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Mandriva Businesses Software Linux

MandrakeMove Bootable Linux CD Announced 262

Posted by simoniker from the penguin-and-waddle dept.
joestar writes "MandrakeSoft just announced the release of the MandrakeMove release candidate, a special desktop version of the Mandrake Linux distribution that boots live from the CD and uses a USB key (included in the retail version) to automatically store personal data. It looks a bit like Knoppix, but comes with more features, such as the capability to eject the MandrakeMove CD-ROM during its use, in order to read audio or video files from another CD! The download release candidate is available here."
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MandrakeMove Bootable Linux CD Announced More

MandrakeMove Bootable Linux CD Announced

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  • Good idea using a USB Key.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:53PM (#7602363)
    Since it may permanently disable the CDROM drive. ;)

  • Hrmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by acehole ( 174372 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:53PM (#7602364) Homepage
    Also sounds like the 'Slackware Live' cd.

    Can you create your own in mandrake like you can with slackware?

    • Mandrake (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bigjocker ( 113512 ) *
      I'm a Mandrake Club subscriber and have supported them for a few years now. But two weeks ago I erased my last version of it. I installed 9.2 before it went public (being a Mandrake Club member) and, desktop speaking, it's superb. Everything works out of the box, all my non-geek friends and family members used it at will.

      But then I started trying to do stuff I did easily in slackware a few years back, like messing with the hardware and installing a video capture card. It became very frustrating after three
      • Hear hear! I tried Mandrake 9.1 for the first time, to set up a workstation and a server. The workstation bangs away at my squid proxy so often that the proxy reports active system attacks. The server is hung off then net directly, but can't do anything with the server. I chose static IP's, and there was no way to set up DNS from the GUI!

        The desktop is smooth, but usability leaves a little to be desired.

        • That's why webmin is installed as part of the server packages installation. Webmin will let you edit pretty much anything on your box and it's graphical. Doesn't require apache either, and can run secure via ssl and port 10000.

          I realize you're new, but there are many resources out there for you to learn from. irc.freenode.net #mandrake is but one.
          • New to Mandrake, but old to RH. I just edited the .conf files the hard way, installed linuxconf and was OK for a while. I really like the desktop on the workstation as compared to RH 9.

            I'll have to try this webmin thing of which you speak. Thanks!

      • You can't have it all (Score:5, Insightful)

        by InodoroPereyra ( 514794 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @07:28PM (#7604687)
        Instead of modding you as overrated, I will answer some missconcceptions.

        Ok, you can't have it all. As you mentioned: your non-geeks friends and family are having fun with Mandrake. However you want to install and compile things, and Gentoo is more like what you want. Cool again. That's what free software is all about, freedom and choices.

        But this needs to be clarified:

        I see Mandrake now at a very delicate point, getting each day more and more like proprietary OSes, hiding a lot of stuff from the user (even thought the tools and the utililities are open source they sometimes choose ways that are non-standards).

        This is inaccurate. First of all, Mandrake is much, much, much closer to debian or whatever distro you could think of, than it is to proprietary OS's. You get the damn source, period Also: Mandrake is LSB (standards) compliant. Another period ;-)

        Now, what you propably would agree with me, is that Mandrake has become too agressive in their customization of free software packages, and this includes the kernel. IMHO, they would be much better off shipping vanilla packages plus a minimal set of patches. Take for instance the kernel, they should (IMHO) jus add supermount, and add the third-party modules as they do, and that should be it. All of this on top of the latest vanilla stable kernel.

        If you follow cooker or read the changelogs in their RPMS, you'll notice that they spend a lot of energy backporting things from development branches for several packages. Notably, they do it with the kernel. This precious time would be much better invested on improving their own tools, which as you said, have some flaws, but as you also said, give you overall a great distro working out of the box.

        In the end, even when mandrake can be improved, you have to realize that you can't have it all. You either put a lot of your own time on building your customized distro from scratch (or a la gentoo), or you take a distro that does it for you, and yes, it will make some decisions for you. It is your choice, enjoy freedom ;-)

    • mklivecd (Score:3, Informative)

      by buchanmilne ( 258619 )
      Of course.

      A seperate project related to Mandrake and Live CDs is livecd [berlios.de], which has some tools available for making Mandrake-based Live CDs.

      mklivecd is a simple tool to generate a live CD, and it is included in Mandrake 9.2 contribs. Basically, you can do something like this to try it out:

      # urpmi mklivecd
      # mklivecd livecd.iso

      There are some issues, which have been addressed in the CVS version.

      Also new in CVS is a seperate minimal CD-to-HD installer.

