Best Live Linux For Christmas Giving?

trustedserf writes "This year I am including a bootable Live Linux CD in many of my Christmas cards. As I'll be making the copies myself I may even change the default desktop background to something personal, or Christmasy before running it off on cheap CD-Rs. The objective is to show people the easiest possible route to using a linux desktop so that they will be: A) Aware and B) Pleasantly surprised. About Christmas they may also have more time to try it out too. Naturally, I'm thinking of Gnoppix, but there are other options.. I use KDE, so I have to decide between it and Gnome. Bearing in mind my objectives, what distro would you choose. Also, importantly, is it possible any of them will damage their hardware (monitors with incorrect refresh etc.) I would be *very* unhappy if that happened. How many of them would fail to boot, leaving a bad impression? Which way would you go about it for maximum "WOW"."

Comments

Stuff it with games

[Anonymous Coward]

A linux live CD by itself isn't going to get a normal person to run it. You need to put all sorts of easy to run/access games on it, plus Firefox. Then maybe... possibly... someone will actually use it.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Knoppix MAME then.

Re:Stuff it with games

[daves]

That means http://sourceforge.net/projects/knoppixmame

Re:Stuff it with games

[MC Negro]

This is not a jab at Linux or anything, but the only things my peers know about Linux is that it's free and it's a Unix clone. Frankly, they would be pissed if I gave them a CD with a free operating system on it and tried to pass that off as a gift. Giving a CD full of free data is rather passe, IMHO. Why not offer to install and give support for a distro or download SuSE/Mandrake/Fedora Core and include a copy of CrossoverOffice (something that, coupled with help in installation and support, might actually move some to migrate). I know this will probably get modded as a troll, but this works. I actually did migrate my father to SuSE Linux on his tablet PC for a time. It was not an easy task to get the pen input working and to get CrossoverOffice working, but he did use it as his primary desktop for a while.

As far as LiveCDs go, I've found SuSE's LiveCD and the Knoppix LiveCD to be pretty good, but the best I've found for out-of-the-box support is the Slackware run-off live distro, Slax. This is what I used for the workstations at my university for the longest time. It comes bundled with X, KDE, a ton of office-oriented applications and has great hardware compatibility. It also fits on a mini CD-R, so it can be kept in a pocket. Might want to consider sending a card with one of those inside it.

Re:Stuff it with games

[nwbvt]

I'm sorry, but if you are giving these to "normal people", you might as well just be giving them coasters, as that is what they will end up as.

Re:Stuff it with games

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

No tux racer? Maybe even the demos of ut2004 or RTCW and Q3A?

Yea, ok, they'd make a "demo Live CD" rather bloated, but the eye candy would be nice...

Re:Stuff it with games

[Anonymous Coward]

I got an AOL 9 disk for christmas last year from my cousin. Needless to say he's getting a present from my cat's litterbox this year.

Re:Stuff it with games

[damiangerous]

Frankly, they would be pissed if I gave them a CD with a free operating system on it and tried to pass that off as a gift.

Wow, lucky thing that's not what he's doing!

Re:Stuff it with games

[barc0001]

Did you even READ the sumitter's question? "This year I am including a bootable Live Linux CD in many of my Christmas cards.",
He's giving it out in his Xmas cards which generally are just a card and a signature, perhaps a "Seasons' Greetings" or something scrawled in there as well. This is added value over and above a simple card. At no point was the submitter suggesting that this was in lieu of "real" presents. This instead seems to be an added bonus for his acquaintances that would otherwise just be getting the $0.25 card mailed to them. Sounds fine to me.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Yaztromo]

It also fits on a mini CD-R, so it can be kept in a pocket. Might want to consider sending a card with one of those inside it.

One thing to note here is that if you use mini CD-Rs and are sending to non-technical people, do them a favour and add a note that they shouldn't use the disc in a slot-loading drive. Most slot-loading drives (mostly found on laptops) can't handle these discs, where they jam and can damage the drive.

There's nothing worse than getting a gift that forces you to send your laptop in for repair.

Yaz.

Re:Stuff it with games

[SpaceCadetTrav]

Yeah free old games! You know AOL mails me a cd full of free games every month, so it must be a great idea.

Re:Stuff it with games

[barc0001]

Somebody's been taking too many marketing classes
Never has anyone accused me of that before. You insensitive clod ;).

