LXer has news of a LiveCD Generator for Fedora called Kadischi. I’m not sure yet how similar this project is to Gentoo’s Catalyst.
Windows Got Ya Down? Try a Remix
Wired has a piece on the many modified copies of Windows floating around on the torrent sites. Some of them sound extremely useful, including the bootable WinPE along with several WinXP installers on a single DVD. Of course, none of these are legal, but it’s still amazing how much people have been able to do with closed software. Imagine how much farther they could have gotten if they could modify the source code too.
In addition to two Chinese variants of Windows, the Super WinPE disc includes dozens of boot-time utilities for troubleshooting system snafus. One is an experimental “pre-installation environment” that uses a “mini-Windows XP” for system scanning and file recovery, similar to the popular Knoppix LiveCD version of Linux.
New Book: Peter van der Linden’s Guide to Linux
NewsForge has a product announcement about a new book with a Linspire LiveCD.
Van der Linden walks the reader through running the Linux live CD (no installation necessary.)
KNOPPIX 4.0 DVD – joys and problems
DistroWatch has some info on the new Knoppix 4.0.1 DVD, including a suggestion to wait for the next version, 4.0.2, to be released because of a UnionFS bug.
With the LinuxTag edition it took us about 7 minutes to get from the boot prompt to the full KDE desktop, but the new release gets there in half the time on the same system.
Newbie Adventures in Knoppix and Fedora
Groklaw has a long, detailed account of a Windows user trying out Knoppix for the first time. An entertaining read.
The grandmother is our own brooker, who decided to try to save a relative’s files on an ailing XP computer using a Knoppix CD.
More Whax and Auditor hacking demos
digg has a link to a webpage which has all the Whax and Audior hacking demos available in a single download. Use these to become a computer security expert and get a high paying job.
I’ve scoured the net to locate every single movie and flash demo for Whax (formerly known as Whoppix) as well as Auditor.
Thinking inside the box
Dirk Eddelbuettel blogs about slides he just released for a talk he gave on Quantian and distributed statistical computing. Probably worth reading if you run a lot of R jobs, or are interested in high performance clusters.
LiveCD Mentioned on Veronica Mars
I heard something I would have never expected on UPN’s show Veronica Mars. In one scene, near the middle of the episode, two characters were arguing over computer operating systems. The two OSes were OS X, and Ubuntu. And in talking about Ubuntu, one character states that it is available as a LiveCD. Could this be the first mention of a LiveCD on broadcast television?
Edit: I was told the show was a rerun, I’m not sure of the original air date.
More on the IBM SoulPad
LinuxDevices.com has a simple diagram describing how the IBM SoulPad works. To quickly summarize, it looks like Knoppix, autoloads VMware, which restores a session that was “hibernated” to a USB drive. The hibernation is the difficult part since it also has to store all documents and application changes to the system, along with whatever is in memory.
IBM Soulpad Virtual Machine
More on the IBM virtual machine which utilizes Knoppix at:
Are Computers without Hard Drives Useless? Doubtful.
Flexbeta has and article talking about Knoppix, and what it can be used for. More of an introduction to Knoppix than anything else.
Massive Linux handout set for French schools | CNET News.com
64,000 LiveCDs are being distributed to students in French schools. This is great in so many ways, not only will it cut down on software piracy (MS will be happy), it will enable many more students to use tools that they may not have been able to use previously. Not everyone can afford MS Office, Photoshop, etc, and not everyone can/is willing to pirate it. Once this generation comes to expect this kind of capability on any computer, manufacturers will include it on their systems, and people will end up getting a $300 Dell with a full office suite, image editing apps, and practically every program they could ever use.
Every student between the ages of 15 and 19 attending a school in Auvergne will be given a pack containing two CDs. The first CD contains free software for Microsoft Windows and Apple Computer’s Mac OS X, including the OpenOffice.org office productivity application, the Firefox browser and the GIMP image editing application. The second CD is a Linux Live CD, allowing pupils to try the open source operating system without installing it.
IBM’s SoulPad portable virtual computing environment
Engadget has news and a link to a video demonstrating IBM’s SoulPad, a virtual computing environment that allows you to save your computing session, with all your open programs, and move to another physical machine and start where you left off. The presenter says it is based on Knoppix, but in the video it really looks like Windows XP is the OS running after Knoppix boots (of course it’s simple to get Linux to look like XP, so that could explain the green and blue task bar).
MEPIS announces new version, product giveaway
DesktopLinux.com has some news on MEPIS, including a new testing release.
Live-CD Firewall Solutions?
Ask Slashdot has a LiveCD firewall question. Only a few responses so far, but these usually end up with some useful information.
Forensic Computers Releases Linux Based Computer Forensic System
There’s a new product being sold to law enforcement that allows easier collection of forensic data from computer. It uses a Mepis-based LiveCD.
“Windows will always try to interfere with everything and by contrast, on a Linux system, we can control when and how the file system is mounted, which adds an additional safeguard against writing to the drive while coupling that with a live CD to provide a very secure solution,” states Jim Raubach, Owner/Founder of Forensic Computers.
Getting Open Source to the Dialup Masses
Slashdot has posted about the Freedom Toasters setup in Africa by the Shuttleworth Foundation. The concept is simple, bring blank media to the kiosk and chose the software you want burned onto it. LiveCDs included on the toaster are Knoppix 3.6 and 3.9, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and ClusterKnoppix.
LiveLAMP Ready for Testing. In need of ISO mirrors.
LXer is reporting, and has a link, to the recently released education-focused LiveLAMP LiveCD. They’re looking for mirrors.
Bio-protected USB stick boots Debian Linux
LinuxDevices.com is reporting on something new. It’s a bootable USB drive with an embedded fingerprint scanner. You get to carry your desktop wherever you go, plus it stays secure. It’s always nice to see companies creating innovative products.
The COS can boot x86 computers capable of booting from USB, or from CD-ROM thanks to a downloadable initrd kernel image.
I’m not sure where the fingerprint scanner goes with the CDROM version, I’m guessing you still need the USB stick.