work wonders.

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

They moved:

http://slax.linux-live.org/
http://freshmeat.ne t/projects/slax/?topic_id=1012

Re:Slashdotted?

[HulkProtector1]

Actually they have just moved their website to http://slax.linux-live.org/. I have downloaded slax before, to test out the latest kde 3.2 and liked it alot. -Sam

Re:Slashdotted?

[CleverNickName]

So, slax.org seems to have been slashdotted before the actual story was posted? Hmmm, I'd say that's a rather curious temporal anomaly? :-)

I suggest modifying the forward http array to emit an inverse slashdotyon pulse into the heart of the anomaly.

I'll be in Ten Forward if you need me.

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

they may be able to cure it, but I certainly dont want it; im having too much fun

Re:Slashdotted?

[zonix]

I suggest modifying the forward http array to emit an inverse slashdotyon pulse into the heart of the anomaly.

Ah, I see where you're going! An inverse slashdotyon pulse requires a lot of power, though? Perhaps, if we use the main deflector dish instead? We could reroute emergency power to the dish and then set the polarity to the http frequency required. This should restore bandwidth to the remote server's tcp/ip plasma coils a bit faster.

z

Morphix

[OverlordQ]

Personally I've tried Morphix and I liked it very well. You can also install it to an Hard-Drive by double clicking an icon on the desktop if you dont want to boot from cd. It's based off of Debian GNU/Linux as well as Knoppix.

There's 4 Official 'Flavors' of Morphix including:

• LiteGUI - a small, lightweight desktop, that provides things like a wordprocessor, spreadsheet, browser, email client, IM-software and media player (avi / mpeg).
• Gnome - a desktop for people that want more than the basic tools. However, there is little you can't do with this cd image (full printing support, photo-camera tools, a few games and OpenOffice to work with Word-documents, for example)
• KDE - a desktop that is between LightGUI and Gnome when it comes to the amount of tools pre-installed. Like Gnome, there is support for multiple users, but it doesn't contain OpenOffice, and hence doesn't deal with Word-documents as well.
• Game - a small lightweight desktop with only a browser and a lot of Open Source games, and one or two Free commercial demo's/games.

In addition to those 4 Official 'Flavors' there's quite a few Derivitves including ones for HAM Radio users and a MAME system.

Re:Morphix

[Elektroschock]

Games? Try Dosbox: http://dosbox.sf.net

Re:Morphix

[Anonymous Coward]

I found knoppix worked, whereas Morphix didn't set up my sound card right, wouldn't connect to the internet because it set up my ethernet, two other bugs, so I canned it.

However if I was not so lazy I would have gone to the website and downloaded the right modules for my box.

You can tailor your iso by selecting modules, thereby reducing the dowload to as little as 150 mb which could be done on a modem (if you have all day).

Re:Morphix

[SharpFang]

You can tailor your iso by selecting modules, thereby reducing the dowload to as little as 150 mb which could be done on a modem (if you have all day). ...or which leaves you 550MB+ for your own custom applications and data you need running on that system. (think presentations (possibly as movies), thesis, custom hardware drivers development environment for that custom hardware (crosscompilers etc), thorough documentation, etc, etc.)

Re:Morphix

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a HD install of the Gnome flavor of Morhpix. It's great... a full Debian system with Gnome 2.4 up and running in around 20 minutes.

Slax

[crache]

The poster mentions Slax, and its website being down: It is currently accessible at http://slax.linux-live.org/ but not for long..

Re:Slax

[kev82]

And of course google cache... http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:w17OTCNWWHgJ:w ww.slax.org/+slax&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Utils

[MrRTFM]

The great thing about Linux (as far as home users go) is the number of 'free' games and utilities installed by default. It's something to play around with.

People aren't going to install Linux and jump into a spreadsheet for the boss - they want to stuff around - and that's whats good; there are a heap of small games and odd utilities to keep the newbie amused for a reasonable amount of time.

With the live CDs, this is a great way to show home users *easily* what sort of stuff is installed for FREE with Linux.

Now, if there was just an easy way for them to access their Outlook email...

Slashdot editors...

[Anonymous Coward]

timothy: However, slax.org appears to be down.

Need I say more?

Live CDs are almost a killer application

[heironymouscoward]

The speed of live CDs is becoming less of an issue as RAM sizes get larger. On my 512Mb notebook, Knoppix runs just fine.

What I find more interesting than "standard Linux on a CD" is the concept of packaging a specific application along with a live CD. For example, the systemrescueCD boots up and gives a good set of tools for doing backups/restores of your disks.

What works for backup/restore also works for games, demos, even large-scale applications that do not require intensive local data storage. The advantage of a live CD based on something like Knoppix is that it will run on practically any PC out there, booting in less time than it would normally take to install and configure.

There is little reason why a lot of software should be hard-installed onto PCs, and many reasons why it's a pain in lots of cases.

The counter argument is that "yes, but I want to be able to switch back from my game to my other applications." But this ignores the huge market for single-purpose kiosk-style systems, in home, in shops, and in business.

I would estimate that 30% or more of all PCs run only a few specific applications, and that most of the future expansion is into kiosk-style areas where live CDs are a perfect answer.

Why is this interesting? Because Linux has a significant lead in this technology mainly thanks to Knoppix. Thus a large part of Linux's future growth may well come from a native technology, which is much nicer than trying to win market share by imitating Windows.

Where's MandrakeMove?

[turkeyphant]

The article only seems to mention using these distros as a means to introduce oneself easily to Linux. While this is an obvious use of Linux-on-CD type distros, it's by no means the only one. Personally, I've found these things to be fast enough for the difference to be barely perceptible from proper installs.

I've been using Knoppix for a while now and have found it to be really rather awesome. The possible uses are almost limitless and this will improve even more if the ability to write to NTFS volumes is ever introduced.

For example: Recently a friend managed to fuck up his Window XP install beyond repair. I burned him a copy of the ISO and Knoppix sorted it out in minutes. It's blisteringly fast, the hardware auto-detection has to be seen to be believed and the amount of software on that one disc is mindblowing. It's certainly worth keeping a CD copy handy...

However, I'm intrigued as to why MandrakeMove wasn't included in the article. I much prefer to use Knoppix because of its ability to mount hard drives, but MandrakeSoft have been very perceptive in their implementation of USB keys. By carrying around configuration options and personal data on a USB storage device, anyone equipped with a MandrakeMove disc can convert any CD-bootable PC around the world into an equivalent of their home desktop. Many people have predicted that this could become a lot more commonplace in the future where computer users would have to rely a lot less on a home workstation-centric lifestyle. I haven't investigated, but I would guess that persistence can be gained in Knoppix by somehow copying the contents of the ramdrive somewhere more permanent.

Re:Where's MandrakeMove?

[cxvx]

As for getting knoppix to do the same, it's just a matter of adding a home=/dev/sda1 (or your actual pendrive location) parameter during startup.

It could be that this is automated/autodetected with mandrake though.

Re:Where's MandrakeMove?

[yellowcord]

I do it already. With Knoppix 3.3 theres a program that will make a permanent home directory. Point it at your USB key drive at boot and you are laughing.
"knoppix home=/dev/sda1 screen=1280x1024"

If you figure out how to edit the ISO (I'm guessing loopback device) you could even get the CD to do this automatically.

Re:Where's MandrakeMove?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're guessing right:

mount /tmp/knoppix.iso /mnt -t iso9660 -o loop,rw

Re:Where's MandrakeMove?

[Frodo420024]

I much prefer to use Knoppix because of its ability to mount hard drives, but MandrakeSoft have been very perceptive in their implementation of USB keys.

Actually, MandrakeMove mounts the hard drives just fine. The beta had icons on the desktop for it, but they took them out for the final (which I think is good). Over the holidays I used MandrakeMove on PC's of friends and family, and it worked very well, got much done. It's slick, fast (!), Just Works (TM).

Yes, MandrakeMove is a glaring omission.

Re:Where's MandrakeMove?

[J. T. MacLeod]

Unfortunately, the iso9660 filesystem module doesn't support writing. It wouldn't work at the last step.

The two alternative choices for editing an ISO image are
a) Copy all the files to another filesystem, edit, then create another ISO
or
b) If you just need to change one line, you can load the entire ISO image into a text editor and search for the line you need to change. I'm not sure if you could do that in this case, since LILO compiles the options into the binary.

Re:Where's MandrakeMove?

[Bz3rk]

Yeah, Mandrake Move is great from checking out Mandrake (like the SuSE live-eval cd). Other live distros worth checking out are the Knoppix-STD (security tools distro), Phlak, Stux, Flonix, Morphix, LNX-BBC (another mini-cd distro), BhavyaOS... just scratching the surface.

Gnoppix review

[Anonymous Coward]

So their beef with Gnoppix was that they couldn't get to the Internet. And yet, they could get to a local Samba share? I don't know, this doesn't sound like Gnoppix's fault to me.

