News from the LiveCD World
Marcel’s Linux Walkabout has an article about klik on their website.
The inspiration for klik has its origins with Knoppix (and Kanotix). In fact, the original name for klik was KLIK (all caps), which stands for “KDE-based Live Installer for Knoppix Kanotix”.
DesktopLinux.com reports that LaCie is now selling a USB 2.0 hard drive that allows PCs to boot off it into Mandriva Linux. Hopefully this is the beginning of a new trend.
The Deccan Herald Internet Edition is running a story about LiveCDs. It is aimed at Windows users interested in trying out Linux, and covers everything, from how they work, how to get them, advantages of running them over normal hard drive installs, and even several more specialized LiveCD projects.
One of the first live CDs to manage this was Knoppix, which is so good at sniffing out strange hardware and configuring it that sceptical Windows users are regularly bowled over by the sight of their machine being turned into a powerful GNU/Linux system in minutes.
NewsForge has an article about OpenSolaris and a few derivatives that have come from the project. In it several OpenSolaris LiveCDs are mentioned, including SchilliX and BeleniX. It talks about some of the licensing issues that exist, and is worth reading for anyone interested in seeing what may happen with regards to integrating CDDL OpenSolaris code with GPL Linux code.
Ghosh has been working for Sun for two and a half years, but he is not a part of its OpenSolaris team. He started working on BeleniX in his spare time — what he said was three months of weekends and late nights to figure out how to get the live CD to boot. Calling it “a great learning experience,” Ghosh spent that time filling in the holes left by pieces of Solaris whose code has not yet been released to the community.
Knoppix, the most well known LiveCD, is holding a contest for new graphics to include in future releases. A great way for anyone to promote their name. I’m sure I’ll be looking at it lots, and everyone I demo Knoppix to will also see it.
You send us a graphics package for inclusion in Knoppix, and, if the package is accepted for a Knoppix release, we promote your website or business via a link that you can place on the desktop wallpaper (see below) in return.
I just stumbled upon this from the Wikipedia page on QEMU, it’s a combination of Qemu-Saver for Windows and GamesKnoppix to provide a LiveDVD screensaver. Cool stuff.
this time with a bonus. A screensaver based on QEMU; leave your Windows box alone for a couple of minutes and it virtual-boots Linux, all the way to ‘xsnow’.
PC Advisor has a writeup on the Freedom Toaster. Hopefully they make their way to the US.
Sometimes Linux LiveCDs configure hardware better than traditional installed distros.
Given this information about the new Digiweb conditions, Giancarlo had, to use his own words, “the insane idea to test the new modem and connection with a Knoppix Live CD”. Knoppix indeed did connect to the Internet all by itself, so then it was only a matter of finding and copying the correct configuration parameters into the proper Slackware files.
November’s issue of Linux Pro Magazine has quite a bit of info about Knoppix, including an interview with the creator Klaus Knopper (online in pdf form), and an article written by Klaus where he gives tips on how to perform tasks such as installing programs, burning CDs, and writing to NTFS partitions (currently not online). It even comes with the Knoppix 4.0.2 DVD.
NewsForge reports there’s a new security LiveCD based on Slackware.
A note here about the Dapper Drake (6.10) Ubuntu/Kubuntu release LiveCDs. Looks like they’re finally going to add an installer onto their LiveCDs. While this already exists on their LiveDVDs, it would be nice for the DVD-less computers. Also it would be nice if the installer ran from inside the Live environment, like it does on Knoppix, MEPIS, PCLinuxOS, or others.
Free CDs for Kubuntu through shipit should be available for the next release if the planned Live CD Installer removes the need for a separate install CD.
NewsForge has a writeup on the new MapFS filesystem, and some of its uses. One use looks very similar to UnionFS or Copy-on-Write, which already allow users to modify any files on their LiveCDs.
One possibility Dennis and Stahl mentioned is a set-up that can run off a live CD. According to Stahl, they would like to see users have the ability to change things that run off a CD, and MapFS would make it easier to facilitate such a use. He said that by populating the view so that it refers to all the files on the CD, and setting up a temp directory to be used for the copy and write target, users would be able to modify any of the files on the file system.
LinuxDevices.com has a nice overview of Belenix, an OpenSolaris LiveCD.
The liveCD represents the Belenix project’s first release capable of booting into a graphical environment. The project hopes to follow up eventually with support for hard drive installation.
Heise online talks about several LiveCDs used for cleaning Windows boxes. They say c’t magazine is being mailed with both the Microsoft and Knoppix-based tools, which is cool, except that I don’t have a subscription because I don’t speak German.
LXer reports that “overwhelming demand for downloadable version of the LiveCD” has caused the project website to become unusable, and the homepage to be replaced with a minimalistic text version.
DesktopLinux.com reports GoblinX’s first birthday.
We’re linking to Slashdot who is linking to Tuxmachines.org for a review they posted about the new LG3D LiveCD. Read the comments while the site slowly loads in a backgrounded tab of your browser.
informit.com has a detailed article focused on remastering Knoppix 3.8.
There are many reasons to want to build your own distribution of Knoppix. By doing so, you could have privately-written software distributed in a complete environment, create a reduced toolset for your specific needs (saving valuable space), or explore and release a particular focus (adding to the growing list of pre-fabricated specialized options).
Computerworld has an article with a lot of quotes from core Dyne:bolic developer Jaromil about the new features going into Dyne:bolicII. A lot of work is going into the new release, with the latest packages, new scripts, fast customization, and low system requirements.
Jaromil says the main addition to version two, currently in beta, is that it will include all the compiler tools required in order to modify it.
Slashdot has a link to an entertaining article about the future of computers belonging to removable flash drives and hard drive-less computers. While there are still some obvious roadblocks such as limits to the number of writes, speed, and capacity, these are being improved daily. I’d like to have my customized operating system with all my documents, pics, and music with me wherever I go.