What I don't get is people going off on the idea this guy's motive is to somehow "forcefeed" people Linux. Is the guy going to their house with a rifle later on to check up on them and see how much they've been worshipping at the Altar of the Penguin? I doubt it.

He's not "adding value" by giving people something they can get themselves just as easily

The "value add" here in MarketSpeak(TM) is that rather than someone getting just a Christmas card, you also get something you can try out on your computer. Or not. The choice is yours. Regarding the "just as easily" bit, that's rather in the eye of the beholder, don't you think? Out of my potential Christmas card list of 40 odd people, I can count on one hand the number of people on that list who would know:

- How to download and burn an ISO
- are on a broadband connection to make it possible
- and even know what a Linux LiveCD is, what it's for, and how it might be interesting to try.

Just because it's easy for you and me, doesn't mean it's easy for everyone.

As an aside, last Christmas when I went to visit relatives in the interior, I brought my laptop with me and some disks, including the latest rev of Knoppix at the time. My sister's computer went tits up at her place on Boxing day, and the whole crowd was amazed to see me put a CD into the drive and boot into a fully functional machine on a CD, recovering all her data before we redid the box. They were even more amazed by the idea that this was a free to give away CD and they could each have one too in case something happens to their machines so they can still get on the web, etc. I probably burned and gave away a dozen copies of Knoppix. Based on that experience alone, just for giving to relatives "just in case", I think it's a great idea.

Re:Stuff it with games

[Shaper_pmp]

Yo, bad-asshat, step down off that high horse and think carefully about all that self-righteousness before idiot-casting it to all and sundry, eh?

Somebody's been taking too many marketing classes. "Added value"? What, exactly, is the "added value" of something that's free to begin with?

Well, you know... there's the added value of not having to download the entire distro. And the added value of not having to find and burn a CD. And the added value of not having to take the time to research and worry about choosing the right linux installation to start playing with. Note that (flamebait!) all these are issues which have so far stopped me running my own Linux box, and I'm an IT-literate user on broadband who's actually quite curious about Linux. If you allow for the fact that most family & friends aren't, you get the added value of not having to learn how to download distros, not having to learn how to burn CDs, not having to go out and buy CD-Rs (you'd be amazed how many people own CD-R drives but no CD-Rs). As I said, I'm Linux-curious, but haven't had the time/energy to run my own box. If a mate handed me a pre-set-up CD that was guaranteed to work, no questions asked, I'd try it out tomorrow. No, tonight.

What is this guy actually trying to do?... basically force-feeding it to individual people who are apparently your friends and family...

Christ almighty. He's sticking a free CD in a card, not anally violating them while pouring sugar in their gastank. Get some perspective, really.

It's one thing to say to someone you know and like, "hey, you know this thing Linux? Well, it does the same things as Windows, only better, and it's free, so you should download it."

Funnily enough, I find that approach more irritating, opinionated and unhelpful than simply burning me off a CD and going "here y' go... have a look if you're interested". You're basically instructing them as to how great Linux is, then instructing them to do all the learning and work themselves. He's doing all the work himself, and offering me the chance to try Linux risk-, effort- and pressure-free.

They probably won't, but the next step is not to basically get all up in their face and say "HEY. I TOLD YOU TO DOWNLOAD IT AND YOU DIDN'T SO NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE BECAUSE HERE'S A CHRISTMAS CARD FULL OF LINUX." Honestly, even as someone who runs Linux, I'd be borderline offended by this.

Ok, I'm going to explain something to you now. The reason people probably don't respond well to your approach? It's probably because you lecture them on the benefits of Linux, then leave them to go do all the hard work themselves. Family != nerds. Friends != geeks. Make it as easy as possible, and they'll do it. Lecture then abandon them, and don't be surprised if nobody takes a blind bit of notice.

I guess my concern is that this guy is doing this more for himself than for the people he's giving these cards to, out of a misguided sense of altruism.

Ok, this is just ludicrous. If he's doing it out of altruism (even "misguided"), he can't by definition be doing it "more for himself". Look up the definition of altrusim if you don't believe me:

Altruism: altruism (n.)
1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

He's not "adding value" by giving people something they can get themselves just as easily. I mean unless he knows a whole bunch of people stuck on dial-up connections that asked him to do this, which I guess is possible but pretty unlikely.

