Four Linux Live CDs, The Executive Summary 243
prostoalex writes "ExtremeTech published a review of 4 Linux live distributions that do not require installation and run off a CD. Knoppix, Feather Linux, Gnoppix and MEPIS Linux were researched, with Knoppix winning the competition (and Gnoppix not graded, since it's still in beta)." One more (of the seemingly infinite number of live distros) I've recently tried and been happy with is called Slax, and is what it sounds like -- a live Slackware distribution. Slax worked great with my finicky older Toshiba laptop. (However, slax.org appears to be down.)
Artical Text (Score:-1, Informative)
January 23, 2004
By: Jim Lynch
The modern PC is a marvel of technology. One of its more useful capabilities is the ability to use the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive as a boot disk. Many Linux distros use this feature to launch their installers, but if you can boot off the CD, why can't you run off the CD? In fact, you can. The cool thing about all this is that you don't have to install anything on your computer.
In our other articles this week, we've looked at distros that had to be installed to your hard disk before you could use them. But that's not always necessary--there are Linux versions out there that let you just pop a live CD in, boot your computer, and go. They give you a chance to use Linux without the headache of installing everything. If you're totally unfamiliar with Linux, these offerings are a great way to get a taste of Linux and use some Linux-based applications. If you decide you don't like Linux, just take the CD out, reboot your machine and you'll be back in Windows once more.
Some of these versions aren't for everybody, so read carefully before deciding to play with one. All you'll need to try them out are some recordable CDs, an Internet connection, and a CD burner. You won't even need you credit card--every one of these distributions is free for the downloading.
Note: These are not full-blown reviews. Rather, they are geared toward giving you a sample of what you can expect from each distro, particularly if you are a Linux newcomer who just wants to see what they're like.
Performance and Installation
When using these distros, bear in mind they aren't running off your hard disk. So, sometimes it might take a bit longer to load an application off the CD than it would if you had actually installed the OS. If you decide to take the plunge with Linux using a distro like SuSE, Xandros, or Ark, you'll probably find that a hard drive-based Linux and assorted applications will load a lot faster.
You can install some of these onto your computer directly, rather than running them off the CD, but we're primarily interested in what kind of experience they provide by just booting off the disc. If you want to try installing them directly, be sure to check each site for specific instructions.
One last note: You should make sure your system is set to boot of the CD drive. This is a setting in your system BIOS setup, which you can access during the boot process. Most systems default to booting from either the floppy disk drive or the hard drive. You'll need to make sure the CD drive is the first boot drive listed in your BIOS setup. These settings are handled slightly differently from one system to the next, so consult your system or motherboard manual for specifics.
Knoppix 3.3
click on image for full view
Knoppix is the granddaddy of live Linux offerings. It has spawned a number of offspring, some of which we cover below. A great way to experience Linux for the first time, Knoppix comes with plenty of applications and requires nothing more on your part than putting the CD into your drive, booting your computer and hitting "Enter" at the command prompt.
Booting
We loaded Knoppix on our little Microtel test box (800MHz, 256MB of RAM) and it worked very well for us. It took just a couple of minutes for Knoppix to boot into a slick KDE desktop. If you're totally new to Linux, KDE will remind you somewhat of Windows, and it's very easy to use once you've had a chance to explore it for a little while.
KDE Desktop & Applications
click on image for full view
Knoppix comes with a lot of software. Here's a sample of what you'll find:
KDE 3.1.4
OpenOffice.org
KOffice
GAIM
KMail
Wine
Mozilla
Konqueror
Games
XMMS
Xine
There's quite a bit more, which is quite amazing considering it's bundled onto one CD. Most everything you need to get a reasonably good taste of the Linux desktop is here, ready to go when you boot t
DSL? (Score:5, Informative)
browser
word processor
email client
picture viewer
image editor
file manager
instant messenger
spreadsheet
PDF viewer
mp3 / cdplayer
irc client
ssh clients games
sql database
web server
vncviewer
nintendo emulator..
really knoppix packs a lot of stuff, but do you need it all? 50 megs will fit on an infamous "business card cd"
Re:DSL? (Score:5, Informative)
Morphix (Score:5, Informative)
There's 4 Official 'Flavors' of Morphix including:
In addition to those 4 Official 'Flavors' there's quite a few Derivitves [sourceforge.net] including ones for HAM Radio users and a MAME system.
Slax (Score:5, Informative)
How to get Linux on the desktop - Games and Utils (Score:3, Informative)
People aren't going to install Linux and jump into a spreadsheet for the boss - they want to stuff around - and that's whats good; there are a heap of small games and odd utilities to keep the newbie amused for a reasonable amount of time.
