News from the LiveCD World
Scientific Linux has a new LiveDVD.
Scientific Linux, a project based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 source packages enhanced with a variety of additional applications, released its v5.0 i386 live DVD on May 7. The SL5 live DVD features a 2.6.18 kernel, includes all client/workstation RPMs, and uses GNOME as its default desktop.
Linux.com reviews Digipup.
Puppy Linux is a lightweight live Linux distribution that you can boot and run from a CD, USB stick, or DVD. One of its features is the ability to create specialized “pups” — new versions of Puppy Linux geared toward a specific purpose. Digipup is one such example, with a focus on amateur radio. I spun it up, and found Digipup to be a great way to check out amateur radio utilities for Linux.
DistroWatch Weekly has some good LiveCD news in the Miscellaneous News section, including links to a 64-bit build of Knoppix 5.1.1.
Something to watch for, Google’s Summer of Code is sponsoring a graphical utility to create custom LiveCDs!
My proposal is to construct a graphical user interface that can be used in conjunction with live-helper to build Debian Live systems, allowing editing of existing configurations and including a ‘wizard’-style walkthrough for the first-time user.
Providing less experienced users with the opportunity to easily create live distributions will generate more exposure for live-helper, providing more valuable feedback for its developers and ultimately helping Debian’s image as an extremely flexible and free operating system.
Linux.com reviews BackTrack 2.
BackTrack is a live CD Linux distribution that focuses on penetration testing. A merger of two older security-related distros — Whax and Auditor Security Collection — BackTrack bundles more than 300 security tools.
One of the KDE devs has released LiveCDs with a preview of the upcoming KDE 4.0 desktop named KDE Four Live. KDE 4 is currently pre-alpha status, so, uh, don’t put it on a production server.
Elive keeps putting out new releases of their incredible Enlightenment-based desktop LiveCD.
After a HUGE amount of work on that version, a migration to new hosting (you can see the websites faster now!), and all the mirrors of Elive broken, Elive has finally released the version 0.6.7 with a LOT of good changes.
HowtoForge walks through recovering data from a RAID 1 setup using Knoppix.
More screenshots, courtesy of [Phoronix].
Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn is out, which means four new LiveCDs and two new LiveDVDs. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu all have Live “Desktop” releases to go with them.
Downloads:
Ubuntu 7.04 CDs
Kubuntu 7.04 CDs
Xubuntu 7.04 CDs
Edubuntu 7.04 CDs
CLICK reviews Puppy Linux 2.15CE.
DistroWatch Weekly has an overview of Knoppix as part of their “Top 10” Linux distros feature.
The top four of Lifehacker’s top 10 free computer system recovery tools are LiveCDs.
Linux.com reviews the multimedia monster LiveCD named Dyne:Bolic.
The Dyne:Bolic distribution is a live CD designed for creating, broadcasting, and publishing all kinds of audio, video, and graphic content. It includes some of the best free and open source tools with which you can compose music, mix video streams, and create 3-D animations.
ken’s blog lets us all know that a new version of the GNOME Live will be released soon. When it is, it will be available here.
Blogcritics.org goes over repartition a hard drive with the GParted LiveCD.
“Okay, little Percival, let me tell you what partitioning was like in the old days. If you already had information on your hard drive, but wanted to re-partition it, all your data would be erased. There were programs available that would partition your drive without erasing all your stuff, but they cost money.”
Linux by Examples uses the SLAX LiveCD to perform some data recovery and repair on a couple broken Windows machines.
Wired’s Compiler blog has a brief overview of Damn Small Linux.
We’ve written about portable apps quite a number of times in the past, but why bother with just apps when there’s a whole OS that’ll fit on a 50MB USB stick? Damn Small Linux, sometimes abbreviated DSL, is a 50MB mini desktop Linux distribution.
tuxmachines.org reviews the new GoblinX release.
GoblinX developers released their 2007.1 Premium version of GoblinX Linux recently and I was able to obtain the 1-cd version for testing. GoblinX has always been a very interesting project to watch with their odd-looking almost macabre-themed XFCE distro. It’s based on Slackware, so you know they have a good foundation and XFCE is coming into its own. With new versions of GoblinX being released about once per year, it’s hard to pass up the chance to test it when a new one arrives on the scene.