Bootable Linux Demo Distro - Knoppix 215
ts writes "Newsforge has an article about using Linux to recover Windows partitions.
The interesting part is not only the article, but also the comment about Knoppix a Live-on-CD distribution of Linux. I just downloaded it and it booted from CD on a Shuttle Spacewalker SS25. AMAZING. Even the audio works.
Have any /. users found interesting uses for this distro?" I've been looking for exactly this to use in demonstrations. Perfect.
No Pix? (Score:5, Informative)
* Linux-Kernel 2.4.x
* KDE V3.0.2 as the standard desktop with K Office and the Konqueror WWW-browser konqueror
* X Multimedia System (xmms) an MPEG-video, MP3, Ogg Vorbis Audio player and xine
* Internet connection software kppp,pppoeconf (DSL) and isdn-config
* Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) Version 1.2
* utilities for data recovery and system repairs, even for other operating systems
* network and security analysis tools for network administrators
* OpenOffice(TM), the GPL-developed version of the well-known StarOffice(TM) office suite
* many programming languages, development tools (including kdevelop) and libraries for developers
* in total more than 900 installed software packages with over 2000 executable user programs, utilities, and games
Re:No Pix? (Score:1)
software via rpm and using kudzu to autodetect hardware.
Re:No Pix? (Score:2)
However, the website [knopper.net] also states that:
A case of schizophrenia, perhaps?
Re:No Pix? (Score:2, Interesting)
Debian Planet article [debianplanet.org] blockquoth: also check out the packages.txt (seems to be
yeah, it's in german (and I had to mutilate it to get it past the junk filter...blah), but look familiar? Exact output from `dpkg -l`
Re:No Pix? (Score:1)
Re:No Pix? (Score:2)
Re:No Pix? (Score:1)
{{{
16 MB of RAM for text mode, at least 96 MB for graphics mode with KDE
}}}
!!!!
Does it really take 96MB to have KDE up and running? WHY?
My Linux setup has 48MB RAM, and I run the much maligned bloatware _emacs_ in X, and I can happily edit 10MB text files without hitting swap.
What does KDE do with that extra 48M that I'm not doing without it?
YAWIAR.
Re:No Pix? (Score:3, Informative)
The essence is: without swap, virtual mem == real mem.
Re:No Pix? (Score:2)
Re:No Pix? (Score:1)
Thank you for your useful contribution to this discussion. Take of your pathetic AC mask next time, child.
YAWIAR
Re:No Pix? (Score:2, Informative)
Now, getting back to the question, I assume it uses some of the RAM to make a
Re:No Pix? (Score:2, Informative)
I use demolinux for showing off Linux to people, mostly at school. My sysadmin was mighty impressed (-8
I talked to one guy, and he used Demolinux for cracking - he said it was ideal for booting up a computer in a Windows-based corporation, and his traces would be more difficult to find.. (-8
I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes I used the diskette to prop my table leg up. I was able to replace the AOL CD I was using.
Seriously though it could have problems with varying types of file systems. For instance the guy said he used it with ME, not with Windows 2K which uses NTFS. And of course microsoft decided to come out with encryption in W2K so those files would pretty much be lost if you had that setup. Why not just create a recovery CD? If it's FAT there are a lot of ways to boot to it. Just my
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:1)
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:3, Interesting)
First a (minor) correction - W2K allows you to use NTFS. It's not mandatory, you know.
Most of the W2K installations *I* consider to be wise have a small boot partition for W2K (~4 Gigs - W2K and Windows apps are bootdisk space hogs [sigh]) which uses FAT, just so that any disk-analyzer can find out what's wrong with it THIS time. Then put all data and programs on a secondary NTFS partition, which can be accessed when you've either
- rescued the FAT boot partition
- Re-installed W2K
The last option is rarely needed for an average user (they do it anyway, though), but for a developer (like myself) it's necessary with intervals of ~6 months - sigh (but that's due to DLL bloat, most of the time). If the NTFS one fails (rather unlikely barring physical disk damage) you can repair it using any of the tools already available for that job. I never ever had to repair anything running on NTFS, though. Solid as rock.This approach has saved my a** more than a few times...