With the live CDs, this is a great way to show home users *easily* what sort of stuff is installed for FREE with Linux.
Now, if there was just an easy way for them to access their Outlook email...
Create your own (Score:5, Informative)
[linuxjournal.com]
http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7233
Only sticking point was the initial partition. I tried with a loopback mounted ISO but there were permission problems. Then went to a NFS mounted share. It worked but required a second machine. Finally just stuck another drive inside and created a bunch of 700M partitions.
Knoppix for nforce mobos: Kanotix (Score:5, Informative)
It is made by a german Knoppix hacker named Kano, who has a big page of patches for Knoppix here:
http://www.kano.mipooh.net/
It comes with kernel 2.4.23 patched with forcedeth and XFS.
It uses grub, Xfree86 4.3, is based on Debian/sid.
ACPI and DMA enabled by default (can be disabled with acpi=off respectively nodma)
The forum (german and english):
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/index.php
Download:
http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/kanot
Torrent:
http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/KANO
Re:Knoppix down too? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's MandrakeMove? (Score:4, Informative)
As for getting knoppix to do the same, it's just a matter of adding a home=/dev/sda1 (or your actual pendrive location) parameter during startup.
It could be that this is automated/autodetected with mandrake though.
Re:DSL? (Score:2, Informative)
It does have a small con, and that is the hardware support, which is somewhat a bit more limited tham the latest Knoppix. I've run this on a few machines and ran into a bit of trouble with some of the more exotic hardware, but it really shines when running in old boxes (we got a Pentium 100 to boot with this thing).
I'd highly recommend this if you are going to go around showing Linux to people, giving it a try first while having the full-blown Knoppix as a backup.
Damn Small Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Because the Knoppix image is
doing stuff in English hardly qualifies as internationalization.
No - internationalisation is the process by which you prepare an application to be localised. Localisation means using icons, images, text, etc that is appropriate for a given country/culture. Internationalisation means making these things configurable - ie having text strings, image paths, etc come out of a config file, instead of being hard-coded. It is localisation that requires translators, but internationalisation needs to take account of things like direction of writing (right-left or left-right), what colours should be configurable (red in some countries is lucky, not danger/warning), etc. You need people from other cultures to point these things out, or you may miss something, and create an application that can only be partially localised.
Knoppix CD torrent (Score:2, Informative)
Bittorrent knoppix link (Score:5, Informative)
here for the bittorrent client.
Also, MandrakeMove torrent [mandrakelinux.com]
Re:Where's MandrakeMove? (Score:5, Informative)
"knoppix home=/dev/sda1 screen=1280x1024"
If you figure out how to edit the ISO (I'm guessing loopback device) you could even get the CD to do this automatically.
Two Knoppix-based in Brazil: (Score:5, Informative)
They're pretty much Knoppix adaptations, knoppix options still present and all, but an interesting fact:
Some small VARs here sell computers without OSes and they demo their computers with Kurumin, which not only eases the selling process (try telling your customer to believe the computer will work), but also require much less work, since there's no installing to do... and more importantly, no uninstalling, too!
Kinda of a frightening experience, to see Linux in TV... to M$, of course!
Linux live is ideal for laptops (Score:5, Informative)
Gnoppix for me (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
Custom Live CDs? (Score:5, Informative)
Although I haven't used it myself it is what the slax distribution was created with.
To quote from their website:
"Linux Live is a set of bash scripts which allows you to create own LiveCD from every Linux distribution. Just install your favourite distro, remove all unnecessary files (for example man pages and all other files which are not important for you) and then download and run these scripts. "
Q.
Knoppix does more than just KDE (Score:4, Informative)
That's a useful capability that's often overlooked-- On an older machine of mine, running Knoppix in KDE-mode was pretty slow, but it ran fast as anything in FluxBox mode.
Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
If there are things an unprivileged user can do to screw up the system, they are normally security holes, and should be fixed. (Not saying they don't exist - read-only mounts can still be useful if you are really paranoid.) (One thing you might worry about is hitting the reset button and corrupting the disk - a CD-ROM is certainly immune to that, though journalling filesystems should be robust against it too.)
http://www.linux-live.org/ (Score:5, Informative)
Q.
Re:Where's MandrakeMove? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, MandrakeMove mounts the hard drives just fine. The beta had icons on the desktop for it, but they took them out for the final (which I think is good). Over the holidays I used MandrakeMove on PC's of friends and family, and it worked very well, got much done. It's slick, fast (!), Just Works (TM).