Re:Gnoppix review

[jasoneyre]

Yes, but they obviously used the same machine, which means that the other distro's worked fine.

Without taking into account they used the faster machine for Gnoppix as well (the Athlon XP 2GHz), there coudn't have been differences in physical networking subsystem.

So the hardware guys blame the software guys ;p

Create your own

[digitalhermit]

I followed these instructions on the Linux Journal site to create a Fedora and RedHat 9 based live CD:

http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7233

Only sticking point was the initial partition. I tried with a loopback mounted ISO but there were permission problems. Then went to a NFS mounted share. It worked but required a second machine. Finally just stuck another drive inside and created a bunch of 700M partitions.

Knoppix down too?

[pphrdza]

At least the link in the stofy doesn't work.

Any alternatives, or do we wait til the evident slashdotting is over?

Re:Knoppix down too?

[Wudbaer]

Try www.knoppix.de, seems still to work (for how long is the question though)

Knoppix for nforce mobos: Kanotix

[Anonymous Coward]

http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/
It is made by a german Knoppix hacker named Kano, who has a big page of patches for Knoppix here:
http://www.kano.mipooh.net/
It comes with kernel 2.4.23 patched with forcedeth and XFS.
It uses grub, Xfree86 4.3, is based on Debian/sid.
ACPI and DMA enabled by default (can be disabled with acpi=off respectively nodma)

The forum (german and english):
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/index.php

Download:
http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/kanoti x/
Torrent:
http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/KANOT IX-X-MAS-2003- PREVIEW.iso.torrent

Re:Knoppix for nforce mobos: Kanotix

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike Knoppix which ships with kernel 2.4.22, Kanotix's kernel 2.4.23 contains nvidia drivers, which makes Kanotix fully ready for nForce2 mobos.
No need to install drivers, to patch the kernel, at all.
Forcedeth patch is a GPL driver for the ethernet card built in nForce2 mobos.

Executive summary

[JessLeah]

To: CEO
From: John Smith, IT Manager, MCSE
Subject: Four Linux Live CDs

Dear Sir:

I know your time is precious, so I'll just provide an executive summary.

* Linux doesn't run Microsoft Office
* Linux doesn't make Bill Gates any money
* Linux users are commies. (I read it from my friends on the Microsoft newsgroups. They're always right.)
* Running Linux makes us Unamerican (possible fear of PATRIOT Act backlash?)

SUMMARY: Avoid Linux. Buy Windows. (No, this has nothing to do with the fact that Microsoft just offered us a huge check because they heard we were considering Linux...)

Re:Executive summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard Israel has switched back to Microsoft Office on the TV:

Perhaps Israel was threatening to bulldoze three more Microsoft settlements unless Microsoft agreed to push prices back to their 1973 positions.

Damn Small Linux

[JThundley]

You've got to be careful with those mini CDs. I got a copy of Damn Small Linux on a Business Card CD stuck inside the CD-ROM drive behind the tray. This went on to break the whole CD rom drive and probably the CD.

Re:Damn Small Linux

[smittyoneeach]

At which point you rename it:
Small Linux--Damn!!!

Re:Damn Small Linux

[replicant108]

Also: NEVER EVER ever put a business-card CD in a slot-feed CD drive. You're pretty much guaranteed to fuck it up.

Re:Damn Small Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG I'm laughing so hard I wanna crap my pants!!

Re:Damn Small Linux

[ozbird]

That's the problem with implied operators: you assumed it was "(Damn Small) Linux on a Business Card CD", when in face it was "Damn (Small Linux on a Business Card CD)".

Re:Damn Small Linux

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Good point. I've seen the same thing, on a bigger scale, in my home entertainment system. I've got one of those big Pioneer combination CD/DVD/Laserdisc players. (Yeah, I've got shelves full of laser discs and it was a lot cheaper to buy the combi-player than to re-buy them all on DVD.) The only problem is with the occasional DVD or CD that's a tad out of balance. If you make the mistake of leaving it spinning in the drawer for a long time, the unbalanced disc eventually works out of the disc holder mechanism inside the player. It then goes flying somewhere in the machine, usually wedging itself somewhere just about impossible to get out through the front door.

I got pretty good at taking off the cover, removing the jammed disc, and putting the whole thing back together before I decided to get another DVD/CD player and use the combi player for laserdiscs only.

Re:Damn Small Linux

[RaTd0g]

True. Although you "can" sometimes use those in a cd drive w/o a hub, you're certainly risking the situation described here.

Stick to cdrom drives with hubs if you wanna play with odd shaped media. Those are best used on laptops as they usualy have the poper cd reader.

Knoppix CD torrent

[alt.fan.slashdot]

You can download Knoppix with BitTorrent here, it should be faster than FTP.

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[rotciv86]

Ximian Evolution rocks fer email.

Giant leap forward

[saphena]

The ability to run linux straight from the CD with no low level hard disk interference may not be enough of itself to encourage investigation and/or take up of linux by Windows users but it certainly represents a leap forward.

Most Windows users are not computer nerds, they're just people who *use* computers - installing an operating system onto a hard disk, with or without risk to their existing setup, is just way beyond their skills or desires.

Speed issues can be helped out if not resolved by use of RAM disk as demonstrated by http://www.goosee.com/puppy/

Bittorrent knoppix link

[alt.fan.slashdot]

Before the knoppix server dies, here's the tracker for the bittorrent so everyone can download knoppix.
here for the bittorrent client.
Also, MandrakeMove torrent

Re:Large amounts of memory

[JThundley]

The speed of live CDs is becoming less of an issue as RAM sizes get larger. On my 512Mb notebook, Knoppix runs just fine.

I wonder if there is a way to load the whole Knoppix CD into RAM just like Damn Small Linux does.

I know that Knoppix is 699MB (I just checked) and Damn Small Linux is only 50MB, but I was naive when I built my Windows gaming rig so I bought 1.5 gigs of RAM :)

Some examples of kiosk applications

[heironymouscoward]

Here are some instances I can think of:

- home entertainment systems
- small office use (with data saved on network disk)
- education and training (data on USB drives)
- standardized corporate desktops (data on network)
- cybercafe workstations
- point-of-sale terminals
- industrial kiosks
- voting systems
- automated tellers
- DJ workstations
- application demos (both standalone and interactive)
- games

Re:Some examples of kiosk applications

[Anonymous Coward]

The "games" part sounds very interesting, except that most games these days require hardware accelleration. I just checked nVidia's driver license; it appears they have a special "Linux Exception" allowing distribution of the binary drivers. ATI, I think, uses the X system's DRI, so that's the "main two" down (correct me if I left something out).

Except for the "legality" of distributing a kernel which loads a non-libre module. Where do we stand on that?

Re:Some examples of kiosk applications

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a Live CD that loads XMMS with a playlist aimed at one of di.fm's playlists.

Boot PC, music plays.

Coool. But imagine a beowulf cluster of these, all playing the Deep Trance channel at the same time... I'm having an eargasm!

Two Knoppix-based in Brazil:

[Anonymous Coward]

Kurumin and Kalango (yeah, like I was going to give the links... lamer!).

They're pretty much Knoppix adaptations, knoppix options still present and all, but an interesting fact:

Some small VARs here sell computers without OSes and they demo their computers with Kurumin, which not only eases the selling process (try telling your customer to believe the computer will work), but also require much less work, since there's no installing to do... and more importantly, no uninstalling, too!

Kinda of a frightening experience, to see Linux in TV... to M$, of course! ;-D

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[smittyoneeach]

Mildly off topic, but one use for these live CDs is hardware detection and kernel configuration.
I'd like to try out some of the source distributions, or even do Linux from Scratch, but wading through kernel configuration is rough on an FNG.
Not sure how to extract the kernel parameters from a live CD once booted, though.

Great for working types

[Trailwalker]

I suspect that there are a lot of people like me who work long hours and don't have time to do a lenghty install. Knoppix allows me to enjoy and explore Linux in the little time I have available.

java desktop?

[roqetman]

I got a copy of sun's java desktop from the linuxworld expo. It is basically a gnome desktop that boots from a CD; not too bad although I haven't played with it much.

Re:java desktop?

[bmsleight]

Sun's Java is a Morphix based CD.

Linux live is ideal for laptops

[branchingfactor]

Given the high chance of hardware incompatibilities when installing linux on laptops, linux live cds are fantastic for laptops. You boot the live cd, fiddle with the options, and see if the hardware you care about works (eg., display, external display, ethernet, wireless, etc.). If not, you try another distribution. I tried knoppix, gnoppix, morphix, as well as straight debian on my ibm t40p. Only knoppix was able to get everything working. After I got it working, I installed it to the harddrive. The biggest problems with knoppix are (1) it uses kde instead of gnome and (2) it has its own package structure that is incompatible with debian. So apt-get dist-upgrade or even apt-get upgrade will break everything. I've only had success upgrading individual packages with apt.