Ah. Oh. Ah. I apologise. I was under the impression we were talking about family, and friends. I didn't realise we were talking about died-in-the-wool linux geeks. I mean, my 90-year-old granny's a Debian admi

Re:Stuff it with games

[digitalgiblet]

I'm guessing his name is Albert Orville Lewis, and he always signs his cards with his initials: AOL. Man I've been getting this guy's CDs for YEARS.

best?

[Anonymous Coward]

windows-xp-professional-with-keygen.iso

Mandrake

[truz24]

Mandrake has a live cd, and seems to be the best solution for a beginner. I have converted several people to Mandrake and they all seem to be happy with their solution

Re:Mandrake

[Mycroft_VIII]

I wish I could second this (I rather liked Mandrake during the late 8.x and 0.x series), but Mandrake's live cd has failed to work on both systems I've tried it on.
I went throught this before with, IIRC, mandrake 6.x series and 7.x.
This time I suspect it doesn't like my video card* (can't find screen when trying to start X), but with the earlier distro's I would always get a divide by 0 error, and that on four or five machines in a row.
It seems odd they have so much trouble with building a bootloader/installer that can't recover from such errors, in the first case div by zero is simply a very bad sign, and in the second shouldn't it switch to generic vga or even text mode?
My current video card is a Radeon AIW-9600 and was used on both systems as the second try occured after a significant upgrade (new mb,ram,case optical drives and floppy+media reader only hd's,video,audio and powersuply were kept), given the issues surrounding drivers on any recent video card (especialy radeons) it doesn't suprise me X had issues, it does suprise me mandrake didn't think of it.
Well I still have the old mb (nforce2) and case and can probably borrow my brother old nvidia card so I'll likely try again when I turn that into a backup system.
Though if anyone knows how to get it working on my curent system (A8V delux asus mb, 1G ram, Atholon64 3500+, SB Live platinum, and Radeon AIW-9600) I'd listen. but this is someone elses ask slashdot, and to be honest I didn't really dig or try much beyond booting the livecd and watching it crash.

Mycroft

Re:Mandrake

[npistentis]

Suse also ships with a live CD, which ran great on my machine- I'd recommend it, as the only thing it didnt pick up automagically was my wifi card

other alternatives to Live CDs

[Ingolfke]

I'd skip the Linux live CD and give a charitable donation to The Human Fund instead. It's much more meaningful.

Re:other alternatives to Live CDs

[mordors9]

Yeah, I can remember anxiously opening up a card from a relative when I was younger. This Aunt was always good for a check for $20. What do I find but a card that says she donated to some charity in my name. Not sure if meaningful was the word that sprung to mind.

Think Again

[comwiz56]

I would think twice before doing. Seriously, how many people, whether family or friends, wouldn't think of you as a fanatic or total nerd if you went around giving Linux as a christmas gift.

I would suggest pulling some of your more technically inclined relatives/friends aside, and just show them Linux running on your machine.

Re:Think Again

[King_TJ]

Actually, it seems to me like it all depends.... I've had several relatives and family friends ask me quite a bit about "that whole Linux thing", pretty much out of the blue, after they realized I'm still working in the computer industry.

There's a fair bit of curiousity out there from people who've heard about these cheaper/free alternatives to Windows for their computers. Something they can run as easily as sticking a disc in a drive might be just the thing for them to take a first-hand peek at it.

Much really depends on how many of your family members/relatives already enjoy using a computer. In my direct family, practically nobody does. My mother uses the same PC I put together for her and gave her as an Xmas gift about 6 years ago - and she still struggles to remember exactly how she's supposed to check her email, print it out, and write replies to people. Honestly, she just hasn't been willing to put in the time it would take to get comfortable with using the few programs she wants to use.

Re:Think Again

[IntelliTubbie]

I would think twice before doing. Seriously, how many people, whether family or friends, wouldn't think of you as a fanatic or total nerd if you went around giving Linux as a christmas gift.

Seriously ... this reminds me of people who push their favorite book on everyone as a "gift," and then constantly harass them if they haven't read it yet. Rule of thumb: any gift that requires less effort to give than to receive isn't much of a gift at all.

Cheers,
IT

Re:Think Again

[fireboy1919]

I think the poster is talking about sending it along with cards.

So this isn't something you give out to your close friends and family. This is a gift you give out to people you just know well enough for a card.

It does have a message with it. It subtley indicates that the sender knows something about Linux and wants other people to as well.

If you want to make a living in Linux, think of it as a form of networking (the human kind, not the computer kind).