Yes, MandrakeMove is a glaring omission.
Re:2.6 Kernel Live CD (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.jollix.de
It has german language support only so far but our scripts to build the liveCD are available via CVS: http://cvs.berlios.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/jollix/
Most of the bash-script comments and utility-documentation (cloop, mkisofs) is in english.
Knoppix remastering (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
boot: knoppix tohd
and the cd was copied to a folder c:\knoppix on the
win 98 fs. I use a boot disk, and now do not need the CD at all. I restore from a Memory Stick, and have MozillaFirebird, about 10 mb of files in a tarball on the usb stick. There is a menu item in fluxbox for DSL that automatically installs Mozilla Firebird and Flash 5. When done, all you have to do is edit your filetool.lst on the stick to have all that backed up.
It's fast and stable, and the scite editor included is way better than gnotepad for editing html pages for my web site. Right now, I am using the glinks web browser, which has to be seen to be believed. It is much better than dillo, but of course no match for Moz 7.
Big problem in moving my CD and stick around to various machines. Modem has to be reconfigured with #wvdialconf wvdial.conf, and of course you might not be able to get X to run.
One can start with "knoppix 2" to start in text mode and work up from there.
I installed on the HDD as I wanted more speed, and got a little tired of having the cdrom drive spin, although it's not really that bad, I just wanted more...
This setup runs almost as fast as my P4 2.8 1GB XP box, but not quite. It's not slow by any means.
One idea is to back up to a second memory stick (remove the original) then if your stick pulls a "mars lander" item on the flash memory, you still have your stuff.
I have my menu file(yes, I changed it) on the 'net at:
fluxbox_menu [angelfire.com] so you can see what this litttle distro has. I have not added anything but Moz 7 to it, yet. As you can see this setup is stable enough to make this post, using Slashdot's online "comment box", with the corrections, and additions one must make. There is no "paste" in glinks, that I could find, so I couldn't just write this in scite, and paste it here.
Re:None of these work for PPC (Score:3, Informative)
Current livecds should be compatible
Re:Knoppix for nforce mobos: Kanotix (Score:1, Informative)
No need to install drivers, to patch the kernel, at all.
Forcedeth patch is a GPL driver for the ethernet card built in nForce2 mobos.
Re:SuSE Live (Score:2, Informative)
I once tried SuSE Live (I think it was version 7.0, but I don't remember). It didn't work.
You sure do know what you're writing about... Actually, knoppix works more than fine. When my university was hosting the particle physics conference of the national phyisical society, we set up two "internet cafes", one featuring ordinary PCs, the other a bunch of notebooks, all running knoppix with no problems. And that was a year ago. I used knoppix when I bought my notebook, which came without windows preinstalled, but I wanted to see it worked before I took it home, so trusting in God or whoever else is responsible for making things work, I just popped in the knoppix CD and bootet the computer. Actually, I was an idiot and didn't see the pixel failure in the middle of the screen, but I won't blame that on knoppix ;-)
If you want to have a gnome desktop from a live CD, try the Morphix [sourceforge.net] Gnome module. Last time I downloaded it, it worked nicely, definitely better than Gnoppix. This distro's work seems to have been interrupted for a while but they are just reemerging from the sort-of-dead.
Re:But what can you do with live CDs ? (Score:1, Informative)
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/04
Re:Linux live is ideal for laptops (Score:4, Informative)
> uses kde instead of gnome and (2) it has its own
> package structure that is incompatible with
> debian. So apt-get dist-upgrade or even apt-get
> upgrade will break everything. I've only had
> success upgrading individual packages with apt.
I've done both apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade several times (over a period of a few months) on my installed-to-hard-disc Knoppix box, and haven't had a problem with it.
I've also installed an extra zillion games via apt-get for my kids to play on the same box, and they work fine too.
If you're having problems with this, it might be worth reporting it to the www.knoppix.net. The PC I used is a grey box clone running an old Celeron 533 with no "tricky" hardware whatsoever; maybe you're hitting problems with the specific hardware you're using.
Re:wow. (Score:5, Informative)
Knoppix is okay, but I really like having a very usable distro on one of those 185mb cd's. The small cd's actually fit in your pocket (typically of my coat) so I can have a useable linux distro wherever I go, AND it works on old hardware (read: PC's that can't boot off of usb keys).
I don't have a laptop at work (don't travel enough to warrant the expense) but when I do travel, I usually end up having to "borrow" someone's PC when they aren't using it. This is pain to say the least. It is great to say: "hey, let me just use that old junky one in the corner." They usually respond: oh, you can't use that one, the hard drive is broken. Which is when I say "Perfect!", and they give me this very strange look....