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
What I did was setting up a seperate linux partition and a boot-menu, allowing you to restore previously done disk images of the systems. Much faster than reinstalling and _guarantees_ the exact same configuration you started this.
Wouldn't that make your job easier (the 6 month reinstall cycle)?
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
It would indeed - except the problem is that I don't want the exact same configuration 6 months later. New versions of half the applications, new much-needed Service Packs from M$ and so on. That said, I usually have IT service from my company put an image on the machine when needed, but I find that I use as much time upgrading/installing my apps as I would installing it all in the first place. But your idea is interesting if I make regular images of my *own* W2K installation though - maybe I should give it a try...
Besides, having Linux on it is ALWAYS desirable :-)
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
That was indeed what I meant, images of the original install was the right thing in our case, it is clealry not in yours.
With a little scripting&boot manager magic + perhaps wake-on-lan one can even do scheduled nightly images.
Add to that netcat+dd for windows (look on google for it, there's a standalone version), and it might really be possible to that on a live system (this is dangerous though, I assume) over the net.
But what might be nice could be nightly differential backups, but since we have no use for that, I didn't try this.
It might come in handy for you, though. See for instance Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync [mikerubel.org].
Sound neat.
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
Re:Mod Parent down (Score:1)
It's quite common these days, you know. They call them "Personal Computers."
As for whether FAT or NTFS is easier to fix, I have no idea. I use Debian, myself. But I can see why the parent poster might want to use FAT (which has been around a lot longer, and might have more tools available to fix it.) Remember that this is not linux, and new software for him to use might cost money.
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
I was under the impression that NTFS filesystems were readonly under Linux. This may be an outdated view of things, in which case you can just disregard the rest of this post, and *PLEASE* point me to wherever I can download full NTFS support for Linux.
You are absolutely correct that I trade the robustness of NTFS for the quite primitive FAT by doing so. I knew that too. I fully understand that this will increase the chances of me having to take action, and it does mean that in actual fact. However, the tradeoff is - in MY opinion - justified since I can not easily repair an NTFS partition. Extract stuff, perhaps (see the first paragraph) - but not repair. *I* need repairing far more than I need extraction on my boot drive, since it doesn't (by definition) contain my actual work. I wouldn't trust a FAT system to hold my own work - NTFS for that job. But I much prefer frequent easy repairs to my bootdrive, rather than difficult (or almost impossible) repairs infrequently. Whatever can get me up and running again without having to reinstall everything is a Good Thing. God, how I HATE the Windows registry.
The suggestion by platypus in reply to my post looks promising, since it will probably allow me to use NTFS (which I much prefer) *and* allow easy recovery. If I can get some more diskspace, I'll probably do it like platypus described.
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
Well, files might not be accessible from linux while encrypted, but you could just turn the encryption off before toasting Windows...
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
NTFS encryption is an option that can be set on a volume/folder/file basis. You have to manually turn it on, so it's not like "oh this is a win2k box, this means all the files are encrypted and we are screwed".
On another note, you don't lose the encrypted files as long as you back up the encryption key (not hard). Using the file system encryption without backing this up is very irresponsible since a dead installation, system drive failure, etc will cause these files to be lost.
You act like file-system encryption is a bad thing. Oh wait, it's something from Microsoft and this is slashdot... never mind.
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
That is true, but I'd hardly call it irresponsible. Win2k/XP does not warn you about this at all when you encrypt a file.
I used encryption on a couple of files, and then my Windows install died so I had to reinstall.
It was only after I had done this that I realised I couldn't get my files back - basically the only way to get them back was to go back in time and archive the encryption info before my installataion failed.
