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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.
Has FEMA updated their site to be accesible through non-IE browsers?
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
I may be heading down to Biloxi Mississippi in the next few weeks to help coordinate the computers in a relief office and offer my repair/recovery skills. One of my most important tools down there will be LiveCD/USBs of Slax, Ubuntu, etc. It will allow for some recovery but mostly establishing a quick network with free software in the wake of many computers being damaged/destroyed by flood.
If nothing else, I've got a recent (if not latest) version of Knoppix and the latest Ubuntu LiveCD, which pretty much covers most of my needs in a disaster...whether it's an actual need for a bootable machine for internet access and word processing...or actually getting information out of a HDD when the underlying OS got borked one way or another.
The article goes on to feature the other quickfix distros including DamnSmallLinux and the LTSP to get a bunch of networked PCs up and running quickly.
In a disaster, I must say that content filtering (and possibly time management) aren't my priorities but I guess to keep some sense and order on things, they're needed. However, something to boot with, something to get networking with, something to type something with, and something to save information to would make up my computing needs when some disaster hits.
A USB memory stick is really useful if you want to make servers run on unknown-condition hardware, and a USB hard drive can give you more space and power if you want to haul that around. Somebody else mentioned having various USB tools so you can download from digital cameras and other random devices.
If you've got a mapping program that you can fit onto your CDs, that can be really helpful also, in case people don't have the bandwidth to get to Google/Yahoo/Mapquest. I don't know of any that run on Linux (I've got some old ones that run on Windows, and on Linux machines I just use Google), but I assume there are some out there that can read Tiger data.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Instead of overloading the Post Office with "Where are you?" notes and "Here I am!" responses, people were able to use the Internet to send E-mail.
Face it, people - the Internet did what it was supposed to do: stay connected even during emergencies. We've gotten used to it, our non-immediate disaster relief efforts now expects Internet access, and we made use of it when the usual media failed.
Given the hardest hit areas with no electricity or telecom services to speak of, amateur radio deserves the credit for getting communications in and out of the area first. The internet came into play in the outlying areas or areas that had some facilities restored. Amateur radio operators train to handle emergency and welfare traffic using alternative power sources so they aren't dependent on whenever electricity is brought back.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?