That said, slax is the only 'small' distro I've found that includes the utilities I need:
1. dhcp
2. Web browser that supports ssl AND PROXIES!!! (most small distros use the dillo web browser, which does not support proxies. Without proxy support, I can't get outside the corporate firewall, which sort of makes it hard to read slashdot.)
3. ssh
4. multi-desktop window manager [click to focus] (yes, I started on windows, flame me...)
5. vnc viewer
6. reasonably workable xterm (konsole and rxvt are my favorites)
Also nice about slax is that is has full PCMCIA support. When I've used it on laptops (belonging to other people, of course) I've been able to use PCMCIA network cards (10/100 and some wireless cards) and it supports flash memory (so I can copy over my ssh keys). I love to have these features in one of those 50mb business card distro's, but they never seem to include a functional web browser, and do include a bunch of utilities I don't care about.
(sigh) I guess I'll have to build my own distro, if I only knew how/had the time to learn...
Until then, however, slax is the best distro I've found for what I need.
What About PCLinuxOS? (Score:3, Informative)
You can find more info here: PCLinuxOS Homepage [pclinuxonline.com]
It's still early in development but looks really promising! They just released Preview 5 on the 20th.
Re:wow. (Score:3, Informative)
Slax is by far the best live-CD I've used, keep up the good work (fits on a 20 min / 8 cm cd too).
Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there are other considerations here. I wanted this to be set up in such a way as to demand as little of my time as possible, which the Knoppix image approach achieves. I was also concerned about liability... had I done a normal install, then I would be root, and then I would conceivably be liable for any exploits performed on that machine. Remember that this isn't my day job by any stretch of the imagination; this is me doing a favor.
And I'm not sure I buy the notion that a default install is secure simply because you're making your users use non-root accounts. I've heard of too many exploits that take advantage of local access to the box.
You failed your users because you didn't offer them a solution which fitted with *their* expectations.
Again, they really aren't *my* users. This was supposed to be about me spending less than an hour slapping the thing together and maybe visiting once a month to see if it was still running when I go to pay my rent. I was getting nothing in return from this arrangement, so considering that their alternative was wrestling with a barely-limping Win98 install, I think I did well by them.
Now, had I gotten into the second-stage of the project, that is, getting into all the i18n crap, then yeah, I'd have gone for the full install and would've worked out some indemnity arrangement with the manager's office.
Just one more note... once the system was booted and Konqueror was running in full screen mode the system was actually quite responsive. Most of the users were interested only in doing webmail and assorted browsing, and what was truly remarkable was how they didn't notice or care that it wasn't an IE box, despite (I'm assuming) that being their only previous experience. I think the people who were upset with the performance was management, because they had to turn on the machine in the morning and I guess waiting three minutes for everything to load was just too much. So, I think it really depends on the situation you're in... with just the slightest change in environment--like if they left the machine on all night for instance--it would have probably been a successful setup.
Clickable Links (Score:3, Informative)
It is made by a german Knoppix hacker named Kano, who has a big page of patches for Knoppix here:
http://www.kano.mipooh.net/ [mipooh.net]
It comes with kernel 2.4.23 patched with forcedeth and XFS.
It uses grub, Xfree86 4.3, is based on Debian/sid.
ACPI and DMA enabled by default (can be disabled with acpi=off respectively nodma)
The forum (german and english):
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/index.php [mipooh.net]
Download:
http://debian.tu-bs.de/knoppix/kanotix/ [tu-bs.de]
Torrent:
http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/KANOTIX-X-MAS-2003
Re:How to make bootable USB key? (Score:2, Informative)
http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/kno
You can (Score:2, Informative)
Then he tried it, what he found was that by enabling the USB Legacy device option (and/or USB Keyboard or Mouse option) it could be used to boot.
Re:Live CD's run slowly, users don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
Re:wow. (Score:5, Informative)
Basically you setup the distro the way you want it, apt-get rpms via synaptic (yes that's right, apt-get and rpm in the same sentence), setup all your bookmarks, address books, etc. Then you run the mklivecd shell script and voila! Your own distro, with everything you want and need and nothing you don't.
Go to pclinuxonline.com and hunt down the left side for the pclinuxos download link and forums link.
Because everyone else seems to have forgotten... (Score:2, Informative)
Quite a few folks would ask me "why can't Win98 do that?" as I was booting up their crapped out machines and recovering whole HDDs worth of files. All in all, a very nice bonus from a rock-solid distribution.
The genius that is Patrick Volkerding...
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