|
Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
|
Softpanorama University
Minimalistic Linux Distributions Links
Small is beautiful
With the commercialization of Linux increasing rapidly and the divide
between Free and pay-for offerings widening, minidistributions reminds us about
the "good old days" of Linux distributions.
The number of large full-scale distributions for Linux is too big
and they are too bloated and complex to understand. Red Hat is bloated pig that
is not that different from Microsoft Windows. It is just incomprehensible and can
be used only the way Microsoft Windows is used: installing and periodically patching
the distribution. Forget about the fact that it is open source. It just does not
matter. I am convinced that Red Hat is harmful for educational purposes because
of excessive complexity.
Therefore I decided to keep concentrate on this page on minimalist
Linux distributions only. Most material is not current so you need to use it as
a starting point for your own search on the net ;-).
Knoppix was the first truly useful 'live CD' and still might have
an edge in comparison with derivatives. It has a very good hardware detection.
Now Puppy linux is probably the cutting edge minimalistic linux
distribution.
Please note that for any minidistribution it's nice to have an access
to FAT32 filesystems and most minidistributions provide this. That means that minidistributions
can be extremely useful for windows troubleshooting, as a filesystem repairing
instruments, as a second OS on laptops, etc. Actually selecting or even creating
your own distribution for an old laptop can be a great learning experience too.
That's why I recommend to student is to buy an old cheap laptop and install minimal
Linux (command line mode only) on it. That's a great learning tool.
If you have a Windows desktop nearby, you do not need KDE or Gnome to learn
Unix, they can just distract you from mastering the classic Unix shells, languages
and utilities.
It's amazing how much Unix knowledge you can get on an old Dell
C600/C610/C810 laptop with 256 or
512K which can be bought for slightly more then $100 on eBay.
For information about FAT32 partition support, see
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/fat32.html.
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
|
|
About: FreeNAS is a minimal FreeBSD distribution that
provides NAS (network-attached storage) services: CIFS (Samba), FTP,
NFS, RSYNC, local user authentication, and software RAID. It may be
booted and run from compact flash or CD-ROM. It also features a full
Web-based configuration interface.
Changes: The "Guest account" and "Null passwords"
attributes were added to "Samba Settings". WebGUI and rc-script were
enhanced to define additional group memberships. uShare UPnP
Mediaserver was replaced with MediaTomb 0.10.0. The kernel was
patched to support ATi IXP600/700 PATA/SATA. SSL/TLS support was
added to FTP service. easyDNS.com and 3322.org support were added to
the "Dynamic DNS" service. The OS install and upgrade procedure was
refactored. NFS share configuration support was added. NFS server
processes may be configured.
Parted Magic 2.0 is a 42MB Live CD/USB/PXE with the main goal of
providing disk drive partitioning software. This new edition of Parted Magic
2.0 is designed for use on x86 hardwares and was
released two days before this year's Valentine's Day. This GPLed
specialized Linux distro is currently ranked at number 60 at
DistroWatch.com. It originates from the U.S. and it is based on the
Linux From Scratch. The
easily noticeable new features, besides the new Linux kernel 2.6.23.13, Xfce
4.4.2, X.Org 7.3 and various other software
updates , are the availability of Firefox 2.0.0.4 and the simple but
capable Start Network tool. You need to run the Start Network tool in order
to fire up you LAN interface before you can run Firefox or proceed to the
online Parted Magic and Test Disk documentation.
FCCU GNU/Linux Forensic Bootable CD is a bootable CD based
on Debian-live that contains a lot of tools suitable for
computer forensic investigations, including bash scripts.
Its main purpose is to create images of devices prior to
analysis, and it is used by the Belgian Federal Computer
Crime Unit.
Release focus: Major feature enhancements
Changes:
The CD is now based on the Debian Live Project. There is a
graphical user interface by default (xfce4). A new graphical
tool, GuyMager, is used for forensic copy. GuyMager supports
Encase ewf images (through libewf), and it makes intelligent
use of multi-core CPUs in a way that compressed copies will
be done faster than uncompressed ones. A new low interaction
honeypot, Amun, was added.
Author:
D-fence
[contact developer]
October 15, 2007
Carla Schroder
One of the (very many) areas in which Linux has pulled ahead of the pack is with
live, complete Linux distributions on every form of removable media. Tiny Linuxes
to full-blow kitchen sink Linuxes boot and run from USB sticks and drives, Compact
Flash cards, CDs and DVDs; so they never need to touch the hard drive, or even have
a hard drive present. Some of them run entirely in memory. Some are smart enough
to use the swap partition on the hard drive, if one is available. There are different
ways of preserving data and configurations, the main point being you can still save
data and configurations. This presents a wide array of useful possibilities: test
new systems before purchase, every computer becomes your personal PC, or today's
topic, portable rescue media for all the major platforms: Linux, Unix, Macintosh,
and Windows. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different rescue Linuxes, so
we'll take a tour of my favorites.