Re:Linux live is ideal for laptops

[polyp2000]

The biggest problems with knoppix are (1) it uses kde instead of gnome.

Why is that a problem?

Re:Linux live is ideal for laptops

[darnok]

> The biggest problems with knoppix are (1) it
> uses kde instead of gnome and (2) it has its own
> package structure that is incompatible with
> debian. So apt-get dist-upgrade or even apt-get
> upgrade will break everything. I've only had
> success upgrading individual packages with apt.

I've done both apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade several times (over a period of a few months) on my installed-to-hard-disc Knoppix box, and haven't had a problem with it.

I've also installed an extra zillion games via apt-get for my kids to play on the same box, and they work fine too.

If you're having problems with this, it might be worth reporting it to the www.knoppix.net. The PC I used is a grey box clone running an old Celeron 533 with no "tricky" hardware whatsoever; maybe you're hitting problems with the specific hardware you're using.

Re:Linux live is ideal for laptops

[jonathan_ingram]

(1) it uses kde instead of gnome

This is a plus point, not a negative.

2.6 Kernel Live CD

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a Live CD which uses any version 2.6 kernel?

For that matter, (I am quite new to Linux, like using it a lot but don't know much about the underlying code), how does one go about compiling a LiveCD ISO image with specific software?

Ideally, I would like to take Knoppix, take out a lot of the stuff I don't use much, add in a couple of specialized progs, and get some config options which suit me more than the defaults, and then continue using this as a read-only LiveCD. Anyone to point me in the direction of a decent (beginners level) tutorial?

I realise this isn't Ask Slashdot, but its not too far OT. Sorry anyway.

Re:2.6 Kernel Live CD

[Okneff]

The next version of jollix (to appear in 2nd quarter) will include kernel 2.6.1, kde3.2.
http://www.jollix.de
It has german language support only so far but our scripts to build the liveCD are available via CVS: http://cvs.berlios.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/jollix/j ollix/
Most of the bash-script comments and utility-documentation (cloop, mkisofs) is in english.

Re:2.6 Kernel Live CD

[Egbert B. Gebstadter]

The Knoppix Remastering howto page is here. The howto walks you through building your own customized, Knoppix-based distribution and also has a link to a page about customizing the Knoppix kernel itself. I also recommend an O'Reilly article that gives another overview of the remastering process.

What's with the number ratings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else see skewed numbers for the ratings? Knoppix, the relatively perfect distro received an 8/10 and MEPIS which was rated equal to Knoppix only got a 7/10. What the heck?

what about MandrakeMove?

[marafa]

what about MandrakeMove? from mandrakelinux.com

Re:what about MandrakeMove?

[Anonymous Coward]

I much prefer knoppix. Their is just something about the quality debain tools.

new to linux again [a slightly offtopic question]

[-Maurice66-]

Hi guys,

Nice... those live DEMO's but that's not what I need.

A question I have had for a while now is: what linux to install...

I am not new to linux, I just have not had a version installed since RH 5.2 I totaly lost contact with linux for a while.

I'd like to have a system for my standard office work and doing some small website developments...

What would be the, easy installable, distro for me?

Cheers,

M

But what can you do with live CDs ?

[dargaud]

I use knoppix a lot for testing hardware. In 2 minutes you can tell what's wrong with a PC, if it's worth keeping and more.

I also learnt about Quantian right after I finished building my 24 processor cluster

But how can you work with one of those ? You can surf the web but that's about all. You cannot write to NTFS partitions, so that precludes their use on a Windows machine as an alternate OS. If you can't save files it's useless as far as I can tell.

Please, please, disprove me.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[digitalhermit]

Knoppix and many of the others allow persistent data, either by saving to an existing partition or things like USB drives. Knoppix in particular allows you to mount FAT and NTFS, though I have not tried writing to NTFS.

MandrakeMove, another LiveCD, has support for USB drives so you could maintain your working environment (settings, documents, etc.) across any PC.

You can also configure some to automount an NFS home partition.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask and ye shall receive!
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/04/ 01/10/1940 217.shtml

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a 64 mb memory stick and save my files automatically when I backup in Damn Small Linux. It keeps about a 10 mb tarball for all that. I edit my web pages with DSL, the scite editor, and upload them using MozillaFirebird. No problem at all keeping your files on the usb stick. Also, I did this at the boot prompt:
boot: knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1
and the directory c:\knoppix is created with the entire 50 mb cd in it, ready for use with a DLS boot floppy, no need to use the cd.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[MAurelius]

And one other thing about Knoppix, it will mount read-only NTFS partitions and provide access to data WITHOUT any Windows login. It bypasses Windows security completely. Kind of nice when you have to retrieve crucial data from an unbootable or otherwise broken machine.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard that next release of Knoppix (3.4) will be supporting Write access to NTFS. Stay tuned.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[damiam]

You can write to a FAT, ext2/3, reiserfs, XFS, hfs, etc. partition (and Knoppix 3.4 will include full NTFS write support). You can save files to hard drives (including iPods and the like), USB keys, and network drives. You can surf the web, play games, edit OpenOffice docs, edit photos, run servers, and do almost anything else you could on a regular install. With the transparency kernel module (enabled in Morphix by default, don't know about Knoppix), you can even apt-get install any Debian software onto the ramdisk. I recently had a hard drive die, and Morphix was a major lifesaver while I was waiting for a replacement.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[SharpFang]

Just remount the drive RW and it works, though not really reliably.
But if I use the CD with a USB drive (Nokia 5510 phone, MP3 storage area ;) I get pretty decent system I can have up and running anywhere - with stuff I want.
I'm slowly running short on the USB diskspace though, so... I think I'll just switch to morphix and burn whatever I need to the CD.

Practical application: Development and control system for a custom-built device model.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you only have one machine and use knoppix for a dual-boot you can make a VFAT partition to be shared between the Windows and Linux sessions. If you are on a network, smbmount or nfs mount your normal server shares. Or, run the X desktop from another machine with XDCMP enabled. At the boot prompt enter 'linux 2' to come up without starting X, then 'X -query remote_server' to get the login prompt and start the X desktop there.

Re:But what can you do with live CDs ?

[Weaps]

Another spiffy use for a live CD is to have your favored environment with you everywhere you go. I'm posting this from one right now. I have a work provipded laptop that has Win2000 installed on it. When I go over to my parents house to care for my sister during trips I take my work laptop with me, but got real sick of having only the Win2000 environment. Sure, it works but I work better with a Gnome or KDE desktop. So, out comes the Knoppix CD, a couple minutes later it negotiates with dad's cable modem, and I'm browsing the web, conversing via IM with my wife, and windows follow mouse focus and autoraise like god intended them to!

The fact that it's connected directly to the internet without a firewall (that's dad's failing) is not an issue because there's nothing to hack!

Even if I didn't have a laptop I could boot the CD on either of thier computers and have my favored desktop environment without messing up their (ugh) windows desktop.

Gnoppix for me

[BiggyP]

while it doesn't seem to use all of the most advanced technologies that Knoppix provides, which makes load times slightly longer, Gnoppix is rather good, and as far as user experience goes it really outdoes Knoppix with the GNOME desktop.

ftp.linux.cz

[quinkin]

You can also find it here and here.

Q.

Custom Live CDs?

[quinkin]

I feel I should put in a plug for Linux Live at this point.

Although I haven't used it myself it is what the slax distribution was created with.

To quote from their website:
"Linux Live is a set of bash scripts which allows you to create own LiveCD from every Linux distribution. Just install your favourite distro, remove all unnecessary files (for example man pages and all other files which are not important for you) and then download and run these scripts. "

Q.

Re:Custom Live CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for this information, it's very useful.

Knoppix does more than just KDE

[ParadoxDruid]

Straight from boot from the CD, Knoppix can use something like 6 or 7 different GUIs, including KDE, Gnome, IceWM, FluxBox, and more.

That's a useful capability that's often overlooked-- On an older machine of mine, running Knoppix in KDE-mode was pretty slow, but it ran fast as anything in FluxBox mode.

Re:Knoppix does more than just KDE

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

No, gnome was removed a long time ago. Except for kde there's fluxbox, icewm and xfce as far as i can see.

Re:Knoppix does more than just KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

No, gnome was removed a long time ago. Except for kde there's fluxbox, icewm and xfce as far as i can see.

But, and further, if you install Knoppix to the hard drive, Gnome is just an apt-get away.

http://www.linux-live.org/

[quinkin]

http://www.linux-live.org/

Q.

Knoppix remastering

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a guide to remastering Knoppix that could help. I mean, while you're at it, you might as well tweak the application set.

CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[axxackall]

700MB is certainly not enough for modern system, even if compressed. But where to get Live DVD? I understand that mostof linux distributing sites still afraid bandwidth problems, but what about live dvd making instructions at least?