Re:Think Again

[Lord Kano]

About 11 years ago, I got so sick of my relatives getting me clothes for Christmas that I declared that if anyone every got me clothes again, I'd reward when with an NRA membership next Christmas.

I have a family full of Democrats, I never got clothes from them again.

LK

Re:Think Again

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Democrat who hunts...
Can I have your address? I have a lovely cardigan that you *must* see.

you must be the tech guy in your family

[terrymaster69]

My family wouldn't know what "boot from this cd" means. Good luck!

Re:you must be the tech guy in your family

[bcrowell]

Yeah, and consider how incredibly slow these things run -- well, slow on the latest hardware, and slower than slow on somewhat older hardware. They're just going to think, "Oh yeah, Linux, I tried that, and it was slower than snail poop."

Re:you must be the tech guy in your family

[Ratbert42]

The only way I could get any of my in-laws to run it would be to send it to them in a fake email that says they need to run it to secure their bank account password.

Mepis

[Kyouryuu]

Mepis Linux is another good choice. It's also very easy to install to the hard drive if they are impressed with the LiveCD version. It's also just one CD. http://www.mepis.org

Re:Mepis

[artson]

Mepis has my vote too. A Debian based distro and perfectly set up to install on the hard drive. I have only one quibble - I'd have preferred Firefox and Thunderbird rather than Mozilla and Mozilla Mail. Other than that, it's great.

Recognized my sound card and modem
Setup nicely with KPPP as a dialer
Apt and Synaptic worked flawlessly
Very nice installation with none of those useless flash-past-your-eyes messages about errors or problems (Ubuntu take note)
As an aside, any distro that does this should present the user with a list of installation problems and e-mails to be sent to developers and put it on the desktop where they will see it immediately on initial login.
It's a snappy performer on my old box - AMD K6-2 at 300 mhz, with 256 megs of ram and an elderly Tekram motherboard.

If there's one thing I know...

[Chess_the_cat]

...it's that people hate to be converted and they hate to be preached to. If your friends aren't looking to change their OS then just forget your little crusade because all you're going to do is piss people off.

Set the Firefox default home page

[xmas2003]

Another nifty customization would be to set the Firefox Home Page to something personal and/or Christmas'ie so they are reminded again of your gift (cool idea) when they fire up the browser.

It is a DVD, but the new Suse 9.2 Live Eval...

[bagboy]

has a lot of punch... Firefox, Multimedia and easy set up....

Mepis

[gvc]

I tried a bunch of live CDs on my Toshiba 5200 and none worked properly until I found Mepis and downloaded it. It worked perfectly - even the wireless. And installing to the hard drive was easy, too.

Mepis is Debian based; much lower barrier to admission than other Debian distros.

And the 2004 uber Dork award goes to...

[HockeyPuck]

This is like a relative trying to convert you to Colgate from Crest....

lame gift.

Give em a linux powered media player or something useful...

What about putting photos and music on it and use it as the card itself...

Re:Wow

[MeanMF]

Don't give people these discs, unless everyone in your family is a geek no one will even use it or know what to do with it.

...and the ones that are geeks will already know where to get it if they want it.

Re:Linux or coal?

[ScrewMaster]

Well, what I'm thinking is that since a lot of people have numerous guests around during the holidays, if you have nice furniture these discs could make cool extra coasters to keep your relatives from sloshing their Scotch all over your new coffee table.

There is a good point to be made from this

[sllim]

The people that say that this smacks of conversion and fanaticalism are correct. I mean, put it in the xmas cards if you want, but don't get all upset if no one installs it.
I mean seriously, how many people really want to think about OS's during Christmas?
This is a better Halloween gift then anything. You can be that crazy old man that gives out Linux Distros instead of candy bars.

On a serious note.
This puts a thought in my head.

I have pretty much 'zero' interest in running Linux thankyouverymuch.
One of the reasons I don't desire to attempt it is because of the headache factor. Command line commands I don't know, drivers I don't know where to find, sound card that won't work.... blah, blah blah.

All I know is that when I install windows it comes up as advertised.

See, I think this guy is onto something. I just don't think he is thinking of the correct use for it.
What about a seriously generic Linux distro where a newbie like myself could put it in his CD drive, it would boot into some sort of DOS like equivelant where it would ask some simple questions about partioning and formatting the drive, then 20 minutes later it would finish the install and boot me up to a GUI desktop with video drivers installed (well generic ones at least), sound drivers installed and firefox installed.