      I have made about 3 Live CDs based on Mandrake 9.2 usin

  • USB Key (Score:4, Informative)

    by stanmann ( 602645 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:55PM (#7602394) Journal
    I must assume that USB Key means thumbdrive, although I couldn't find any reference on the linked site indicating what size this might be..

  • nice... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by mantera ( 685223 )


    Keep shaking your booty, mandrakesoft... i heard rumors that you'll soon be acquired by a significant, streetwise player...

  • Great for schools (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PPGMD ( 679725 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:56PM (#7602401) Journal
    The biggest problem schools seem to have would be kids messing with the system. Using MandrakeMove (or the first major one Knoppix), from a read only source (such as a compact flash card), and require the kids to have a USB Key (or another compact flash card).

    Might be the future of school PCs, or at least computers that are open to the public without a login.

    • Re:Great for schools (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      that's a good idea... to make them really resistant to vandalism or misconfiguration, you could simply remove the hard drive entirely and run them off the bootable cdrom. When it's time to upgrade, burn the new cd and you're set.

      spend the money on saved hard drives on more ram

    • Re:Great for schools (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ender81b ( 520454 ) <wdinger@g m a i l . com> on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:12PM (#7602579) Homepage Journal
      Yeah for linux desktops this would be a great idea since, currently, there really is no solution equivalent to deep freeze for windows/mac os X. Brielfy, deep freeze is a godsend that basically creates a static image that you can do whatever the hell you want to and all changes are gone at reboot. It's absoultely fantastic if you are administering a lab or lots of public computers as it allows you to not have to lock up a computer at all and still not worry about anybody messing the sytem up. Saves so many headaches and students love it since they get a full computer they can install/change however they want while I don't have to worry about crappy security programs or kiosk modes.

      This cd would give the same sort of functionality to Linux based labs that has been missing. Of course, personally, I would like to see some sort of open source deep freeze program but.. what the heck. Close enough ;).
      • dude, you're joking right? deep freeze is a total piece of shit, and i say this trying hard not to offend feces. we use it at my school, and it crashes the computers so often and so bad we had to put rubber padding on the floor. as for linux, it is realtively easy to lock a linux box down from a user. and oas for os x, simply create a user called student (or if you authenticaate using ldap, etc.) and yo can lock them out of EVERYTHING. take away every single app. period. so, deep freeze for os x is a
        • First off I've never ever ever ever seen deep freeze crash a system. We use it on well over 270 public computers (different manufactures + OS') and i've *never* seen deep freeze crash. Something was wrong with your setup is all I can guess.

          Also, I don't want to lock up a computer. I want to give the end users as much ability to change/install/customize the computer as possible. I want students to be able to install whatever they want, etc, etc. Deep freeze allows that and allows me to not have to worry abo
    • > or at least computers that are open to the public without a login.

      Not likely. As soon as said machine accepts user input (via the thumb drive or whatever the future equivalent will be) it will be in risk of being compromised.

      Obviously it won't mean much for the machine itself since it's source media is read only, but if it's internet connected at all, said hacker has an instant platform for all manners of villanry.

      A cool idea yes, but not without some hurdles to get past. ;)

    • Re:Great for schools (Score:5, Informative)

      by grolschie ( 610666 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:13PM (#7602593)
      ...or you could have no harddrive, and boot Linux from the network via a remote desktop. Means that they can do what they will, and nothing to mess up. This works fine also. I run Windows 2000 and Photoshop via Citrix on the said Linux system no problems. My pc at work is a P166 with a tiny 32MB RAM. Everything is done on the server. Just can't do animations or play games. It's fine for academic/office work though.
    • Great for schools? Maybe. But you know what's better for schools? Centurion Guard [centuriontech.com]. You can format the hard drive, install another OS, then when you hit the reset button everything is magically restored. Sure it's not the open source solution to all our problems we'd like to see, but it works. My college runs Windows on all the lab machines and we've never had a virus survive more than a few hours. Why? All you have to do when you get one is hit the reset button. ;)

      It makes my job as the lab supervisor a lo
    • Great for schools

      I think that schools would just use a network bootable image, since they have a network already. Where is the network bootable Linux, anyway?

      In any event, a bootable CD is good for security purposes. Add some marketing spin... like, call it "SBL" for "Secure Bootable Linux". Banks and institutions that are worried about keystroke loggers and other spyware could require this for VPN'ing or other stuff. Where I work now, we use Lotus Notes for email and other stuff but we don't allow i
    • I'm sorry, I don't quite follow..

      Kids in schools are going to be logging into the machines, so they are going to have their own user accounts.