Right now it looks like Linux community stack to CD. Is it because nobody needs Live DVD and I am the only one here with DVD-ROM hardware?

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[WhiteDeath]

well apart from the extra bandwidth.....

just download a CD version, extract it out, add all your favourite gigabytes, and re-pack it. The same tools will burn the new DVD version or the old CD one.

Assuming your system can boot a DVD, it should work well. Worth noting that many older systems (pre pentium 3 even) can't boot CDs over 700 megs.

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a DVD Knoppix version created for a limitted time. It was made to be distributed at LinxTag show. Knopper siad he will have a DVD made when DVDs are more popular.

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[zentu]

Not just that, but they had to do a number of things to get it to work properly, namely fix cloop, which is their compression program.

That is supposed to be finished before the end of the year, so hopefully in a few months we may have the DVD ISO for download... but it could be up to 12.

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[HulkProtector1]

Hey, A guy has made a knoppix dvd, but you have to buy it. http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4002 -Sam

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[Afrosheen]

While reading all this stuff today I came up with an idea.

I have a stack of 7 Mame cds sitting here, and about 3 more filled with console games intended for use with Mame. Anyway I think it'd be cool to finally put all these discs together on a dvd (since I have a dvd burner) and create a linux distro that boots from the dvd to house it all. Set it all up to where you throw in the disc and you can play the entire mame collection anywhere.

This will enable me to eventually create a standup arcade machine with no hard drive. Sure, it'll be slow, but I'm cheap. Maybe if I spend a big chunk of money on the ram instead I can have most of it cached in ram, or at least the parts that would take a long time to load.

I'm gonna fire up vmware, install pclinuxos, move all these roms to the right places and attempt the mklivecd thing. Wish me luck.

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[Carrot007]

1 DVD?

Guess your not a mame completist then ;-)

They took up 20.2 GB at the last proper release. Roll on the replacement media!

Re:CD is too small. Where is Live DVD?

[Afrosheen]

Wow. I guess it's time to update my collection. Since I started supermame a few years ago I've let the whole thing slip. Yes, the roms are available but nobody asks how. They assume the site is broken.

Anyway there are still guys on the mame burners list right? Time to get a new set. :)

How long until pen live distros?

[wowbagger]

Given that pen drives are now at the 256M to 512M range, and a CD is 680M, how long until we see USB pen-drive distros?

And given that READING flash is pretty quick, if the drive supports 480M USB2.0, then it *should* be pretty quick, unlike an older, slower CD drive.

Of course, a modern CD drive should be pretty fast on read time (though seeks are still slow), so maybe a pen drive wouldn't be much better (except for being read/write).

Anybody have any experience in this?

Re:How long until pen live distros?

[Tommy Boomfiger]

You can boot DamnSmallLinux from a USB Key. It's something like 50 megs so you can probably boot from a 64 meg key.

Re:How long until pen live distros?

[core plexus]

I've seen some 2G pen drives, but they are a bit spendy. For a 2GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive: $778

President Bush to Liberate Alaska

apt-get breaks everything?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't say that. The laptop that I'm typing on used to be Knoppix that I then upgraded to Debian sid. Just start up aptitude and start getting rid of packages with "knoppix" in their name and replace them with the appropriate standard packages. After the broken packages are resolved, do the install. Just remember that going from Knoppix, it is cleanest to switch to sid.

The thing that I considered amusing about Knoppix was it's lack of support (they may now include the drivers, I used an older version) for my orinoco-based wireless card.

Non-libre modules

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK this is not an issue so long as the module is not derived from a GPL'd work. So if nVidia allows people to repackage their drivers on a live CD there are no problems.

Remember that the GPL covers derived works, and there is a lot of work done to ensure that commercial code can coexist happily with GPLd code.

I don't agree....

[chadm1967]

I just don't agree with the article. I have the latest versions of Knoppix and MEPIS. For me, MEPIS is far more responsive and useable than Knoppix. Plus, when you do a hard drive install of both, there are apps in Knoppix that don't work. I haven't had that problem with MEPIS.

MandrakeMorph?

[Frodo420024]

As others noticed, omitting MandrakeMove is strange. It's very slick, even the beta was solid as a rock, and I got a lot of work done.

Now, this and Morphix ("Unfortunately, noone can be told what the Morphix is") got me thinking:

It should be technically feasible to automate the creation of customized .ISO files for live Linux distros:
Suppose MandrakeSoft sets up some heavy servers with a shop frontend (pricing just an example):

1. $20: Choose packages and have ISO created for download.
2. $10 Have a CD burned and mailed to you.
3. $10 Reconfigure your package choice and get a fresh ISO.
4. $10 Have a fresh ISO made out using the current kernel/KDE/OpenOffice/whatever.
5. $20 Upgrade to DVD size image.
6. $?? Support (not much to do here)
7. $20 Printed manual

You'll have your name put somewhere into it so you won't have to type it in (thus you won't like to redistribute it wildly, either), and you'd set the default language, permanent storage options etc.

Advantages:

• Never install or update applications manually.
• Update whenever you feel like it - often or rarely.
• Never have a failed dependency or inconsistent versions after getting an update.
• No product activation or other licensing hassle.
• You can't mess up your install (except by physically destroying the CD :).
• Hackers can't put backdoors on your machine.
• Virus infection not possible.
• Even a harddrive crash doesn't destroy your install.
• You can even run without any hard drive in the first place.

A public library could run their computers off a stack of these and not have to worry about people hacking the config - nothing to hack. Even a stolen CD is not a problem, you just bring out a backup copy. It's all Free Software anyway, you can let anyone steal it.

The selling of individual ISO's is automated, the distributor merely maintains the packages on the server and collects the money. Sends a donation to OSDL once in a while :)

Any reason this should not work?

Re:MandrakeMorph?

[Milhouse_ph]

You might want to check out the work that Tomas Matejicek (the creator of Slax is doing). He is attempting to create a script that will box up a linux distro that you configure. So you install your distro, then you configure the hell out of it. Then you remove all of the useless stuff. Run the script and poof! out comes a live distro of you chosing. I believe the scripts currenty only work with Slackware (and a few others), but it would be interesting to see something like this take off. Then your idea could easily be transferred to the idea of a coporate or library network with a singe computer in a locked room that acts as the test bed, and everytime they want a change the just change the test bed run the script and burn 20 or so CD's.

Re:MandrakeMorph?

[Frodo420024]

You might want to check out the work that Tomas Matejicek (the creator of Slax is doing). He is attempting to create a script that will box up a linux distro that you configure.

So you install your distro, then you configure the hell out of it.

That's interesting, but not what I'm looking for.

One of the main points about 'MandrakeMorph' is that it's be usable by your average non-techie user - just select base module, office module, games module and click go, and any Windows-addict will have a customized no-install Linux that requires no tech knowledge to use. Simpler and more robust than Windows, easy. It must be doable.

Re:MandrakeMorph?

[Frodo420024]

Which is not at all what I have in mind. I know about Morphix, too, that's more like it.

What I want to see is a distro that you'll never configure, you just choose the modules you want, and go. Joe A. User can use this just as easily as Windows. Or Jane A. Administrator could get a custom bootdisk for the 100 desktop PC she rules. No configuration, no installation, no tweaking - just switch on and use, like a modern car.

Free CD distribution scheme

[mm0mm]

If you are a billionaire willing to burn some of your cash to save the world (of computing), make 100-million copies of Linux Live-CDs and distribute them for free just like AOL free CD. This will give more people an opportunity to see and find out what Linux is. Live CD is perfect for those who do not want to hard install, but want to see what Linux is and can do. If we have a free distribution system available, it will help Linux be recognized by those who don't have 'time and patience' to download ISO, burn CD and reboot. Linux's market presence will increase as a result of mass distribution.

Needless to say, if you are concerned, you are not obligated to $699 binary-only license per copy, as you are not a 'user' but distributor of Linux.

More is not always better...

[Dr. Faustroll]

At LinuxWorld last week, John "Mad Dog" Hall gave an excellent talk that, among other recommendations, made a crucial point about introducing newcomers to Linux:

Don't overwhelm them with ten different applications to do the same thing - pick one, and pick well.

This is the problem I've seen with distros like Knoppix - while they're great resources for experienced Linux users who want to have all of their favorite tools available anywhere, the number of apps is too much for newbies to handle. If you want to turn someone off Linux, just tell them "Well, for word processing you could use Abiword, or KWord, or OpenOffice. And look, you can use Dillo, or Mozilla, or Konqueror, or Firebird as your web browser. Isn't this great!" - I guarantee eyes will rapidly glaze over. The "let them explore the CD" approach is no better - the menus are cluttered and unintuitive to the newcomer, and the plethora of application interfaces with wildly different visual styles and conventions will finish confusing and scaring them.