I am not aware that such a creature exists. It probably does though. But that is one reason I haven't attempted it. I don't feel like taking on a learning curve that for me would start on the install. I can learn about dealing with drivers and command lines and such later. Just get me to a GUI desktop so I have some sort of baseline to work from.

Re:There is a good point to be made from this

[Max Romantschuk]

Check out Ubuntu. From what I've heard (friend of mine tried it) install should be rather painless.

Here's the Ubuntu About page for more info.

Re:There is a good point to be made from this

[Tough Love]

The people that say that this smacks of conversion and fanaticalism are correct.

See, given your comments below, that's why you need the CD.

What about a seriously generic Linux distro where a newbie like myself could put it in his CD drive, it would boot into some sort of DOS like equivelant where it would ask some simple questions about partioning and formatting the drive, then 20 minutes later it would finish the install and boot me up to a GUI desktop with video drivers installed (well generic ones at least), sound drivers installed and firefox installed.

I've got news for you, the CD's we are talking about here go way beyond that. It's basically just put it in your CD drive and 1 minute later it's up and running a full GUI with your browser connected to the internet and solitaire ready to play. Not to mention having a _full_ office suit ready to use.

Still think it's not something you want to find in your XMas stocking?

What does linux have to do with Christmas

[voidptr]

You're kidding, right?

If one of my relatives tried to use a christmas card to evangelize an operating system, they'd be spending Christmas outside in the barn.

Re:Stuff it with pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm on your christmas list, just fill it with pr0n intstead -- then the knoppix-feature of not touching the hard drive is pretty useful; so parents don't see the stuff in my browser history.

Knoppix Hacks

[krmt]

I've been trying to figure out a decent gift for my Dad, and I was thinking the new O'reilly Knoppix Hacks book would be a good choice. He used to love computers, but he feels like they've gotten too complex for him, and he's totally frustrated from dealing with Windows virus and spyware issues. The book looks like it's got some good info on dealing with those, plus knoppix might be a fun little toy for him to play with that'd make computers simple again. It'd also let him know a bit about what I've been babbling on and off to them about for years now :-)

The idea of giving them just a CD though? Lame. The CD with some decent instructions tailored to their needs, if they actually have them then maybe you've got something there. I'm personally going to go check the book out in the store before I order it for him.

Buy them a Mac

[Romeozulu]

Which way would you go about it for maximum "WOW"."

Buy them a Mac

Games? How about Hikarunix?

[Blackbrain]

You should give them Hikarunix! It's a Linux bootable and a Go game tutor!

...Ok, so I'm whoring to get more Torrents for the new version, but it's still a good idea....

What about free bibles or AOL cds

[adolfojp]

I understand that you are being thoughtfull because you believe that your friends will be better off by running linux instead of windows.

Still, what if you received a bible, coran,scientology book or a Chick Track from a friend that is concerned for your soul. Perhaps even got an AOL CD from a friend that wants you to switch to a "better" service.

Send them something that they like, not something that you think might be good for them. Do not be an evangelist in christmass time. You might have less christmas cards to send next year.

Cheers,
Adolfo

Gift giving rules

[Dan East]

One of the rules of gift giving is to never give a pet as a gift. It requires a level of responsibility and commitment that cannot be forced upon a person.

I get the feeling that trying to switch someone to another OS somehow falls under the same etiquette.

Dan East

This is repugnant.

[Torak-]

What kind of inconsiderate asshole gives Linux as a *Christmas present* to his non-geek friends and family? This is the worst kind of gift-giving - the kind given for the benefit of the person giving it rather than the pleasure of the recipient. I'm vaguely reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball for her birthday.

Christ, what a bunch of cocks.

A comment to the whole thread

[zarkzervo]

I'm surprised at how many here say things like: "That's geeky!" and "That's a stupid idea!"

News for nerds indeed!

I like the idea. Why not try it out and give a report back later? This is what I think will happen: They will ask you the next time you visit what you gave them because it didn't work in their cd-player or computer. You sit down and show them and they will think it's a fun idea.

Then. The next time people in the news mentions Linux, they will say something like: "Yeah! I've tried Linux. I'm up-to-date in this computer-place-thingy-stuff. This intur-newt-thing."

It's fun. It's nerdy. I can't see why all you so called "nerds" are so negative. If it doesn't hurt anybody. Why is this such a bad idea?