I guess it's kind of obvious when you think about it, but it would be really great if MS popped up a little dialog about this the first time you ever encrypt a file.
I wonder how many people have files encrypted on an NTFS volume, and don't realise how easy it is to lose that data. Luckily for me, I had backups of the files in question.
I just checked the help in Windows XP, and it certainly doesn't make this problem clear, even if you go looking for it. If you happen to know what a 'designated Recovery Agent' is, then you might find the information, but it's by no means obvious.
Tim
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
I learned this lesson the hard way a few months ago when I upgraded my development box from 2000 Server to XP Pro a few months back. Since it won't let you do that as an upgrade and all I had on my C: drive was my Windows installation, I didn't think twice before telling it to just reformat the C drive....
Bybye porn collection
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2, Informative)
For a rescue CD that fits on the small CDRs (of which I ALWAYS have a copy with me) check Timo's Rescue CD [sourceforge.net]. (Not my project, but I'm a fan). Plus, you can really show off Linux - pop it in the CD drive, boot it up, listen to the oohs and aahs. ax
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
Re:I found an interesting use for this distro... (Score:2)
Man, with an encryption layer NTFS must be even more blazing fast than the last time I checked. ...
Forensics and network trouble shooting (Score:3, Informative)
Because its on a CDR we know the tools are safe. We use dd to image a drive off via the network (piped to netcat/cryptcat), firewire, another drive etc etc... just add a few scripts to do some MD5 hashing an away you go.
It would make network trouble shooting tool as well because you have your network tools, tcpdump, etherreal, etc to check out the network on any users desktop or laptop. You don't have to lug aroung your linux laptop.
Re:Forensics and network trouble shooting (Score:1, Insightful)
Huh? What does it being on a CDR have to do with whether or not you can use it to modify the HD contents?
Re:Forensics and network trouble shooting (Score:2, Interesting)
>Huh? What does it being on a CDR have to do with whether or not you can use it to modify the HD contents?
I think he means that because it runs off a CDR, you know it won't be tainted in the case of a breakin or a virus/worm running around screwing things up.
Seti@home (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Seti@home (Score:1)
Re:Seti@home (Score:2)
I'm downloading the Knoppix english version right now. It will take me a while to understand enough about Linux to create a bootable Seti distro that will work on any machine I put it in.
It's purpose will be to boot linux/seti on my many machines without altering their existing OS installations/software suits.
A freaky neat disk would be able to boot both x86 and PPC.
Key words: I own every machine I run Seti on.
Well i did it several times.. (Score:1)
Re:Well i did it several times.. (Score:1)
SuperRescue (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SuperRescue (Score:3, Funny)
On a floppy? He must be using lzip [sf.net].
Re:SuperRescue (Score:2)
What is lzip?
Glad you asked. Lzip is an advanced file compression utility that generates smaller file sizes than either gzip or bzip2, and does so much faster. Lzip can achieve these goals because it it based on a so-called "lossy" compression scheme (most other utilties make use of slower, less efficient "lossless" compression). For more information, you can consult the Frequently Asked Questions list. Or, you can dive right in, grab the 1.0 tarball and start reducing your bloated files down to 10%, 15%, in some cases 0% of their original size!
weird I read the same article and saw the same (Score:1)
hmmm (Score:1)
Re:hmmm -but which is odder (Score:2)
Vik
Re:hmmm -but which is odder (Score:1)
Re:hmmm -but which is odder (Score:3, Insightful)
Haven't had a need to try it myself, but if you need it, you can find the instructions here [heise.de].
Rescue is not the only use!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Just boot off the CD straight into the prototype, linux installation not needed, and when finished hit the reset button and remove the CD.
Distro for mum (Score:1, Interesting)
Customize for your mother, put in all her ISP setup details, configure the desktop for web browsing and email, allow her to print email,pictures.
Make it simple for her to use.
I haven't done this yet, but when I get some time.
What about SuSE? (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks, SuSE!