If you really want to introduce people to Linux using a LiveCD, I recommend taking the time to make a custom CD that carefully selects a subset of the available applications that will be both interesting and accessible to your audience. This is actually quite easy and fun to do, starting from Knoppix (or Damn Small Linux, or Morphix, or...), and is one of the most useful things you can do to help Linux gain acceptance by a broader audience.

Re:More is not always better...

[gardyloo]

That's true -- a hand-picked bunch of apps may help keep a newbie from being overwhelmed. HOWEVER, one has to compile a new set of apps for each person, and probably change these over time, which seems like a bit of work, and would use a great number of CDs.

I (and everyone I know) uses a "lightweight" text editor for quick things -- Abiword's not bad; Kedit's not bad, etc. But for actual scientific papers, you use LyX, or MikTeX, or actual, rude, evil-red-tex LaTeX itself. Or OpenOffice or Word, and then parse things through LaTeX. My dad recently set himself the daunting task (for a computer newbie; and, as it turns out, for several veterans, too!) of typesetting a poem he wrote. Using an actual, genuine typewriter made the task phenomenally easy and transparent; in Word it was inexecrable; in OpenOffice, it was doable, but not easy (the final solution, it turned out).
For scientific graphics, we use Excel's or OpenOffice's spreadsheets' capabilities for quick work, but for professional work, we use Origin or Scigraphica or Grace, or -- heavens! -- Mathematica. There are, no doubt, lots and lots of examples I could give, for different tasks (and some of the tools aren't open-source).
All these examples mean is that if I'm going to give someone a distro to try out, I'm going to be damned sure to include several different applications, because I never know what this person will want to do.

The danger of picking single apps for a given task is that the app won't DO what a person wants to do, or at least won't do it easily. A newbie (who are the people these distros are aimed at, apparently) will not realize that there are apps which CAN do what they want out there SOMEWHERE, and one runs the risk of turning the noob off of linux (or whatever OS you're bundling) permanently, because they think that there are no tools available to do what they want, no matter how much handholding you give them. "Oh, you mean I have to burn a new CD every time I want to do this task? Fuhgedaboutit! I'm sticking with Windows!".

Pfaugh.

Re:More is not always better...

[Dr. Faustroll]

There's a simple solution to the issue you bring up - ask the person what it is they do, what tools they use to do it with, and what they would like to do but have been unable to do thus far, before you put a CD on their desk. Yes, this takes a bit of time - but the idea is to help the other person in a way that is useful to them.

You also seem to forget that many - probably most - users do not need exotic applications for their day-to-day work. A carefully selected set of office apps, a good address book and calendar, a web browser and an email program, a music player and a few games will cover their needs. If you make three different compilations of software in these areas (one lightweight, one medium, and one heavy-duty in terms of features and complexity), you'll have most of your bases covered.

Finally, for those users that need to try out a range of tools, it is a (relatively) simple matter to show them how to transfer their LiveCD onto a hard drive, how to find suitable applications online, and how to use apt-get to install them. My experience has been that all but the most unreasonable people will understand that you cannot hold their hand forever, and be willing to explore on their own. The fact that, should something happen to their hard drive, they can always fall back upon the LiveCD, helps reduce the anxiety that might otherwise discourage exploration.

Re:More is not always better...

[gardyloo]

You're correct: To make a good case for a particular set of software packages, one has to know what a person is going to do, and the tools they might want to use. This is the point of the original poster, and I do not dispute it.
My point is that I (and, admittedly, a relatively small percentage of computer users) am in an environment (a major research institute) where people are actively seeking new solutions for problems, and need *flexibility* every day. There really isn't a killer, do-it-all app out there for the tasks I--or any of my colleagues--end up doing, but some are definitely better than others. I've become quite comfortable and proficient in a small set of tools, and ones which could probably be adapted to quite a few of the NEW challenges which will be thrown at me next week or tomorrow. Unfortunately, because I'm in a kind of unstable environment, I can't guarantee that the software at my disposal now (especially if it's a small set of apps) will accomplish what I need it to do later. Every single one of my geeky friends is in the same position, except most of them are stuck on Windows, and don't have the same range of tools at their disposal that I do. Thus MY solution (and it's not going to be the solution of most, or even a large minority, of people, especially in business environments) will be to pick *several* applications to do, e.g., scientific graphics, and bundle that with a relatively nice GUI. In fact, about the only bit of software which I could confidently put on every hand-rolled distro is a fully-featured window manager, and one which isn't TOO alien to a MS user -- KDE and Gnome seem to be the reigning champions, for the moment, at least.

ONLY my $0.02 :)

Help needed converting friends

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used Knoppix for about 2 months - regularly. I think friends are ready to be switched onto it. I have the resonsibilty of being a friendly geek to about 30 or so people who all treat me as their 'computer guy'. Until Knoppix I have always held back at converting them to *nix for the obvious reasons, but now I think its ready.

Now I want to convert friends machines remotely so that they can boot from a floppy disk which will do a network install from customised images (customised persoanally for them with applications etc) I put up on an FTP site.

Does anybody know of such a floppy based network install script or am I going to have to write it myself?

The script should be very thorough in WARNING the user what is happening (that their windows system is about to be ERASED). After that fdisk, making filesystems and partitions, detecting hardware, establishing a net connection via dhcp, downloading and installing the build, must all happen automatically without any further action.

Re:Help needed converting friends

[carlmenezes]

Can't help you out there, but I must say, nice work and a very nice idea :) If you do write such a script, please do put it on a website and submit a story to Slashdot or at the very least, message me :)

Re:my Well, as a software engineer on MECD experie

[Anonymous Coward]

First time I'd ever tried to install Linux of any sort (besides the aforementioned Knoppix) and everything just worked.

It's understandable that Linux would install fine on an 8-10 year old machine without any problems since it would have the most stable driver support. The trouble are people who want to install Linux on their shiny new systems and have trouble with Linux not recognizing their brand new ATI Radeon video card or the on-board NIC and sound. Up until a couple months ago putting Linux on an nforce2 board was a pain in the ass. You still need to make sure you disable APIC to get a stable system.

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[WhiteDeath]

Most of the info you need should be lurking in /proc somewhere.... even the parameters from the boot loader are available....

If you want the actual kernel configuration to compile one the same, you're out of luck unless it's a 2.6 kernel with that info compiled in.

What About PCLinuxOS?

[phatvibez]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Textar's PCLinuxOS project yet. It's based on Mandrake 9.2 plus Texstars enhancements.

You can find more info here: PCLinuxOS Homepage

It's still early in development but looks really promising! They just released Preview 5 on the 20th.

Re:What About PCLinuxOS?

[crayiii]

Who's to say "textar" won't abandon this when he gets bored or when he decides he should be getting paid but isn't?

Re:What About PCLinuxOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're joking right? do you even have a clue of who texstar is?

Re:What About PCLinuxOS?

[crayiii]

I know of him since I use Mandrake.

How to make bootable USB key?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried to put the Feather distro (sligthly over 61MB) onto
a USB key using the command

dd if=feather-0.3.3.iso of=/dev/sda1

However when booting up using this USB device
all that is seen is a black screen with blinking
cursor in the upper left.

I tried of=/dev/sda as well, and tried to put
lilo to it but it always gives the same result.

Has anyone more success?

The USB key is a TwinMOS Mobile Disk III
which claims to be both bootable and partitionable.

Re:How to make bootable USB key?

[ammoQ]

look here (it's about Knoppix, though)
http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knop pix-usb/

Re:How to make bootable USB key?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried Flonix and it worked well.

The DSL (damned small linux) distro didn't work
for me.

Re:new to linux again [a slightly offtopic questio

[Fafnir_b]

Of the linux distributions I tried out during the past three months, SuSe, Redhat and mandrake appeared quite apt for "beginners". I didn't toy too much with mandrake, and between redhat and suse I'd choose suse if I didn't want to care about configuration because of yast (suse's install/setup/configuration tool). Also, personally I don't like redhat's default theme too much. Suse's integration of gnome isn't too nice, I think, but might improve now they have been bought by Novel who also have some investment in gnome. If you only want to "try out" this probably won't matter for you.

If you want some "advise" on what desktop to use (and assuming you're only interested in gnome or kde) this is my impression: KDE has more programs with more features, but most gnome programs are much better designed (for what concerns the user interface). Both kde and gnome interoperate more or less nicely, but loading gnome applications under KDE is a lot faster than loading (the first) KDE applications under gnome. I very much prefer gnome, but KDE is neither bad nor evil. For the things you're interested in, I'd suggest using gnome. Apart from CD burning it does all desktop tasks I am interested in pretty well.

If you are not too computer illiterate, and not afraid of text mode installers, you might also consider Debian. I feel that the more you know about linux the more advantages Debian has over suse/mandrake/redhat, but then I've just used it more than the other distros. Don't know much about slackware or gentoo, but sourcemage is most probably nothing for you, although it is nice...

