Linux - Unix Live Disks

[shn]

Personally I recommend Mandrake Move

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3

[Xero Grid]

Okay, I said I would post more Linux Live disks and here we go. Now, once again, I haven't tried every one of these disks, so I may quote or paraphrase the sites to help me bring a brief description to everyone else.

dynebolic
dyne:bolic is optimized to run on slower computers, turning it into a full media station. It is shaped on the needs of media activists to eager the production of informations, realizing a full multimedia studio. It takes birth as a grassroot effort to spread free software and the spirit of sharing informations.

Blin
The page for Blin is in Russian, but can be translated using Babelfish. Blin differs significantly from the existing analogs in terms of the qualitative support of cyrillic (Russian) alphabet and in terms of original approach to the layout. It boots with everything one needs to work locally or on the web with software varying from text editors to browsers, and from compilers and interpreters to your neccesary media players.

Lonix
The Lonix Page comes in English and Spanish, but the English page is currently under construction and only provides download links. If you need more info, you have to go to the Spanish page where Babelfish can be used. Lonix seems to have plenty of tools for developers and noticeable amounts of networking tools, but I believe the author stated it's not based on X and is based on pure console, significantly lowering the minimum requirements. Am I correct? I haven't really checked up on this.

EagleLinux
A distro made to run from either floppy or CD and must be compiled yourself. This speaks for itself. Not for beginners, but certainly must be customizable, and very small. However, there are guides in PDF format for beginners. Well, it appears there are different versions. The first, 1.x requires Red Hat be installed. 2.1.1 is based on Debian Linux, one of the oldest distros still under production. And there is also a 2.2.0 version. This can prove to be an important lesson to newbies and techies alike, essentially building your own distro, and customizing it to your needs.

LNX-BBC
LNX-BBC is another live disk distro small enough to fit on a business card sized CD-R, small enough to fit in a wallet! One of the goals here is to provide a more portable distro rather than havin a fully featured standard OS. Don't always carry a CD wallet? Well, there's always mini-distros like this one, yet there it still has what it takes to get the job done in cases of emergencies or any other time.

ByzantineOS
Once again, another wallet-sized OS, it'll fit on a 50MB CD. ByzantineOS is a software Internet Appliance with a home entertainment bias. It is based on a networked Linux distribution/bootable system with Mozilla providing access to a range of services and applications.

Mandrake Move
This is a link to the download page. I didn't spend much time looking for much info on this, but I hear it's a worthy live disk. It's Mandrake. Need we say more? Mandrake must be the most well known for ease of use, and it's very popular, the number one distro on DistroWatch. I hear the latest beta of Mandrake (standard, not the live disk) are using the new 2.6 Linux Kernel, but beta 2 is testing the new 2.6.2rc3 Kernel. That alone is enough to consider Mandrake. Especially since Red Hat won't be coming out with any new versions for a LONG time since they are putting most of their efforts into developing the Fedora Core.

Bart's PE-Builder
This one is a bit different. This is basically a Windows XP Live disk. One of the thigs that makes it different is that it must be made BY YOU! Also, this is not by Microsoft and not endorsed by it either. Bart based it on the Windows Preinstallation Environment of Windows XP and 2003 Server. It allows one to use plug-ins, some of which include shareware programs and you must have those programs to get the neccesary files. But, imagine booting into some of your favorite 32-bit apps for Windows, some of which include Nero, Ad-aware, IFranView, and many more. Creating your own WinPE disk will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Say oodbye to all the good and bad dos-based NTFS utilities! Now we can boot from a CD-Rom and have full read/write access to NTFS volumes! I checked it out and it's pure genius, and the plug-ins keep growing. Another great thing is, you can use Boot Scriptor to make a menu to boot into it or a choice of utilities meant to be runned from diskette.
BootScriptor
With it, you can boot into several WinPE-like environments such as ERD Commander as well as Bart's PE, but this does require more work, but I've seen someone do it very well before.


More Live disks to come!

-- Xero Grid --

[shn]

Nice.

I think its funny you say Red Hat is putting all its effort into Fedora Core.

We are putting "all" the effort into Fedora. When I say we I mean anybody that has or does use Fedora Core either now or in the past. We are responsible for not only reporting bugs but submitting contributions such as patches, etc. as well. Thats why it says on the site it is aimed toward developers. But even if someone is not a developer and knows nothing at all about linux, the fact that they use Fedora or have used it in the past is a big contribution. Red Hat, although one of my favorite distros, has let the linux community down very harshly

They gave the Fedora Project a push and then that was it. Red Hat now devotes all its time and so called effort into their new $180 dollar Red Hat Enterprise Workstation. Not too mention the slew of other enterprise solutions they make that are far from opensource. In fact they are more like a hazard because it will cost you a arm and a leg to purchase it.