Some more "LiveCD" Distros... (Score:5, Informative)
* DemoLinux - http://www.demolinux.org/
Dedicated to bootable Linux CD distributions.
* LNX-BBC - http://www.lnx-bbc.org/
Business Card Sized Open-Source Bootable CD.
* Mondo Restore/Rescue Utility - http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/
Use a live bootable Linux CD for your system backups and recovery.
* Linux - Live on CD - http://www.ocslink.com/~blunier/
Linux - Live on CD. Hard disk not required
* Dyne Bolic - http://lab.dyne.org/DyneBolic/
Complete GNU/Linux operating system working without the need for any hard-disk.
* Diskless Nodes - http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Diskless-HOWTO-3.ht
Includes information on creating your own live CD.
* Virtual Linux - http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-linux
Bootable Mandrake Linux distribution with 1.6 gigs worth of tools and toys on a single CD.
FreeBSD LiveCD -- http://livecd.sourceforge.net/
NetBSD LiveCD -- http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/#live-cd
Re:Some more "LiveCD" Distros... (Score:3, Informative)
And the tools it comes with are designed for recovery and forensics, not demonstrating your sound and video cards.... so beware and enjoy!! The partitions are mounted read-only by default, for instance, and there are tools for undeleting files as well as for copying all data to a network-mounted filesystem, includes nfs samba ssh etc ;^]
Re:Some more "LiveCD" Distros... (Score:1)
But one of the advantages of these is that they can write to the HD for rescue repair work, or, at least in the case of Mondo, for restoring a backup.
Russ
Re:Some more "LiveCD" Distros... (Score:3, Funny)
The most convincing Linux Evangelizer (Score:5, Insightful)
Even me, when I discover a new Knoppix CD, I cannot believe my eyes: every latest version is on it and it's running rock solid.
Re:The most convincing Linux Evangelizer (Score:2)
"Like, It has windows and menus and everything!" People who are that easily impressed by an operating system aren't the best case studies of the mind-blowing advancements in UI that Linux brings to the world of computing. Heh.
Telling them that they have 8000 USD value software on this disk and show them things like OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, The GIMP, KOffice, the games, they can't utter a sound.
Neither can I after reading the above. Suggesting that those half-dozen pieces of open source software are in some meaningful way "worth $8000" is bordering on the ridiculous. I thin what you mean to say is that they might adequately substitute for $8000 of commercial software. I would be quick to add that more often than not they don't. Hell if more than a few people agreed with you then Adobe, for example, would go out of business for lack of sales in the Photoshop department. Everyone would be downloading GIMP. Follow me? Most people don't find them adequate substitutes.
This kind of breathless Linux advocacy is almost as bad as what one can often find on Macintosh discussion sites. In either case it doesn't do anyone any favors.
That reminds me of one other thing about the original post. "AMAZING." What is amazing? Booting a functional OS off a CD? Shit, I've been doing that for years and years on Macintoshes. I even have 50 little boxes at work that have no hard drives, just boot Linux off the CD and serve as email / browsing stations for students in the university coffee shops. I'm not seeing anything amazing here. "Even the audio works." (insert gasps of amazement here.)
Re:The most convincing Linux Evangelizer (Score:2, Insightful)
Having used Linux since 1.x days, on a variety of nasty, obsolete, and far-too-new hardware, I'm gasping in amazement. :)
I never got sound working
Re:The most convincing Linux Evangelizer (Score:2)
the UI isn't much better than windows or a mac
You're kidding me, right? "Isn't much better"?? It's quite obviously inferior to both. Yes, even Windows.
I think this is mainly the case because good UI sometimes means taking away someone's ability to do something. Infinite choice on how to make something happen isn't always condusive to good UI. Linux users and developers (and there's hardly a difference) are not big on taking away someones ability to do something. This is primarily why I predict that when someone does make a distro with a good UI it will be universally hated by the existing Linux community. We'll see in time if I'm right.