If you have 1 gig of ram

[Tommy Boomfiger]

you can load the entire knoppix cd to ram and run it from there. it leaves around 300 megs for usage and runs a lot faster. unfortunately thats a pretty big if since a gig of ram isnt common yet.

Clickable Links

[blixel]

http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/

It is made by a german Knoppix hacker named Kano, who has a big page of patches for Knoppix here:
http://www.kano.mipooh.net/

It comes with kernel 2.4.23 patched with forcedeth and XFS.
It uses grub, Xfree86 4.3, is based on Debian/sid.
ACPI and DMA enabled by default (can be disabled with acpi=off respectively nodma)

The forum (german and english):
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/index.php

Download:
http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/kanotix/

Torrent:
http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/KANOTIX-X-MAS-2003- PREVIEW.iso.torrent

Parent: -1 Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators, do your thing.

Just have to point out that..

[bogie]

It's all becoming just a blur. The differences between these Live CD's that is. The market right now is just way overcrowed with precious little difference between the actual Live CD's. I'm at the point now where I say pick one, ANY one, it just doesn't make much difference. Gnome is gnome and KDE is kde. The major difference beyond that is that some of these distros have more recent versions of applications.

If you want my opinion about what to try if you still haven't used a LiveCD yet try Knoppix, Morhpix, and DamSmall. Beyond that your just splitting hairs and wasting bandwidth downloading basically the same thing over and over.

Re:Just have to point out that..

[Anonymous Coward]

knoppix has the best hardware detection of the livecds right now. however, pclinuxos looks the nicest and most user friendly.

Re:new to linux again [a slightly offtopic questio

[Anonymous Coward]

Suse or Mandrake Linux with KDE. They are the best IMO. I have been using them for 2 years and very happy with them. I am 25 years IT veteran.

But is a Pendrive bootable?

[Kjella]

I think that's the problem. I've certainly never seen any BIOS option where you can set your boot device to be USB.

But, apart from that technical difficult I agree the idea is good. For basic tools to move around, the size and speed should be sufficient.

Kjella

Re:But is a Pendrive bootable?

[versus]

nearly all newer motherboards can boot from USB, one way or another. At least there are 'Boot from USB ZIP drive' or 'Boot from USB floppy' options.

Re:But is a Pendrive bootable?

[Some Dumbass...]

I think that's the problem. I've certainly never seen any BIOS option where you can set your boot device to be USB.

Well, it exists. I've seen it. Googling for proof, I found this page right away:

http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/usb_trouble sh ooting_resources.asp

Here's part of the second answer in this FAQ:

Booting from USB Port

Addonics USB DVD, CD-ROM, CDRW and hard drives have been tested to boot successfully from the latest version of Phoenix BIOS version 4 release 6. Latest Award BIOS shares similar boot code from Phoenix BIOS and should support the boot function for Addonics USB device.

So there you go. Award and Phoenix BIOSes have this feature. I personally have seen it in Award BIOSes, and my laptop has this feature as well (BIOS may be Phoenix, but I don't recall)

Re:my Well, as a software engineer on MECD experie

[Some Dumbass...]

I had an old PPro 200 running Win98 that I brought back from the dead with Linux.

Pentium Pros are definitely far from obsolete. Remember, they ran 32-bit code significantly better than 16-bit (some sort of design tradeoff), so they'll seem much faster and more useable with any newer 32-bit OS.

I installed Mandrake Linux (version unknown, but it used KDE 2.2) and Windows 2000 on one a couple of years ago. The system had one PPro 200 with 256k cache, 128MB EDO RAM, and a 4Gb Fast SCSI hard drive. Both OSes and most applications took a while to start, so I changed the hard drive to a 13Gb IDE drive, one with (at the time) modern specs (8.5ms seek, 2Mb cache, about 20Mb/s continuous read speed). I tell ya', putting in a fast hard drive made all the difference. Wait times for starting apps went from ridiculous to reasonable, and once everything was in memory, apps were quite responsive -- much better than I thought they'd be. So stick a fast hard drive in one of those, make sure it has enough RAM, and it'll run just fine. Even moreso for dual PPro systems or one with one of those 333MHz/512k cache overdrive processors.

A bad thing about Slax, and another live distro

[ammoQ]

When you start Slax with the default options, root will have a default password (toor) and sshd is launched. Guess what it means to the security of your computer if your network adapter is auto-configured with DHCP...

And there is another fine live distro: dyne:bolic, see http://www.dynebolic.org (currently down). This one is multimedia-oriented, uses Windowmaker (it's not yet another Knoppix clone)

the REAL link

[fred133]

http://slax.linux-live.org/download.php

I really like the Live distros

[gone.fishing]

I like most of the live distros that I have seen and think that they are one of the keys to getting more people to try, like, enjoy, and move to Linux. MEPIS is probably my favorite but Knoppix is right up there too.

I'd like to see a couple of changes (hopefull improvments) come along sometime soon. In Knoppix, I'd like to see a MEPIS like "install me" tool. In both MEPIS and Knoppix I'd like to see fewer default applications (don't need three or four word processors or several spreadsheets).

These are common complaints - I know. But really the complexity will turn some people off.

I'd also like to see an online place where I can go to load and run some other applications. I know that this would probably mean having to write to the hard drive and that sort of defeats the concept of the live CD but I think that that could be dealt with by a warning banner that informs the user that this is about to happen (and tell them how to undo it).

My thinking on this is that trial-users may think that all of the best applications are already stuffed on the CD. That simply isn't the case.

I'd also like to see a DVD version of either Knoppix or MEPIS - but not just so they can offer more applications. I'd also like to see it used as a demo-ground of what people have done using Linux (graphics, movies, and so on).

One final note - I think that most live CD's should have a way of copying themselves easily so that users would have an even easier time making and sharing the CD!

MEPIS user checking in

[kenny blakenship]

Been running it since 10.2003 - I'm very impressed with this distro and registered a few days after installing it. I've gotten the 2.6 kernel complied and I'm looking and upgrading KDE next. Mepis finds my digital camera no worrries and even finds a sound card that win2k won't... go figure.

something the article doesn't mention - MEPIS also has a "mandrake move" feature (before mandrake did fwiw).


From Warrren's website:

Easy to Try
# Runs from Live-CD before you install
# Automagically configures itself to your PC hardware
# Boot the MEPIS CD and, in about one minute, you can be using Linux

Easy to Install
# Installation wizard guides you through simple installation step-by-step
# Includes a disk partitioning tool with a familiar graphical interface
# Compatible with all versions of MS-WIndows

Easy to Use
# Hundreds of software programs are preinstalled and fully configured to be ready to use
# Thousands of additional specialized applications are available
# The acclaimed apt-get system manages software download and installation
# Most applications come with a Users Handbook in the KDE Help System

Extra Features
# LIve CD is also a system repair and recovery disk
# The CD image is compressed to provide over 1,100 software packages on one CD

Re:MEPIS user checking in

[lipilee]

I agree. MEPIS is a really great thing to install. I've been using Debian for 3 years now on my laptop, home PCs and servers, and I was sort of sensitive on that I have to install my system myself (I even came to a point where I wanted to compile it myself... After compiling for a full day I had to give up since weekend was over). Now that MEPIS came out, my home PC runs on it since last december and I really like it. Even file type handling is working fine in KDE, really good.

Re:new to linux again [a slightly offtopic questio

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have a Knoppix installed on a HD Partition.
Boot Knoopix
run Install-Knoppix
follow instruction and you will have the best Debian based distro in 30 mins. You even can run apt-get to add more applications if you do not find what you need.

Re:new to linux again [a slightly offtopic questio

[Anonymous Coward]

Fedora Core 1 is quite nice and straightforward.

blisteringly fast?

[Stevyn]

blisteringly fast?

I've only used Knoppix when I was waiting for a replacement hard drive but definatly was not fast. It's purpose in my mind is to be used when your regular operating system is either trashed, or in my case, not accessable. In no way should this setup be recommended for people to use linux fulltime. It's good for troubleshooting, other than that, install the operating system to the computer and hope the user doesn't fuck it up too quickly

Re:my Well, as a software engineer on MECD experie

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I don't need to disable APIC to get a stable nforce2. Read up on recent events! It's not necessary anymore.

You can

[zentu]

If you search http://www.knoppix.net (the site for helping english knoppix users) there has be someone who did it around a year ago, what he did was use a 512MB pen drive, and remastered knoppix to fit it.

Then he tried it, what he found was that by enabling the USB Legacy device option (and/or USB Keyboard or Mouse option) it could be used to boot.

Why not...

[Uncle Gropey]

...include a little executable with one of these live cd images that will let a user configure networking, import favorites etc and then modify the image with the right .conf files and then burn the cd? Either that, or be able to type in an ftp server or something that could store the small configuration files like a hard drive. Then one could carry that little cd wherever and have access to their "own" desktop in most situations.

