Slashdot Mirror
Creating Live Linux Distributions For Disasters
phaedo00 writes "The folks over at Ars Technica have an article up about Hannibal's experience volunteering in relief efforts and how a custom built Linux distribution can help people solve social and disaster related problems without costing an arm and a leg. From the article: 'I spent the two weeks after Katrina struck working with volunteers in Lake Charles, Louisiana and across the Internet to build, maintain, and upgrade such labs in two of southwest Louisiana's largest Red Cross shelters. The present article is a short introduction to one of the most important categories of tools to emerge from the efforts of myself and others to meet the shelters' need for free, zero-maintenance, bulletproof, Internet-connected computers: the shelter lab LiveCD build.'" Article partially paid-only.
Like all Ars Technica articles, the full article is viewable on the website for free, and paid members can download it in a PDF form.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_build_a_LiveCD_from_s cratch
Check this howto I made for making your own personal livecd from A gentoo install which is highly maintainable.
Free yourself use open source.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ is worth checking out if you haven't had the pleasure already.
Speak truth to power.
The wiki articles on how to do this with Gentoo haven't been updated in well over a year. A large amount of the information is no longer valid. I actively work on development of a Forensic and Network Analysis Live CD based off of Gentoo. For the best advise on how to really get going with this, look into Catalyst and make sure you emerge it with the documentation. It will walk you through the basics. If anyone wants a link to my development page drop me an e-mail and I'll be happy to point the way. I'd simply post it but I doubt the server would take the beating very well.
e-mail: paul.kessler@gmail.com
Slax 5.0.6 KillBill will run Internet Explorer 4.0, and might run later versions as well, under wine. You can use this to access the FEMA application for benefits on the web without having to run Windows itself, and Slax runs well on older machines (runs acceptably on my Pentium-II with 128mb ram). In addition, it fits on an easily pocketable 210mb minidisk.
Using plain ol' text since 1968
It's not true that the article is partially paid-only. None of Ars Technica's content is paid only, either partially or wholly. You can pay for a PDF of it, but you get the HTML content for free.
Senior CPU Editor | Ars Technica | http://arstechnica.com/
I've been working with my local Red Cross (in Canada) to create just such a disk. We tentatively named it "RedCrossix" and it is based on Knoppix 3.6.
There were a couple of key goals when we created it:
-Needs to be able to boot from CD OR install to HD.
-Must be secure (unable to read/write hard disk) of borrowed PC, unless you do install.
-Very simplified desktop and menu structure in KDE. Web Browser / Email / Word processor / Games.
-Needs to auto-detect hardware (thanks Knoppix team for this..)
-Customization (red-cross wallpaper, splash screens, etc).
It's actually pretty simple to take Knoppix and do this. If anyone's interested, reply and I'll post my notes later tonght when I get home (after 11pm MST - North American Time).
In the discussion section, some people have argued that net connectivity is less important than food and shelter. This is true. However, the web site was the only way for most people to get registered with FEMA. As this is one of the most important tasks, once basic needs are met, network connections should not be under estimated. A good word should also be given to Yahoo, for providing free e-mail accounts. Last time I used this system (ages ago), they required a referring e-mail address. They no longer require this. This was crucial, as FEMA require an e-mail address to complete the registration process. That being said, it is a shame that FEMA (known in these parts as 'The Finally, Eventually Made-it Agency) has otherwise been so damn useless.
There was another lab where people could have more general net access. There many people seemed to find a huge sense of relief in being able to see their houses on google, even when the houses were under water. One older man I helped was totally blown away at the idea of seeing the Ninth ward of N.O from space. He wept when he saw that his house still had a roof, and then started making jokes about how the fishing would be good from his porch! For a person who has lost everything, anything that can bring a bit of joy is very valuable indeed.
Another point needs to be raised in the context of this liveCD discussion. This is the fact that on many older machines (I know this, as I have alot of practice with these), the CD drive is one of the first things to fry. This is a problem.
One final point, in the article, there is a discussion of the role of M$ in the disaster relief in this State. The current 'official' State operating system is Win2k. So, they will have been especially motivated to assist a good customer. However, from time to time we hear rumours that the State is going to make M$ software mandatory (I work for a State of Louisiana institution). Fortunately, this hasn't happened yet.
Just my 2 cents.