No Big Deal (Score:5, Informative)
1. Compile the system. There's a fanastic guide at linuxfromscratch.org [linuxfromscratch.org].
2. Set the fstab up to place all read-write hierarchies on a tmpfs filesystem. This include tmp, var, and portions of etc. Have copies of the initial state of thse filesystems in a separate directory on the CD and set the bootscripts up to untar them at bootup.
3. Compile a highly compatible kernel. Basically, enable most things that cannot be compiled as modules and compile all modules.
4. Use devfs with compatibility links. it cuts down on confusion as to what devices exist.
5. Create an ISO of the filesystem, being sure to enable all options required for bootable CDs.
6. Install lilo into the boot sector of the ISO.
7. Burn the CD.
8. Reboot and pray.
Re:No Big Deal (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No Big Deal (Score:4, Funny)
Timo's Rescue Cd Creation Set (Score:3, Informative)
This probably isn't as well suited for a super demo, but you can get the source, tweak it up as you want, and burn. Though the prebuilt iso is great as is for a rescue disk if you aren't into customizing it. Optionally the whole thing will load into RAM, freeing up the CD drive, say for if you've got data on CD that you want to access as well.
perfect for showing win users it's their fault (Score:4, Funny)
Whenever someone starts shouting: "Hey my network doesn't function and it's all your fault!"
You just go there, pop the knoppix CD into the drive, surf to slashdot, download some mp3s and tell him: "Nope, it's yours."
You would not believe in how many ways you can misconfigure a personal firewall!
our rescue disk (Score:3, Informative)
(any major distro has parted) parted can copy, resize, move etc. partitions like a command line Partition Magic.
Can't resize NTFS though, but we can still move it with dd.
Re:our rescue disk (Score:2)
thanks,
FreeBSDToGo (Score:2, Interesting)
Knoppix for training purposes (Score:4, Interesting)
Oxford University is setting up Linux training courses. We're assuming that those on the course have little or no experience of Linux. We're using Knoppix for the course because it comes with the basic software that a user will need to learn and become familiar with the OS and it lets them take the CD home or to their office and play with it while making no permanent changes to their precious systems.
My own project is run entirely on Open Source Software and it is my belief that spending public funds on licenses for office suites, web browsers, email clients, databases and webservers is money poorly spent. It seems that others in the university agree. A medium sized project can save thousands of (dollars, euros or pounds) by setting up staff with the basic tools for their tasks on an Open Source platform. Those thousands of pounds can often mean the project can bring in another researcher / investigator / clerical assistant.
Getting fellow academics and their students to dip their toes into the Open Source Gnu/Linux waters through a bootable CD like Knoppix is very easy to do. We'll see how these training courses go but I'm hopeful that we'll see more projects migrating at least some of their staff from Microsoft to Gnu/Linux
Re:Knoppix for training purposes (Score:2)
Can you give me any info on how you burnt this to get a bootable copy? I downloaded KNOPPIX_V3.1-06-08-2002-EN.iso and burnt it on a Win98 system with EZCD Creator 4. But when I tried to boot it, the CD wasn't recognized as bootable, and when I booted into Windows, Win98 was very upset by whatever it saw on the CD when it tried to open it for the "my computer" window. I already downloaded, burnt and booted ISO images of Virtual Linux and Demo Linux, so it's not like I'm making a novice mistake or just can't boot a CD. I looked at it with IsoBuster and IsoBuster reports that it doesn't like the ISO image at all. Thinking I had a bad download I got another copy from a different mirror site, and found I had perfect byte by byte match to my original file. I then downloaded 2 copies of the older KNOPPIX_V3.1-04-08-2002-EN.iso with the same results. How are you burning your copies???
Mini-CD linux demo distribution (Score:1)
That would be nice to carry everywhere a small disk with linux
Re:Mini-CD linux demo distribution (Score:5, Informative)
Linuxcare Bootable Toolbox [linuxcare.com]
It will fit on one of those oddly cut business card sized CDs, so will of course fit on a 3 inch CD. Enjoy!