Pretty soon Fedora Core will no longer even be hosted on Red Hat's servers. I hope that changes though. The least they can do is continue to claim ownership of Fedora. Every since Cisco made Red Hat Linux Certification a requirment for one of its cisco certs, Red Hat said "screw the open source all we want is open revenue!"

No, they did not say that, at least I dont think so. But their actions speak louder than their words.

[Xero Grid]

Hmm... I see. Well, my mistake. That's just the last thing I heard from Red Hat in a while, but I no longer have Linux installed. Red Hat was my first distro, but I found myself using Windows more than anything, so I lost track of Linux news. It sux that Red Hat is all commercial at the moment. But I'm sure the Fedora Project will go onto something big. It's announcement was huge.

If I need anything Linux, I a usually find a ported version or run Linux through VMware. I don't know. I'm kind of off track.
I think I'm tired.

OH, I have a question for you, Shn. Have you ever used Bochs to emulate another OS? I only checked it out for a minute, but I liked VMware a lot more.
But, hey. Bochs is Open Source.

-- Xero Grid --

[shn]

No but Ill have to take a look at that.

It says it runs up to Windows NT 4 . I have no need for win 98, or 95 let alone nt 4

Ill have to see if I can at least get it to emulate Windows 2000.
Xp is out of the question

[Xero Grid]

Yeah, that got me curious as well.

I usually love checking out new software, but for this, I just got lazy, especially since I don't usually emulate entire operating systems. Lately I've been using VMware to test my bootable software disks.

Oh, BTW, everyone, for everyone who is curious as to the capabilities of BootScriptor, check this out. The Ultimate Boot CD is a good example.
I used BS before, but this was, by far, the easiest script to read. It doesn't show the full potential of BS, but it's a damn good start, with all freeware bootdisks.

-- Xero Grid --

[Xero Grid]

Live Disk post three:

Linux LiveCD Router
Linux LiveCD Router is a Linux distribution designed to share a broadband connection over WiFi. It can be used with DSL, cable modem, T1, ISDN, and dial-up connections. It can also be used it as a firewall, or as an access point for most WiFi cards. Linux LiveCD Router does not require any installation, but requires a dedicated computer to boot and run the CD. This page is in Spanish, but of course online translation services work (ie Babelfish). There was a new release Sunday 8 February 2004.

Knoppix
Okay, I mentioned Knoppix before, but that was Knoppix STD, whoch focused more on security and hacking. This distro is based on Debian, one of the oldest distros still under production. Any long-time Linux user knows Debian. It has just about every piece of software imaginable, and doesn't come out with new versions very often. Knoppix, being based on Debian, can have over 2 gigs of executable software run from the disk! There was a new release Sunday 8 February 2004.

KANOTIX
A German based distro, KANOTIX is a Linux Live CD based on Knoppix technology using Debian/sid. The included XFree86 is from Debian/experimental. The main specs are: GRUB based startup from CD, ACPI support, DMA default on, additional support for DSL modems (Fritz!Card DSL and Eagle USB), optimal for HD install (you get a working Debian/sid install in about 10 minutes&#33, no SMP kernel (needed for some drivers), kernel with XFS, forcedeth (for nForce NIC) and device mapper patches. Any newbie who's ever tried to install Debian might want to check this out. Debian is a bit more involved in installation than other distros.

DemoLinux
According to the introduction page, the creators said "As a clear sign of disapproval for the software patents directive which will be submitted for approval to the European Parliament on Sptember the 1st, we decided to obscure our site." This appears to not have been updated in a while. Still, the creators wanted to bring the free Os experience to others without having to install it, and that's a great thing.

FreeLoader Linux / eLearnix
Created to make a great way for begginers to learn Linux, no prior knowledge of Linux is required. It boots directly off CD without making any HDD changes and that's it.

Movix
Another bootable media player distro, The MoviX project is a series of three different tiny Linux CD distributions containing all the software to boot from a CD and play multimedia files through the MPlayer, the best multimedia player in the Unix world:
- eMoviX: a micro Linux distro meant to be embedded in a CD together with all
video/audio files you want, so that the CD will be able to boot and automagically
play all of its own files.
eMoviX CDs can now be written with K3b (Linux), MoviXMaker (Linux) & MoviXISOCreator (Windows).
- MoviX: a mini CD Linux distro able to boot directly from CD and load in RAM a
console interface to MPlayer. From the interface you can easily play DVDs,
VCDs, audio/video files Audio CD, internet radios, TV, you name it!
MoviX is now able to boot also from HD, USB pen, CF card and from the net.
- MoviX2:same as MoviX, but it makes use of X and makes use of the nice MPlayer GUI.
MoviX2 is now able to boot also from HD, USB pen, CF card and from the net.
Supported formats are all formats supported by MPlayer, most noticeably DivX and XviD but more in general any AVI, MPG, QuickTime, WMV, ASF, MP3, OGG/VORBIS and a few others.

