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Specialized Knoppixes for Fun and Profit
An anonymous reader writes "The University of Puerto Rico High Performance Computing facility (HPCf) and the Puerto Rico Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN-PR) are pleased to announce the release of bioknoppix. bioknoppix is a live CD linux, based on KNOPPIX, and specialized to include tools for bioinformatics. bioknoppix does not need to be installed on your computer, making it a perfect tool for workshops and demos. Some of the software included in the 0.3 release: EMBOSS 2.8.0, jemboss, artemis, clustal, Cn3D, ImageJ, BioPython, Rasmol, Bioperl, Bioconductor. For more information please see the bioknoppix home page." Reader
Tussinator wrote in about a new release of ClusterKnoppix.
Wow, I'm a bioengineering major and I cant stress how useful this is, it like almost every computer in our lab has a different function due to software problems. After looking at the applications that are on the disc, I bet this well be big in schools. I wonder if they have considered doing this for other fields...
Actually, having Knoppix around might actually slow the spread of worms. Afterall, you can't change the executable files on an already-finished CD, and therefore any exploit somebody manages to get running will be gone as soon as the system reboots.
...is that it's happening at all today.
Bootable DOS diskettes (not Windows, AFAIK) worked only because there was such a limited range of hardware to support. Typically the games started with a menu ("Sound card?", "Video card?", "Joystick?"). Since Windows went 32-bit, the range and complexity of the hardware we use has exploded. It's almost unimaginable to find an operating system that will correctly autodetect and autoconfigure all the possible combinations of hardware out there.
And yet, this is what is happening. It is not 100% perfect but it's good enough to use for wide-scale distribution of software.
I predict a big future for this method of delivering software.
a new topic(and icon) exclusively for Knoppix ?
getSexySig();
My school uses a live CD with AVR cross gcc, libc, and binutils for their micrcontroller and robotics classes.
When I first go wind of that decision my thought was: "Someone was smart for once."
I wonder though, has this become a universal trend?
What I would really like to see (and possibly create) would be a portable Knoppix distribution. Since Debian runs on more architecture than any other major distro, and Knoppix is Debian based, it should be fairly simple port Knoppix. How cool would to be to be able to run Linux on any mac, RISC workstation, or server with no installation?
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Even more, MAYBE you can boot on a Virtual Machine and not need to restart... The only limitation here would be bootup time.
Bite my shiny metal... oops... Nevermind!
Morphix is modular, and can be adapted with less effort
The base, the Knoppix part contains the kernel, kernel modules, hardware detection, etc. This base is left untouched. You can either a change a mainmod or add lots of minimodules.
The are four basic images to start off with. So making you own LiveCD is much easier.
It even possible to save you files, configuration and setting to the Morphix CD you using, ready for next boot up.
Did I mention the GUI installer ...
Brendan
I believe there was a discussion on Slashdot about someone who was successfully booting ISO images into some kind of VM setup under Linux. Can't find the article, but it was about 6 weeks ago. He'd succeeded (apparently) to run a Japanese Linux.
The idea that these distros represent, however, could be very useful to gamers however. Games could come on a bootable CD at which point the game designer has complete control over the OS environment.
Yes even Sun use Morphix, but it a long story . They maybe should have mentioned that they were going/planning/had used Morphix, just to be nice.
But it does show how flexiable it is.
Cant find it on their downloadpage.
Pardon the beauraucratic buzzword, but this seem like the beginnings of a really cool trend. Imagine if everyone had their own customized knoppix and USB drive. We could stop at any terminal, and immediately have our favorite working environment and saved files.
Of course, this is merely a step towards the ultimate goal of not needing to carry anything or maybe just a small drive, and plugging that in and having instant access.
The point, though, is that this has the potential to make anybody without a laptop a lot more portable.
How about a knoppix without all the openoffice stuff, that is specifically designed to recover data from crashed PCs? There is a "super-recovery" live cdrom, but it's pretty old.
Or, how about a knoppix which searches a pc and a network for security vunerabilities? I think phlak linux is supposed to be sort of like that. But phlak linux doesn't work very well.