      Under Linux (and all real OSes, as opposed to Windows where, until recently -- and still, because some software refuses to run as a mere mortal user --, any user could go and format the hard drive) it is thoroughly IMPOSSIBLE to screw up the computer unless you are root or the sysadmin has misconfigured something.

      A user will never need to -- and won't be able to

  • That "removable cd feature"... (Score:5, Informative)

    by geesus ( 545118 ) <paul@nospAM.crib.ath.cx> on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:56PM (#7602406) Homepage
    Is already in knoppix, check out the "cheat-codes" file, its a boot param which obviously isnt enabled by default so knoppix can run on systems with low memory

  • USB hard drives? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NiceGeek ( 126629 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:00PM (#7602451)
    I wonder if usb hard drive (I have an Archos Jukebox Studio 10) work as well as a usb key?

    • Re:USB hard drives? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:15PM (#7602610)
      Basically I'd say anything that doesnt require drivers (and even some stuff that does), should work like snap.
      I loaded knoppix the other day and spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out if and how it is possible to mount my usb memory stick (the manual promises it works on w2k/xp, but w98 needs drivers).
      While I was trying to figure out if I could somehow mount it, I didnt notice nice knoppix had already put an icon for me on the desktop. Doh!
    • On SuSE 7.2 and 8.1 I use an Archos Studio 10 without doing anything special. (Other than a modprobe usbstorage on the 7.2.)

      No kernel patches, drivers, etc.

      So is there a reason that it would NOT work?

  • Great!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by c_oflynn ( 649487 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:01PM (#7602466)
    Live CD's are great IMHO.

    Perfect for showing people Linux, or recovering another system (especially a Windows system, because it introduces them to Linux ;-)

    The whole USB idea is pretty good as well, good way to do stuff w/o touching the hard drive at all.
    • Now all the Microsoft people need is a bootable Windows XP Live CD. Only that would breach the EULA. D'oh!
    • Actually I use them more for recovery CDs. I had a raid array blow a drive over the weekend and used a knoppix livecd to do some of the recovery. A CD with a full shell and tools (ie: not busybox that is on most install CDs (ie: mandrake 9.2 disk 1)) is a godsend when your /var is pooched :)

      Sadly knoppix 3.3 doesn't support my PCI IDE card, mandrake's install CD (which I also brought) supports it but doesn't have decent tools that let it be used to do system recovery, and I didnt' get a chance to downloa
      • "an IDS on a CD, etc."

        I believe FLAK is one of these ids-on-a-cd distros. I tried to give it a shot once but it kept hosing itself. Kinda pissed me off. Things might have changed since that release though.

  • You can remove the Knoppix CD (Score:5, Informative)

    by cesman ( 74566 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:02PM (#7602479) Homepage
    At the splashscreen:knoppix toram

  • DVD... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SignificantBit ( 677809 ) <carlosgaona.gmail@com> on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:03PM (#7602489) Homepage Journal
    4+Gb of opensource/free software on a single disc... why don't do a Linux DVD Live distro? ..just wondering.
    • I think some distros like Gentoo make DVD ISO images available, but you're right about a Live DVD distro. A Linux magazine in the U.K. called Linux Format has a version with a DVD taped to the cover, and the 46th issue had Gentoo Linux 1.4 on it.

      All you can do is ask -- if enough people show interest I'm sure they'll consider it.

    • Re:DVD... (Score:2, Informative)

      by aws4y ( 648874 )
      4+Gb of opensource/free software on a single disc... why don't do a Linux DVD Live distro? ..just wondering.
      Knoppix [linuxtag.de] has already done it.

      As for live CD's, I think that they are a tribute to the flexibility of opensource software in that they show how OSS can do someting that proproietary software vendors would not dare do, given there hightly restrictive licences.
    • why don't do a Linux DVD Live distro?

      Because, at that point, you're better off buying a freaking hard drive!

    • Re:DVD... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 )
      "why don't do a Linux DVD Live distro? ..just wondering."

      Chug...

      Chug...

      Status bar on Openoffice splash screen illuminates another pixel...

      Windows user: "is Linux always this slow?"

      • Re:DVD... (Score:3, Informative)

        by ploppy ( 468469 )
        Cloop (compressed loopback filesystem) used in many liveCDs is quite inefficient in the way it constantly re-reads the CD. It doesn't cache very much information and throws a lot of the data it does read and decompress away before it reaches the filesystem. This is because cloop does not understand the filesystem it is compressing, and therefore cannot use any clever caching strategies.

        LiveCDs using squashfs as the compressed filesystem are much faster. Try dynebolic.org... As the writer of squashfs I

      • Re:DVD... (Score:3, Informative)

        by /dev/trash ( 182850 )
        Knoppix already comes in a DVD flavour.