Knoppix
We all know and love the Debian-based Knoppix.
Knoppix supports a vast array of hardware—if something doesn't work under Knoppix,
chances are it's not supported in Linux. Knoppix gives you GUI tools for nearly
any task you want to perform, and includes applications for every imaginable task.
You're not limited to rescue operations, but you get a complete distribution with
productivity applications. It is very popular and has excellent community support,
including good articles on re-mastering Knoppix to customize it for yourself. Knoppix
is for Pentium systems with a lot of RAM, the more the better: 32 MB for text mode,
128 MB and up for KDE.
Start at the Knoppix Wiki,
and especially the Cheat Codes. These are boot codes for dealing with funky hardware,
or turning on special tasks. For example:
- lang=[two-letter
country code]
- desktop=fluxbox|icewm|larswm|twm|wmaker|xfce
- toram; this is a nice option for RAM-rich systems. The contents of
the CD are copied to your system RAM. This a lot faster than running from the
CD, and then you don't need to leave the CD in the drive. You need at least
a gigabyte of RAM.
The first keyword is always knoppix, like knoppix desktop=fluxbox toram.
Knoppix also comes in a DVD edition, if the CD version isn't enough for you.
SystemRescueCD
SystemRescueCD is my favorite
rescue CD. It's based on Gentoo and contains a stripped-down set of applications
for system rescues. So it doesn't include OpenOffice or the Gimp or all of the other
productivity applications that Knoppix has. You can get ISOs for x86, Sparc, and
PowerPC. The x86 version is a mere 155 MB.
Even better: You can boot and run SystemRescue from a USB stick. Newer systems
support booting from USB devices; usually you need to go into the system BIOS to
turn this on. It's not completely reliable, however; some systems seem to be allergic
to booting from USB devices, so be sure to test it before you need it.
With SystemRescue you can copy files over the network, do serious network troubleshooting,
read and write all the major filesystems including NTFS, manage partitions and filesystems,
and do secure deletions. SystemRescue comes with my favorite data recovery tool,
GNU ddrescue. This is the best utility for grabbing data off a failing hard
drive. It is fast for a dd-based command, and smart enough to skip over bad
blocks and keep going, looking for good blocks to copy.
The most surefire method I know requires a second local hard drive of equal or
greater size; either SATA/PATA or USB. Then boot up SystemRescue and copy the first
drive to the second drive. Of course you must replace the drive names in the example
with your own drive names:
# ddrescue /dev/sda /dev/sdb
You may copy partitions instead of whole drives. Then run fsck on the
second drive to check for and fix errors. Make sure it is not mounted, then run
this command:
# fsck /dev/sdb
Add the -a option to tell fsck to automatically fix all errors.
Use fsck only on Linux filesystems. For other filesystems you'll need their
own native filesystem-consistency-fixing utilities.
Don't confuse GNU ddrescue with dd-rescue. They do the same thing
and both do it well, but I think ddrescue is faster and more reliable.
GParted is the best partitioning and filesystem-creation application there is.
Put it on a bootable medium and you can manage most Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, or Windows
partitions and filesystems. Add the dd-based Clonezilla for cloning, and
you have the ultimate power tool for new installations, restores, and replications.
Clonezilla is an intelligent partition or disk-cloning program that works on any
filesystem, because it operates at the block level. On supported filesystems (which
are pretty much the same batch as GParted) it copies only used sectors. On unsupported
filesystems it can't tell which ones are used, so it does a block-by-block copy.
Either way you get your clones.
Download the torrent from
TuxDistro. (The other
download sites don't seem to exist.) Visit
GParted LiveCD for instructions
on creating a bootable USB stick. This uses the same download.
Our Excellent Ancestors: Tomsrtbt and SuperRescueCD
Tomsrtbt, "the most GNU/Linux on one floppy
disk" was the first bootable live Linux on removable media. After all these years
it is still useful. True, most computers these days don't even bother with a floppy
drive, but for machines that still have them it's a great rescue diskette. It needs
only 8 megabytes of RAM. It comes with everything you need for networking and copying
files over the network, which is probably the #1 job for a rescue device. It has
filesystem utilities, including Windows filesystems, and basic networking troubleshooting
commands, so you can perform a surprising number of tasks from this tiny ancestor
of bootable live Linuxes. Tomsrtbt has saved the day for me more times than I can
remember.