Re:Mini-CD linux demo distribution (Score:1)
Re:Mini-CD linux demo distribution (Score:1)
Do you also use 85mm floppy disks with the Lehnux operating system? There isn't such thing as a 3 inch CD. CDs come with the diameter of 12 or 8 cm and the credit card sized things only have some pieces cut off and can contain roughly 50MB. You know, that never-heard-of SI measurement called centimeter.
Yup. (Score:1)
And now the handful of mirrors are going to be permanently slashdotted...
SuSE? (Score:1)
Re:SuSE? (Score:2)
If your HD crashes and you can't replace it for a while you will not be able to run SuSE Live Eval, but you will be able to run Knoppix.
Demo (Score:1)
But there is a drawback. The CD is not a writable media, so the only writable storage this distribution has is RAM. This is bound to increase the need for RAM to more than what is the case with a HD install. Another problem is the performance, a CD is not as fast as a HD. The performance is going to be better on a HD. Some of the performance decrease can be circumvented by copying stuff to RAM, but this would increase the RAM usage and boot time. And probably you'd rather have the kernels caching handle this anyway.
No matter how they do it, we will have people trying this CD and saying: "Linux boots slower than the OS on my HD, Linux requires more ram than the OS on my HD, and Linux generally perform poor compared to the OS on my HD."
Some people might understand this, if the system on boot tells the user about this fact, but not everybody is going to understand it.
Re:Demo (Score:2)
The SuSE Live CD tells the user about slow bootup when starting. Also, it creates a couple of files on c:\ (they can be deleted afterwards) that contains your home directory and a swap file, so they don't have to worry about it using up all the RAM and they can even save documents with it! SuSE definately has this done very slickly indeed.
Useful for workstations (Score:1)
I found the "Superrescue" here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/superrescue/v2/
Political Success (Score:2, Interesting)
They were especially happy, that they didn't have to install anything. After seeing and using Knoppix this people are usually less preoccupied towards Linux, which is quite important, since the German government wants to force the use of Open Source Software.
bulging eyes... (Score:5, Insightful)
He ended up admitting that it was quite nice, and that indeed he and his colleagues were experimenting with RedHat... I wonder how long they'll remain MS Certified Training Center ;-)
Will d/l the thing and compare to my rescue FLOPPY (Score:2)
It will be nice to have something which is, ahem, more full-featured - many of my users get nervous when there isn't eye candy to look at.
impress your friends! (Score:3, Interesting)
Doing partition to partition backups... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, some of my colleagues go out to customesr sites and need some sort of net analyzer, but don't have sniffer. Booting into Knoppix and using ethereal is a great alternative!
I intend to make copies and give them as gifts to colleagues who are on the fence about linux...
Knoppix is great. (Score:2)
Tried it on a 256MB comp too and it ran fine there too, impressive considering it has no virtual ram and has to store tmp files on a ramdisk.
now all I need is a 35MB linux cd to fit these 35MB business card sized cd's I bought, all the rescue disc type distros seem designed for 50MB ones.
Is there anything like this for PowerPC? (Score:2)
Using Knoppix Right Now.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Giving talks (Score:3, Interesting)
I create a presentation with KPresenter, Impress or something similar. I burn the presentation onto a CD together with a live Linux distro. Many good auditoria have a good projector, but connected to a windoze computer. So I pop the CD in the PC, boot it on Linux and give my talk.
Why this CD is good and Windows Disks aren't (Score:2, Interesting)
SuperRescue site [freshmeat.net]
The reason it has proven better than a Windows boot rescue diskette is that they will often not be able to get the failed system running or retrieve files because the hard disk has failed, or the OS is so damaged that the time to get it going is not cost effective.