  • Silly name - MandrakeMove (Score:3, Funny)

    by twoslice ( 457793 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:04PM (#7602503)
    MandrakeMove Bootable Linux CD Announced

    A Mandrake is a plant - and plants don't normally move. But I guess it is a "live" CD...

  • I'm not a Mandrake users, a quick look of the linked article did not appear to have a torrent and the download links seem to be all be membership based only?

    Is there a licensing issue with "redistribution" of Mandrake ISO's or just a way to encourage support for Mandrake products? I'm not flaming here, just asking what the philosophy behind this is as torrents would seem to be a more logical method of distribution and could reduce a percentage of those costs that require membership fees in the first place

  • The direction the parade is heading. (Score:5, Informative)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:14PM (#7602604) Journal
    I just installed Mepis on my laptop last night -- a Debian derived Live CD that has the ability to install direct from the Live CD. Very slick.

    The SuSE 9.0 Live CD didn't recognize the wireless LAN card on my desktop, so that didn't get anywhere.

    Mepis was the first Live CD that I could effectively use for work, and not just a rescue CD or quick test. I used various tools for hours on the laptop (450 MHz P3, 328 Mb RAM) and it just worked.

    Live CDs are the way to go.

  • Good way to circumvent library filters? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation&gmail,com> on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:15PM (#7602608)
    This could be a plus for people that need to access the Internet in local libraries that utilize draconian filters to block out politically questionable material...unless the entire network is run through a proxy server...in which case you could use this to SSH tunnel into an unfiltered proxy server!

    Mandrake has always been my favorite Linux company & I like throwing them a couple bucks for a boxed set now and then. Good work!

  • Questions -- (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:16PM (#7602626) Homepage
    How big is the USB Drive they include? Can I use my own?
    I noticed in the first screenshot : "Multimedia Player for CDs / DVDs". How do they play DVDs legally?
    If I have 2 CD / DVD drives on the system, can I use both and not have to swap disks? (I assume yes, but you know what happens when you assume...)

    • Some answers.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by msimm ( 580077 )
      Are here [mandrakestore.com] on the preorder page. I haven't downloaded the beta yet, but in the past Mandrake included things like stock (vanilla) versions of Xine *without* css support. They may still, but I'm so in the habit of installing the PLF [zarb.org] files before doing anything that I couldn't honestly tell you if 9.2 came with being able to read encrypted DVD's out of the box. FWIW not all DVD's are encrypted and having a non-css DVD player *is* useful, just not as useful.

      • Re:Some answers.. (Score:4, Informative)

        by PhB95 ( 442518 ) <philippe...bourgon@@@club-internet...fr> on Monday December 01, 2003 @07:00PM (#7604423)
        I currently try 9.2 : Xine has been replaced by Totem (which uses a xine engine). To play encrypted DVDs I just added libdvdcss from plf. This is becoming very easy, I remember I had a few things to find/download/install to get xine to play encrypted DVDs on Mandrake 9.0 and 9.1. And getting it to correctly handle DVD menus was not so simple either, while now totem does well out of the box.

  • Hmmm, USB Keys. Usefull...almost (Score:3, Informative)

    by Billy the Mountain ( 225541 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:19PM (#7602654) Journal
    Seems to me that these keys are becoming more popular. What seems to be lacking is the ability to install typical software on the key so that the software will run on the computer that you just plugged the key into. Yes, simple software DOES work, but once you get beyond a typical software installation with multitudes of files, your ability to run it on a "stranger" machine fades markedly.

    BTM
    • One of my favorite uses for a USB key is for showing off Opera to people still using IE. It installs perfectly, plays nicely, and doesn't throw things in weird locations. You're right about complex software, but that's no real surprise.
      • Why do that when you can show them Firebird instead?

        Firebird (and thunderbird) both run natively from their home directories as well. Unzip and run the .EXE. Or just run the .exe. Whatever.

        Firebird + Linky [mozdev.org] + Magpie [bengoodger.com] + "only show images from originating server" for fewer banner ads + no stupid flash plugin. A damned near perfect browsing experience.

        • Just wondering how useful "only show images from originating server" really is. After all, there's a lot of non-banner uses for a separate image server (the main one being if you're running a dynamic site and want to mod_mmap the graphics for even better performance).

  • I would really dig a live CD for my powerbook. Anyone know one? I tried one once, it booted into the commandline. I was hoping for a KDE or Gnome session.