Re:Why not...

[bmsleight]

then modify the image with the right .conf files and then burn the cd?

There are some tests going on in Morphix to do this, a mini-module and How-To is up for testing. (Plug: I wrote them.)

ftp server or something that

Flonix does, has an option to do save to a ftp server.

Two more great Live Linuces...

[Jagasian]

If you don't want all that bulk of Knoppix, then try two of its derivatives:

1. Damn Small Linux, which is 50MB and fits on those business card CDs. Keep a few in your wallet, so you can pass them out to friends.

2. Flonix, which is 60MB and fits on those small CDs and also has another distro that fits on bootable USB Flash pen drives. I have a combination of DSL and Flonix on my 64MB keychain USB flash drive, along with DOS, and the Redhat network installer (all bootable from my syslinux menu). Talk about a useful keychain :)

Re:Two more great Live Linuces...

[Aprado]

I always carry a DSL cd-card on my pocket. It works fine for me, and it can be stored on a pen-drive if you wish.

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[carlmenezes]

Funny you mentioned this. How about distributing Knoppix at primary schools to the parents with specific instructions about the educational games on it for their kids? Might even get some parents interested and it would certainly spread the word. Most of all, it would make the kids comfortable using Linux and they'll grow up appreciating it's stability, flexibility and the amount they can do with it. If done right, it could pretty much have a snowball effect.

Lousy review

[po8]

Maybe it's just me, but boy was that a lousy review IMHO!

The scores appear largely random: since nothing bad was said about three of the four distros, giving them a score below 10 seems completely arbitrary. Some of the minor negatives of live CDs are well-known, such as impact of low reliability and speed of typical consumer CD drives. None of this was ever mentioned.

The distros were evaluated on exactly one machine, whose characteristics were never specified. The article missed the whole class of biz-card and 8cm live CD distros, which while not appropriate for newbies are of great interest to others. The article didn't talk about Morphix or any of the specialized distros derived from it.

Bleah. Somebody pay me: I'll write a much better review.

Re:Lousy review

[cs02rm0]

I agree. It said some bull about what was good about Mepis (which I was particularly interested in because I love it)... then the only line in there about why they chose Knoppix over Mepis was that Knoppix 'provides a better user experience.'

Uh yeah, sure.

It might not have been relevant to the review, but the main reason I prefer Mepis over Knoppix is that on a hard disk install apt-get is screwed with Knoppix because of some directory structure, etc changes... but it works a dream with Mepis.

Re:Lousy review

[Ziviyr]

He mentioned sucky fonts in MEPIS.

The big diff to me is that Knoppix wasn't mean't to be installed (mainly just to be crammed on a CD).

*BSD Live CDs

[jschauma]

Just FWIW: there are also a handful of *BSD based Live CDs. Among them:

• NetBSD Live! CD
• wifibsd
• FreeSBIE

Interesting idea...let's take it further

[carlmenezes]

This might be a little too far fetched, but let's take the idea one step further - you can generally have a Linux distro with just about all you ever need installed on it within around 3.5GB or so. So how about a Live Linux DVD-RW distro? It stores all your data right back on the DVD.

Or have the USB pen drive companies even considered distributing a Live Linux CD with their USB pen drives? Same concept - an entire working environment anywhere you go!

Ofcourse, the latter is more realisable right now, but you have to admit, the idea of a full-blown DVD-RW live distro is interesting.

OpenFirmware password?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't boot from the LiveCD if you have an OpenFirmware password set unless you mess around at the boot prompt.

Re:my Well, as a software engineer on MECD experie

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Which kernel version are you referring to? I run 2.6.1 and I still have to disable APIC on my nForce2 mobo.

Showed my friend...

[prof187]

...after his Win ME install decided to crap out. I had a Knoppix disk so I took it over to him, showed him how to use gaim, mozilla, and xmms. He's happy now. I explained that things might be slower than he's used to because it's loading off of the CD, but he doesn't even care. Considering this is pretty much all most people want to do with their computers, this is definitely a good way to win converts.

I also can't count the times knoppix has saved me when i do Something Stupid to a computer, or when windows decides to eat the mbr and i don't have a linux boot disk.

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[zerocool^]

Where are there educational games for linux?!?

I'm really really interested in this, with a kid on the way.... there's some ethical part of me that says I really shouldn't pirate learning games for a 2 year old, or what are they learning?

Big Ramdisks???

[niko9]

Doesn anyone know if any of these distrubutions can run entirely in ram disk?

Many of the newer dual DDR system that sell today have 1 Gig of ram or more.

Having a live CD that can run eniterly from RAm would be sweet. I have to keep reminding friends that the I just gave them runs slow because...{insert tech jargon here}

Then they lose interest....

Re:Big Ramdisks???

[Aprado]

www.damnsmalllinux.org will do the trick.

Re:Big Ramdisks???

[bmsleight]

Most knooppix/morphix/other can do this using boot option:
toram

E.g. Morphix from prompt boot :
morphix toram

Allowing you do everything yo/u would, incluyding burning cd, playing DVD.

Re:Large amounts of memory

[Afrosheen]

What you guys are forgetting is that the 699MB that Knoppix is composed of is a severely compressed cloop image. You know that cloop decompresses stuff from the cd in near-realtime right? So your 699MB image on the cd is probably around a gig or 2 decompressed.

You call this a test ?

[Pixel_K]

This "article" is like : "we downloaded, we launched, we saw, we made 2 screenshots".
And the comments are like "duh it looks nice".
Interest : near to 0.

Things would have been interesting :
size of the iso, time to boot, tests of different hardware compatibility, memory footprint, ability to be customized, temporary storage and cache possibilities, kernel used, languages avalaibility, etc...

This "article", is lacking a lot of things that would have made it worth reading.

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[carlmenezes]

Check out linuxforkids.org

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[carlmenezes]

Also check this link out: http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Home_and_Educat ion/Educational_Games/

Because everyone else seems to have forgotten...

[Kingstrum]

The 2nd disk of the Slackware box set is (and has been for a number of years now) a "live" disc suitable for use as a recovery/rescue disc. I've used it for years with great success before KNOPPIX was even a gleam in a German engineer's eye.
Quite a few folks would ask me "why can't Win98 do that?" as I was booting up their crapped out machines and recovering whole HDDs worth of files. All in all, a very nice bonus from a rock-solid distribution.
The genius that is Patrick Volkerding...
Got Slack?
Kingstrum

Making your own live distros?

[ceswiedler]

Shouldn't it be pretty easy to make your own live distro? Has anyone come up with a tool which takes a root filesystem (< 650MB) and creates a bootable ISO? My server root filesystem (excluding /home) would probably fit onto a CD with some tweaking. It would make an amazing backup and recovery CD.

Do any of these live distros use compression? It would seem to me that the CD could have the kernel and an initrd which decompressed (on-the-fly?) the remainder of the CD. This might not work for 'generic' live CDs, but in my case, it could be configured to use a spare partition on my HD.

You could almost build a meta-distribution around this: build an initial copy of the distro on your HD (with /home and maybe /var on another partition), then burn it to CD. From then on, you always boot off the CD, which overwrites the HD partition. If you make changes to the HD partition that you want to keep, you re-burn the CD.

It wouldn't necessarily have to decompress / copy the entire CD at bootup, either. If the HD partition were really just a large enough swap partition, then the CD data could be mmap'd and mounted to ramdisk partitions (cramfs?), and paged in/out from the swap partition as necessary.

Royalty

[RomulusNR]

Dammit, isn't there something in the US constitution about your citizenship being revoked if you accept any royal titles from a foreign power?

(Then again, it's not like our current government really concerns itself with that Constitution thing, except as a place to threaten to insert their agenda.)

try synaptic

[timothy]

I have hard-disk-installed Knoppix on two machines (a Duron desktop and a Celeron laptop).

On both of them, I found that apt-get dist-upgrade broke (I forget the exact error) as your describe. However, by apt-getting the excellent package manager synaptic, and using the upgrade feature from there, it worked fine.

Why this should be is beyond me, since as I understand things, synaptic is nothing more than a pretty wrapper, and is calling the same commands. However, it's hard to argue with success, and all I can say is that this mysteriously worked. Perhaps it would work for you, too :)

timothy

Yet Another Linux Konvert Via Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

My first "native" linux experience was with knoppix, though I've been an l_user of various unices off and on for over a decade. (PINE, anyone?)

I now use it quite regularly, and am preparing for my first hard drive based install, though I will be keeping Win2k *and* 98 around for now. (I need both of them for various audio tools.)

I'll be going with either RedHat or Suse, but might stick with Knoppix/Debian.

Knoppix (and it's ilk) are great. I keep *two* copies of Knoppix 3.3 around most of the time now. One to use and one to give away.

When people want to use my laptop to check their email or whatever else when I'm out and about I just pop in the knoppix CD and walk away knowing that while my machine is not really secure, it's at least more private and less prone to breakage/spyware/malware.