I would suggest that, by default, such versions boot to command line. If any gui, it should be lightweight, like fluxbox or something. I'm talking about something for pros.
I'd love to work with others on this. I have tons of ideas relating to it.
-cp-
Anyone ever consider this?
Yes. The primary downside being the comparitively slow read times from the CD. Not a big deal for occasional use, but it can get annoying as part of your regular working enviroment.
It works best with tasks where you typically open an app and work in it all day. Spend the money you save on the drive on memory to avoid as much swapping as possible.
It kicks butt for receptionsit and kiosk type use.
KFG
Man, I'd pay real money for this! Imagine if you could build a Linux CD to scan Windows HD's for Spyware and Viruses! There'd be no need to even boot the host OS and install anything to do it.
Of course, I don't know of any software in Linux that will scan for Windows crapware. {sigh}
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I'm a little dissappointed that there are no DICOM viewers / toolkits in this distro. Is that because there no decent open-source DICOM viewers/solutions yet exist?
DICOM stands for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. It is THE standard for storing and transfering medical image data, be it CT images, MRI images or even 3D radiation dose distributions. The spec for this data format weighs in at a monster 1200 pages, so rolling your own parser when building a medical app seems pretty much out of the question.
(Caveat: the page is slashdotted, so i had trouble searching all the packages)
I have found the Knoppix STD disc to be of endless utility in conducting forensic examinations. Just haul along Knoppix and a spare HD to stick disc images on and you're set. If you have to conduct an on the spot examination and don't have the luxury of making a drive image, just fire up the hex viewer-I couldn't work with out it. Give a copy a try: The homepage here can fill you in on everything.
Don't Panic!
Due to work reasons, I have to use a number of numerical packages, such as Octave, GNU R (I don't feel like typing URLs; use google), python, and other stuff (like yacas, maxima, lyx/latex, GRASS...). For these purposes, Quantian is a superb Knoppix remaster. With some work files on a USB keyring (or on a website), I have my own personalised desktop to carry around. And I can do OpenMosix as well, should the need arise!
Also we mostly develop on Linux anyways (scientific stuff), but some of the people who do presentations aren't linux-savy or don't even have Linux on their laptops (can you imagine?!)
None of thinks of each demo disk as a specialized distro, it's just an all-in-one demo disk.
A much more sensible aproach is to do network booting.
./configured in) and have a Grub floppy that will grap an IP from DHCP and grab the kernel and initrd as configured in /path/to/grub/menu.lst and use CDs for PCs where that doesn't work.
If you have control of the DHCP server, sure. (Or if your area uses static IPs and a KNOPPIX DHCP server won't hurt)
The LiveCD has the advantage that most people in a work environment have the ability to boot their PC from CD. And few people who would care that you're doing that can notice that you're doing it.
I'm in a position--local netadmin of a building in a corporatewide/worldwide network--where I have moderate control over the network and DHCP server but not absolute or sole control. It's a Novell DHCP server, and I haven't figured out how to make it provide netboot parameters only to clients identifying themselves as etherboot devices, and I don't want to give Linux termserver boot info out to everything because many of my non-PC network devices may try to download new embedded kernels off the tftp server.
Also, nonconformance gives the corporate admins something to point to if something goes wrong; it goes like this: "Well, your system is configured differently than ours, so that's your problem" even if the issue is demonstratably their problem, and even if it has nothing to do with DHCP.
I've implemented a hybrid solution where I use GNU Grub's network capabilities (you have to compile with specific network code
When I read the grandparent post for some reason it made a couple of ideas fuse in my head: I had previously tried to implement a minimal Linux install that would boot up to a tn3270 client; I had a proof of concept prototype ready when my V.P. pooh-poohed the idea--nevermind that everyone else thought it was a great idea that would save $1mil over their current plan. A different idea was to have a custom LiveCD with items and preconfigurations useful to my company. Duh, why didn't I think of it before: a LiveCD that is only a tn3270 client!! Now my department can stealthily save $1mil! (Not that I'll see a penny of it, but hey, maybe I get corporate karma, and it definitely goes on my resume.)
(I was going to post my menu.lst, but I can't find my disk! I'll post a reply to this with my menu.lst when I find my disk.)