    • Re:Mac (Score:3, Informative)

      by ploppy ( 468469 )
      Gentoo [gentoo.org] have a Gnome/KDE liveCD for PowerPC.
      • My experience, with the x86 live CD anyway, is that it boots to command line and allows you to install binary packages...

        Is the PowerPC version different from this?

        Chris

  • Formatting on USB key (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pjrc ( 134994 ) <paul@pjrc.com> on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:29PM (#7602755) Homepage Journal
    What would be really nice (hint, hint, anyone from Mandrake reading this) would be for the unused portion of the key to also be usable as a "normal" USB key to transport data around between machines (running that other, monopoly-based OS)

    Saddly, FAT16 is the standard format for USB keys, with the slow cluster chain following rather than fast inode structure, and without unix semantics like permissions, device files, hard links, and so on.

    Maybe they'd allocate a big file and mount it with a loopback device? Or maybe they'll use on of the other mechanisms to make up for FAT filesystem limitations? Or maybe they'll just require the key to have an EXT2 or other "linux native" filesystem? But that would make the key unusable for the thing that makes those little keys so compelling... moving data around.

    It's be pretty sad to have to carry 2 USB keys around, one for moving data between systems and a second one for MandrakeMove (or other distros that follow in their footsteps).

  • From what I understand, the retail version is the only version that SUPPORTS the USB key. It doesn't say anywhere that it comes with one.

  • Requesting a Torrent or FTP mirror link (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alan ( 347 ) <arcterexNO@SPAMufies.org> on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:51PM (#7603008) Homepage
    Could someone set up a bittorrent link or a north american mirror?

  • Live CD's + USB storage + iButton == Nirvana (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PureFiction ( 10256 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @04:55PM (#7603043)
    I've been working on a linux distro for a few months now that is using this combination of technologies. It definitely appears to be a configuration of growing use and interest.

    I added the cryptographic iButton to the list as the only piece missing from the live CD / USB fob picture is secure authentication so that when you are accessing your files remotely from any location, you need not fear about Man-in-the-Middle attacks or insecure password / authentication allowing attackers access to your data.

    I talk about some of the features I want in this thread of wanted features / technologies [peertech.org]

    The future trends are moving quickly towards seamless access to data via mobile devices and wireless communications. A trusted operating system on a mini-CDR with a USB key fob storing dynamic data and strong authentication via cryptographic hardware is all you need to access files, music, movies, anything back at home or work with complete security (or, as much security as you can provide given a good OS configuration)

    And the best part: it fits in your pocket. You can take it anywhere. You can "phone home" via wireless and reach everything there as if it was local.

    With AES encryption of sensitive data on the USB fob you can prevent any kind of unauthorized copying that would reveal private data, and compression added to the mix lets you store a lot more than 256M or so of data as well.

    The latest USB devices are capable of throughput in excess of 6 MegaBytes / second, which is more than adequate for most tasks.

    Userspace / overlay filesystems with selective encryption, networked access, and secure decentralized distribution are going to make this kind of setup extremely sweet.

    I can't wait for it...

  • Has anyone tried both this and Knoppix? Are you able to comment on the pros and cons of each?

    The only difference I noted is that MandrakeMove says it doesn't support use of a USB key from the download-only version. Whether it actually works or not, it doesn't say.

  • Ok I guess if you've never heard of Knoppix (Score:3, Informative)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @05:52PM (#7603685) Journal
    Considering how long distros like Knoppix have been around this product is hardly pioneering, but may be useful for Mandrake users who don't want to use any other distro.

    If you want to check out a neat Knoppix based distro that's only 50MB check out, Dam Small Linux.
    http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

    It obviously doesn't have the same amount of apps that Knoppix has, but for checking out linux, surfing the web, using IRC, and doing some light office editting its pretty cool. It also unlike Knoppix and I'm sure Mandrake will run on a 486 with 16MM ram. So if you bored or on dialup check out Dam Small Linux.
  • CD-ROM is slow, no matter how good the drive is. Wouldn't copying a filesystem to local disk make a difference to performance? Say copy the filesystem image(s) to the local drive using the native OS, and have the bootable CD use such images in preference. As a plus, you could carry around more than one CD worth of stuff without resorting to "Amiga Workbench floppy mode".

    You could have a root image that contains basic apps, then additional images for particular task sets.

    Xix.

  • no USB drive (Score:4, Informative)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @07:24PM (#7604642)
    from Mandrake's site: (Note: The Beta version does not support USB key features).

    and

    the MandrakeMove Boxed Edition provides the ability to save configuration and personal data to a USB key.

    So this release canidate cannot save to the USB key, and it looks like a download version may never do that, since they emphasise that it's the Boxed Edition that does that. Bummer.

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