H. Peter Anvin's SuperRescue
CD was the first live Linux CD. Mr. Anvin is the primo bootloader guru, as well
as a significant inventor
or contributor in a number of projects. Super Rescue CD is based on Red Hat
7.2, so it's of limited usefulness on modern systems. But it's a nice tool for older
systems; it only needs 24 megabytes of RAM and it handles older hardware without
hassles. If you want X Windows, just type startx at the prompt and you get
KDE. It's a funny-looking older KDE, but still the real deal.
SuperRescue CD pioneered on-the-fly compression/decompression, which is how you
stuff 1.7 gigabytes of operating system and applications onto a single CD.
Fixing Horked MBRs
When you're multi-booting or installing a new operating system onto a used system,
sometimes the MBR (Master Boot Record) gets all messed up, so you need to wipe it
out and start over. You can do this with the dd command. Be sure to use your
own drive name for the of= value:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1
That preserves the partition table. If you also want to zero out the partition
table, do this:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
Oct. 05, 2007
If there's
a better system repair kit than the Gentoo-based SystemRescueCD Linux distribution,
we haven't seen it yet.
The new 0.4 version of SystemRescueCd
was released on Oct. 4. This new edition focuses on disk partitioning, Vista
support, and data rescue tasks. In the past, we've found SystemRescueCD to be
the best of the
best when it comes to repairing troubled systems. We see every reason to
believe that this version will be even better.
... ... ...
If you're a Windows user, don't let the fact that this is a Linux-based repair
tool keep you away. SystemRescueCD has long excelled at
repairing Windows
systems. With new support for the Vista “Offline NT Password & Registry
Editor” and improved support for NTFS drives, SystemRescueCD is better than
ever for what ails your Windows PCs.
Another major improvement is that you can now use
PXE network booting.
With PXE, you can boot a troubled PC remote over
your LAN into SystemRescueCD. This is great, for example, for
a help desk repairing systems scattered over an office or campus. To get this
to work, the PCs will need to be set to use wake-on-LAN and network boot. That's
been a standard PC feature since 2001, but it usually must be made active in
the BIOS before you can use it.
The distribution is also just easier to boot up, period. In the past, you often
needed to manually set boot parameters for a successful boot-up. It wasn't difficult,
but it could be time-consuming. Now SystemRescueCD is much better at analyzing
its hardware environment and automatically booting with the appropriate configuration
and drivers.
--
Partimage Is Not Ghost (PING) is a live Linux ISO based on LFS (Linux From Scratch).
It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated in a PXE/RIS environment.
Several tools that make it the perfect choice for easily backing up and
restoring whole partitions are included. It supports backups to and
from SMB shares, backup of BIOS data, the ability to blank the local admin's
password, creation of bootable restoration DVDs, the ability to partition and
format a disk before installing Windows, and more.
Release focus: Minor bugfixes
Changes:
This release upgrades dhcpcd. It asks before overwriting BIOS settings with
those of the source image. It's now possible to pass parameters to PING through
isolinux.cfg/pxelinux.cfg's APPEND line (easier than /etc/ping.conf). Mkfs.vfat
has been added to the distribution (this is a bugfix, as PING needs it when
it has to split a disk's unique partition to store an image locally). The kernel
has been updated to 2.6.22.6.
"The final kernel image is 2570k and can install on a Pentium Classic with just
48MB of RAM."
Absolute OS 12.0.5
by
Paul Sherman - Sat, Sep 8th 2007 17:29 PDT
|
About: Absolute is a lightweight Slackware Linux derivative distribution
that uses an Icewm, ROX-Filer window/file manager combination. It comes with
Firefox, The GIMP, MPlayer, K3B, kTorrent, Gaim, Frostwire, Gftp, StarDict,
Skype, and many other titles all set up and ready to run. Several utilities
are included to ease configuration and management. It is compatible with all
Slackware 11 packages and can be installed just like a Slackware disk, except
that you cannot choose which packages to install or remove, as it just installs
everything.
Changes: Kernel woes have been put to rest. The final kernel image
is 2570k and can install on a Pentium Classic with just 48MB of RAM. Any lingering
patent-encumbered software has been removed. Several UI tweaks have been made
and source code diffs included for customized KDE-LIBS and abs_fdisk used by
linHDD. An ISO is now available from SourceForge, as well as a zip file containing
ISO and HTML installation instructions.
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, CDROM, Zip disk or LS/120/240 Superdisk,
floppy disks, internal hard drive. It can even use a multisession formatted
CD-R/DVD-R to save everything back to the CD/DVD with no hard drive required
at all!
About: SystemRescueCd is a Linux system available from a bootable
CDROM that provides an easy way to perform administrative tasks on your computer,
such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk or backing up data.
