News from the LiveCD World
Redmondmag.com has a review of Winternals Admin Pak 5.0, which comes with ERD Commander.
At the heart of the Admin Pak collection is the ERD Commander, a bootable CD that gives you a Windows-like environment—regardless of which version of Windows is on the machine you’re trying to fix.
More screenshots, this time of OpenLab 4.0.0.
OSDir.com has screenshots of Featherweight Linux 1.3.
Linux.com has a short review of Auditor. Includes a good walkthrough of instances where Auditor can be used.
Many security engineers arrive on a client’s site and find that the network documentation required for solving the task properly is incorrect or even obsolete.
Distrowatch has the news. Go pick up the new 4.0.2 LiveDVD and long-awaited 4.0.2 LiveCD.
GNUMAN.com reviews MCNLive. A clean looking distro, check out the control panel in some of the screenshots.
MCNLive is an XFce (version 4.2.2) based distro, that is more compact (200 MB) compared to running it on KDE. XFce is light weight and with any live CD that is made with the most essential tools and that can be trimmed to fit on a USB stick
Amnews.com reviews the PCLinuxOS .91 LiveCD.
PCPro has an article about how USB “smart” drives, or USB flash drives with a bootable OS like Knoppix installed, are going to take of in the near future. Would have been a better article if there wasn’t a giant flash ad covering half of it.
I had to read this a few times before I understood what was going on. It’s a blog posting about setting up Damn Small Linux inside Qemu (Qemu Windows version), and then using it whenever needed, at whatever Windows machine. Not bootable from the bios, but still useful.
Slashdot has a link to a story about how to build a mini-ITX system. Included is the use of Puppy Linux from a USB flash drive. Puppy use starts on page 6 of the article.
Eweek is running a story about MEPISLite. Overall very positive, and while it is probably about the distro being installed to the hard drive, MEPIS has a history of using a LiveCD to install itself.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about a developer combining the Wikipedia and Knoppix DVD.
King downloaded the entire English-language version of co-operatively produced online encyclopedia Wikipedia to a readable DVD-ROM to allow it to be accessed from a computer without an internet connection. He will soon post the project online and invite others to help him develop the concept.
Gnuman.com has a compact review of the security LiveCD PHLAK.
The XFCE desktop is nicely laid out, the menu easy to navigate and the taskbar buttons very helpful. PHLAK comes with some really nice documentation, available from the ‘PHLAK security documents’ icon on the XFCE taskbar or the Fluxbox menu.
DistroWatch has news about the delayed Knoppix 4.0.2 LiveDVD and 4.0.2 LiveCD. Also, info about a new LiveDVD which combines Xen and Knoppix.
OSDir.com has screenshots up of m0n0wall 1.2 Beta 10.
The new Games Knoppix has been released. Get the info and the ISO here!
Linux.com reviews Buffalo Linux, a LiveCD based on Debian.
Gnuman.com reviews the new Linux+Live DVD.
One thing I could honestly say about this distro is wow. I’ve seen programs that come as part of this live DVD that I never heard of, like kover to make cd covers, there are so many tools included in this one DVD that I could go on for pages talking about what is included.
OSDir has screenshots of the Kubuntu 5.10 preview release.
On a somewhat related note, I installed Ubuntu 5.10 preview and am thoroughly impressed. The one thing that has shocked me is the “Add Programs” application. In Ubuntu 5.04 Add Programs is not very useful, it has the names of some 20 extra programs not included by default. But now, it’s got hundreds, if not thousands, of apps. They’re all organized, with their own icons, and summaries of what everything does. I’m not sure how to describe it, the experience is something like viewing software boxes at a computer store, except everything is instantly, legally, and freely downloadable. This app should be in every distro and on every window manager. It’s going to have a huge impact on the acceptance of Linux as soon as people discover it.
Tom’s Hardware has a detailed article about installing Windows XP onto a USB flash drive using Bart PE Builder. Adding software like Firefox and Nero is also described in this article.
All it takes is a minor error in the Windows Registry or a virus infection, and your operating system can become unbootable. But with a properly configured USB flash drive on hand, you’ll always have a compatible replacement no further away than your pocket or keychain.