This last Christmas day I was trying to set up my webcam so we could video conference with my brother and family out of state.

(Yeah, we're nerds. Go away. Next Thanksgiving if he's still out of town I'm going to set up an AV link so we can all eat dinner together, talk and joke around and such.)

ANYWAYS, Knoppix saved the day. My sister's XP machine is horribly abused and unmaintained with god knows what spyware installed on it, a drive desperate for defragging, and nearly all of the other known windows annoyances.

I had been planning on using my laptop and wireless for the video conferencing, but I left the power adapter at home. (It's always when you really need it, right?)

*But* I did bring my Knoppix CD. It booted fine, detected all the hardware to acceptable levels, allowed me to install FlashMX plugins for Mozilla (Needed for the proprietary flash-based video conferencing interface we were planning on using. A friend of my brother wrote it. Don't ask...) and, most importantly, recognized the crappy little 3 in 1 Jazz webcam I was using, which XP balked at incessently.

Knoppix manages to repeatedly autodetect and nail weird hardware types and configurations with so little complaining it really is astounding. USB drives and card readers consistantly detect and automount, weird old PCMCIA combo cards and network cards work just fine, old computers (with enough ram) boot marvelously.

I left Knoppix running most of the day, giving little tutorials about how slick and fast linux was. (The fact that it was booting and running everything from CD and RAM wasn't lost on my family.) The text and realtime graphics fractal generators stole the show, though, that, and the ascii "movie" demo. I was tempted to go find a copy of Star Wars in ascii. I'm pretty sure we would have all watched it. :)

The moral of the story? Those of you in the cult of the penguin that deem Linux Live to be a mere toy shouldn't be so quick to discount its power at converting WinTel users. Computing is not about being hardcore and staying up for 2 days straight compiling your new kernel. It's about leveraging power for your own sake, not the sake of power itself.

I would bet some real money that Knoppix and other Linux Live distros have done more to further the linux and open source movement then all of your clumsy thrashings combined, and it would indeed be a wise and sound bet.

KNOPPIX++

Re:How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Uti

[zerocool^]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate the links.

I've been wondering how to do a lot of computer things with a kid, like when the kid needs to write a paper, or wants to play a game, or whatnot... and i don't think i should be setting the example that pirating $500 worth of ms office and $300 worth of games is good....

A Second Vote for PCLinuxOS!

[WoTG]

The only bootable Linux CD that figured out the Audio (and non-framebuffer Video) for my system!

Now, if only the name was a little easier to remember...

read-write NTFS access

[Futurepower(R)]

Linux Defender has read-write NTFS access: Linux Defender FTP site

No Slackware live, packetmaster

[Oriumpor]

I did this once for my own personal use just before I purchased my laptop. Many distros were nice, knoppix etc had lots of stuff by default... but much of it was unused for myself.

I wanted specialized distros that had more directed applications towards network management, and security. I found myself with basically Knoppix as my swiss army knife, Slackware live (SLAX now) as my scalpel for those hard to reach places with as many gui network utils as I could find. And the packetmaster for a quick linux prompt.

I thought these ruled... it seems to me there wasn't a whole lot of research... Did they just do a search for +live +cd on freshmeat and ignore everything else? The only distro I saw remotely bloat free was feather... which I decided against because for my mini-distro I'd rather use packetmaster.

Packetmaster = awesome security tool

Slackware live (SLAX) is pretty small by default 200 megs ish, plenty of room for your own customs and it has an easy to download customizable tar.gz set of scripts.

Knoppix Live CD

[Darken_Everseek]

At the rist of being lynched, I've been using MS for a good long time, and only recently did I download the Knoppix live CD.

I tossed in the freshly minted boot CD, hit enter at the command prompt, and in very little time, was up and running on the KDE desktop. It was definitely an experience for me. The best part was probably the warm fuzzy feeling I got from knowing I wasn't running off windows. Now, I run a fairly decent desktop system; P4 2.4 GHz, 768 meg Ram, SBLive, and a GeForce4 MX 440 card. Reading thru the startup, the knoppix cd seemed to recognise everything without any trouble. When I got into the KDE desktop, however, my screen was locked at 640x480, and my video card was reading as nv. It didn't look like my 440 card was supported.

Now, to put things bluntly, other than some very basic shell commands used a few years ago, and some experience with pine and pico, I'm a linux n00b. Tyring to figure out how to install drivers, and get all the old programs up and running was a bit daunting.

Mostly, I just want to ask: Can I expect the same results from a full-install of a distro? or is this just a function of not being able to cram everything onto a CD?

Re:Knoppix Live CD

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a similar experience, with different hardware. In truth, I didn't have the need to sort it out, but I wonder if it is some kind of configuration issue that needs to be addressed at startup (there are a number of startup flags; perhaps this is addressed by one of them).

Damn slick.

the real problem with slax is...

[eegad]

finding the right jacket to go with.

What about LNX-BBC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised everyone has forgotten about LNX-BBC. For a distro that fits on a 50MB business card sized cd, it has by far been the most useful and convienent diagnostic / rescue and even temporary (remote) workstation live CD distro I've seen so far.

Maybe we should ask..

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should ask Bill Gates if he'd like to do this.

Business Card CD distributions

[oob]

I carry two bootable BCDs in my wallet. Like you I use Damn Small which I think is the best general purpose/desktop mini-distribution.

LNX-BBC is also worth having. The Free Software Foundation prints this one on their membership cards.

It has a flexible build system for customising your own version of the distribution and contains a number of networking and hardware utilities which DSL doesn't out of the box.

Bootable windows XP on CD - BartPE

[Anonymous Coward]

There IS a version of windows that can boot off of CD.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
Just like Knoppix or any other live linux CD.
Its not as mature, but it has a community that is working on creating plugins so that other hardware and software gets supported.

Its based on Windows PE, the new variation of windows that will totally replace DOS.
So when windows goes to install, it will use a smaller subset of windows to install.
Bart, a very talented individual who has created other nice utilities, has devised a way to create a windowsPE disk using an installed version of windows XP with SP1, and a Windows XP CD with SP1 slipstreamed.

Currently, though, it has some drawbacks.
It can only run for 24 hours at a time, it only includes a subset of drivers, it cannot run 16-bit programs, it has no sound, or dial-up modem support. And it has a restriction on the number of applications you can run at once. And certain other drawbacks. (Mostly so you don't use it as a main OS, so it doesn't get warezed).

But for working with NTFS systems, there is NO better alternative.

Its still a fairly fresh and adolescent project. And it is constantly being updated.

I keep a copy of Knoppix, and a copy of BartPE, with me at all times.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

TORAM on an old laptop

[Rassendyll]

I was wondering if it is possible to make a liveCD that could boot and run from RAM on my old NEC laptop. It only has 48MB or RAM, but all I need is vi, w3m, ftp client, usb key support, and a telnet client. Is this possible? Any suggestions? Barring this, I could use a large usb drive if I had a way of booting to it on the old NEC. Thanks for your help!

Re:TORAM on an old laptop

[Rassendyll]

Whoops, that should be "of RAM". Perhaps I could remaster Damnsmalllinux, that is, if it's possible to make it that small... I don't need X, that will probably save a lot of space...

Re:TORAM on an old laptop

[ripcrd]

On either Knoppix or damnsmall use "knoppix toram" at the boot prompt. On Morphix, "morphix toram". Done. Sorted.

If you want to use USB there is some info at the Damnsmall and flonix sites about booting directly to USB or you can use the RUNT version 3 floppy to initialize the USB bus. That's what I do on an old laptop.

muLinux

[DynaSoar]

I've enjoyed playing with muLinux (http://mulinux.sunsite.dk/). It's designed to run on old machines, completely from floppy disk if necessary. It runs entirely in RAM so you can swap between floppies for the app you need. It can also be cloned to CD. I installed and ran it as a UMSDOS app cloned to the hard drive under Win95 and it ran great. The complete install, including all docs and archives of the 5 floppies, took up 30 MB of Win95 drive space.

Re: But I might have enough memory!

[JThundley]

But I might have enough memory! Still no tips on how to fill up the memory?
Actually, one time I booted Knoppix and copied a bunch of porn to my desktop and watched my 1.5G of ram fill up. That was fun :)

SLAX

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi all, this is Tomas.
I am the creator of SLAX and Linux Live scripts.

slax.org is down because of namebargain.com registrar. It's the worst registrar EVER! I hate them very much.

It has nothing to do with being slashdoted.

The former owner of slax.org domain (Doug Kaye) is very nice person and he decided to donate the domain name to my project. I started the domain transfer to my account but something went wrong (namebargain sux!) and the domain is in the phase of Deletion right now, without ANY possibility to renew it or transfer it.

so, official URL of SLAX is http://slax.linux-live.org

Tomas