With SuperRescue (and I presuem the Knoppix might even be better) I have bee able to:
* Boot from CD and read a *failed* NT 4 hard drive that the NT CD would not read. Yet Linux read it just fine except for a few tracks.
* Connect to the LAN with the built in Dell Ethernet card
* Start the GUI on Linux (KDE) and use the File manager to copy virutally every file and folder on the computer to a network drive (except a half dozen that were on bad tracks, and were OS files anyway).And this is done with long file name support
* Put a new hard drive in, and selectively restore what I wanted.
* Within a couple of hours, the hard drive failed completely. Bear in mind, NT 4 would not read it at all, even when the drive was put in a second machine as a secondary drive.
In the past year the SuperRescue CD have become an indispensable part of my toolkit. I am hoping Knoppix expands on that capability.
RMS oughta be happy with these guys... (Score:2, Funny)
What is KNOPPIX®?
KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software...
be-happy (Score:2)
Be's installer is very simple; it's reminiscent of the installers for DOS games. When you put a Be boot CD in your drive, it loads up the OS, completely runnable off the CD. (Yes, I know that Be-provided images don't run anything but the Installer, but that's not the point - if you make a custom image, it can run whatever you want.) You go to the Be menu, then Applications, then Installer, select a partition, and go; beyond that, there is absolutely nothing you have to do. Reboot, and you're in BeOS.
Not only is there no configuration at all (beyond partitions, and even that can be automatic) that you have to do during Install, almost everything is auto-configured after install, too.
Mandrake may require no more expertise to install than Windows, but Mac OS is quite a bit easier, and Be is even easier than that. Linux should learn from that example.
Great for Windows-Linux switch (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone else was kicking around the idea of bringing Knoppix on trips to get around possible (software) keyboard sniffing devices installed on internet cafe machines.
Can this be used as a rescue disk for Linux part.s (Score:2)
Of course, I'd prefer if the tools that I used recognized the ext3 file system, but that's no *major* problem.
Using it for POS systems (Score:4, Interesting)
When the client is offsite and needs a bunch more computers, we can now just grab a couple of spare Windows boxes, stick a CD in and boot up a fully functional Linux system with our software installed and configured. The process for adding your own software is listed in their English forum and I can help anyone out who's interested. Post a reply here and I'll check when I get back from Reno, NV on the 12th.
Hands-on Linux demo in non-Linux lab (Score:3, Interesting)
The 2nd time we did this, we simply used fullscreen VNC. In both cases, the boxes looked like an average Linux box... we just didn't need to do any partitioning or installing or annoy the IT department. :^)
At the Whole Earth Festival [lugod.org] at UC Davis last year, we handed out about 100 DemoLinux discs to passers-by, so they can try Linux out at home without installing anything.
I just created a bootable Quake server (Score:2)
I looked into Knoppix, bt it wasn't as customizable as I wanted. So I used timos rescuecd [sourceforge.net]. It gives you the basic distro, and you can add whatever else you want. I just plopped in the quake directory I had archived, and ran the utility to create the ISO. Now I have a bootable Linux Quake server. All I have to do is boot it up, configure the NIC, and start the server.
I could have configured the NIC before creating it, but I wanted to keep it generic so other people I know can use it. I know a guy who runs AIX, so he couldn't host the server. Now he can, and we can get the old Quake gang back together.
I looked into how to create a bootable distro, and it wasn't as straightforward as I had hoped. Sourceforge and freshmeat to the rescue!
Re:Another Just Like (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Another Just Like (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Slackware: Been there, done that (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux Supports Terrorism: Here's The Proof (Score:2)
Source code: The opiate of the people (the geeky ones, at any rate)
I don't think you need to be anonymous (Score:1)
Re:anyone else see the security issues here? (Score:1)
Re:Demonstration ... blah !!! (Score:2, Informative)
Question: Would the other operating system have auto-detected the correct display modes without you putting in a vendor-supported "driver floppy disk"?
Regards
-KK