Slashdot Mirror
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.)
"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.
--
The last digit of pi is four.
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"
There's 4 Official 'Flavors' of Morphix including:
In addition to those 4 Official 'Flavors' there's quite a few Derivitves including ones for HAM Radio users and a MAME system.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
The poster mentions Slax, and its website being down: It is currently accessible at http://slax.linux-live.org/ but not for long..
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.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
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.
Turkeyphant
http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/
i x/T IX-X-MAS-2003- PREVIEW.iso.torrent
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/kanot
Torrent:
http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/KANO
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.
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.
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
Kurumin and Kalango (yeah, like I was going to give the links... lamer!).
;-D
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!
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.
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.