FREEDUC
A Live disk distro based on Knoppix/Debian specifically for education. A free Operating System with all the software free is ideal for schools, since money can be scarce in the area of education. Great for teachers to easily access the free education application. It come in many different languages... for obvious reasons.

Kurumin
This page is Brazilian based so it's in Portuguese. Kurumin is another Knoppix based live disk, but it's only 193 MB large, allowing it to fit on a mini-cd. Made more for invienience, what better way to display the capabilities of Linux to your friends, then to pop a mini-cd into any computer that's able to turn on and work off the disk?

As before, more Live disks to come!

-- Xero Grid --

[Xero Grid]

Bump... for good cause!

-- Xero Grid --

[Xero Grid]

What's wrong?
Nobody wants to run an entire Operating System from CD any more!?
Well, anyway, Live disk entry four:

Flonix
Flonix is based on Damn Small Linux and comes in two editions:
- Flonix USB Edition
- Flonix CD Edition
Both are essentially live disks, but simply use different media, but can fit on a blank media only 64 MB in size.

KnoppiXMAME
KnoppixMAME is a bootable arcade machine emulator with hardware detection and autoconfiguration. It works automatically on all modern and not-so-modern hardware, including gameports and joysticks. It is powered by Knoppix Debian GNU/Linux, X-MAME, and gxmame.

Feather Linux
Another Knoppix/Debian distro, but small enough to fit on a 50 mb busininess card mini-cd. It aims to have a wide range of desktop applications and to be relatively simple to use and set up. Its target market is anyone who wants a small Linux CD they can carry around, or for older machines.

ADIOS Linux Boot CD
ADIOS boot CD version 3.00 January 2004 has support for LIDS (Linux Intrusion Detection System) and SELinux (NSA Security Enhanced Linux). The ADIOS live CD uses a compressed loopback filesystem and has support for UML (User Mode Linux) virtual machines. It is a custom installation of Fedora 1.0 running kernel 2.4.23 and supports X11 windows desktop environments of KDE, Gnome and IceWM. There is also an installable version, but this link send you to the live disk page.

Puppy Linux
Yes, Puppy Linux is yet another Linux distribution. What's different here is that Puppy is extraordinarily small, yet quite full featured. Puppy boots into a 64MB ramdisk, and that's it, the whole caboodle runs in RAM. Unlike live CD distributions that have to keep pulling stuff off the CD, Puppy in its entirety loads into RAM. This means that all applications start in the blink of an eye and respond to user input instantly. Puppy Linux has the ability to boot off a flash card or any USB memory device (flash-Puppy), CDROM (live-Puppy), Zip disk or LS/120/240 Superdisk (zippy-Puppy), floppy disks (floppy-Puppy), internal hard drive (hard-Puppy).

Hakin9 Live
Hakin9 is a magazine about security. It is read by people responsible for computer systems security, programmers, security specialists, professional administrators, as well as people taking up security issues in their free time. Hakin9 Live is bootable distribution, based on Aurox Live, containing all the tools and material needed to practice methods and techniques described in articles.

Sentry Firewall
Sentry Firewall is a bootable firewall operating system. Just boot from the CD with some configuration files located on floppy, a local hard drive, and/or a network via HTTP(S), FTP, SFTP, or SCP and you have a fully functional firewall.

LinuxDefender Live! CD
LinuxDefender Live! CD is a BitDefender re-mastered Knoppix distribution. It was designed to provide users of both Windows and Linux computers with virus incident rescue tools. Whether your Linux mailserver just got rootkited or your Windows gamestation just got Slammer'd, it's LinuxDefender to the rescue! Just put the bootable CD in your drive to start a turn-key Linux OS which comes packed with almost 1.5 gigabytes of utilities. This distribution contains two world premieres: the world's first ever SAMBA 3 compatible commercial antivirus and FULL NTFS write support - available using the captive NTFS write project.

Captive NTFS Project
For those who don't know about the Captive NTFS Project, it accomplishes stable Read/Wite Support by using copied drivers from Windows, of course one of the NT based versions. Here's a quote, "It emulates the required subsystems of the Microsoft Windows kernel by reusing one of the original ntoskrnl.exe...." You also need the ntfs.sys.

There's still more Live Disks out there!!

-- Xero Grid --

[h1]

Damn, Xero Grid. Keep up the good work.