It contains a lot of system utilities (such as parted, partimage, and fstools),
and basic programs (such as editors, midnight commander, and network tools).
It also includes GParted, a Partition Magic clone that makes editing partitions
easy with its graphical user interface. This CDROM aims to be very easy to use
and accessible to everybody, and it also provides advanced personalization features.
Changes: This release updates the kernel to 2.6.20.7 with Reiser4,
sys-fs/ntfs3g to 1.417, and X.Org to 7.2. It adds sys-apps/dmidecode and sys-boot/ms-sys.
The new X.Org has hardware autodetection and will be more reliable.
April 5, 2007 (mandriva.com) Mandriva Flash is a pre-installed
Mandriva Linux distribution on a 4GB USB key. Plug in the key, take your Linux
system everywhere with you, save and exchange your data in up to 3GB of free
space!
It is not only practical, easy and pleasant to use but also high-performing
and innovative. Mandriva Flash will surprise you whether you are already a Linux
user or not.
With Mandriva Flash, you can now
prove to the world that size does matter!
|
|
|
Flash is the latest innovative product from the Mandriva labs:
Discover Linux in a Flash
- Test-drive a real Linux desktop, save your documents and settings
on the key – no need to install anything on your hard drive.
Impress your friends with your mobile 3D desktop
- Enjoy the latest 3D desktop technology while on the move, and
show your friends what their machine can really do with Linux.
Stay connected wherever your are
- Wherever you are, and whatever the type of available link, Mandriva
Flash connects you with your friends, mail, music and online life.
Offer Linux to the one you love
- Protect your loved one from viruses and malware, offer them
freedom of choice and the desktop of the future in a small, high-quality
USB key.
Discover Linux in a Flash
Ever wanted to try Linux for real? But never got through because
you were afraid to format your disk?
Mandriva Flash is the key!
Just plug Mandriva Flash in your PC and discover a complete personal
Linux desktop in a few seconds.
No need to install anything on your disk, no fear of a messing with
your other operating system, no need to format or repartition anything,
no heavy manuals or complex documentation : just plug the key and boot
into the world of Linux.
Mandriva Flash is a complete and real Linux desktop: you can save
your documents and preferences on the key, use all your favourite Internet,
multimedia and office applications. You can even install new software
and download updates, just like a normal Linux installation.
Order Mandriva Flash now and discover Linux during the holiday season.
Most GNU/Linux users choose GNOME or KDE for desktops without thinking. However,
many alternatives exist, ranging from minimalist graphic environments in window
managers like IceWM to entire alternative desktops, such as ROX. Of these alternatives
the best-known and most polished is Xfce. Now at version 4.4, Xfce resembles
a stripped-down version of GNOME, with carefully selected customization options
and utilities, as well as a few thoughtful features of its own.
As detailed on the
download page, Xfce is available
in many distributions. In fact, a growing number of distributions, including
Xbuntu, Dream Linux, and Zenwalk use Xfce by default. Alternatively, you can
build Xfce from source code, or use its graphical installers. However, if you
choose the graphical installers, read the documentation first to make sure you
understand what you are doing, and the extra steps that you might have to take
if you missed a cue from the installation wizard.
[Sept 5, 2006] http://grml.org/
grml - Linux Live-CD for sysadmins / texttool-users / geeks
grml is a bootable CD (Live-CD) originally based on
Knoppix and nowadays
based on Debian. grml includes
a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for
users of texttools and system administrators. grml provides automatic
hardware detection. You can use grml (for example) as a rescue system, for analyzing
systems/networks or as a working environment. It is not necessary to install
anything to a harddisk; you don't even need a harddisk to run it. Due to on-the-fly
decompression grml includes about 2.1 GiB of software and documentation on the
CD. You don't have to pay anything to use grml because it is free software!
Read more...
Xfce was when I tried out the
Belenix Live CD. Xfce was the only window manager bundled with it so I had
no choice but to use it though my personal preference was Fluxbox. But after
playing around in it for some time, I just couldn't stop admiring the usability
and design of Xfce as well as the responsiveness of the applications when run
in it.
So the first thing I did was to install it in
Linux and take it for a test drive. And the things I found out were really
interesting. For one, Xfce is not just any window manager out there but
it is a desktop in its own might. It comes bundled with applications like
its own light weight xterminal, a file manager, desktop configuration utilities,
a light weight mail client, a media player and optional utilities like a
calender similar to those that pop up in KDE and Gnome when you click on
the clock in the panel and a very cool lightweight text editor.
But what sets Xfce apart from the more popular heavy weights like Gnome
and KDE is its very low memory foot print. In fact, in the developer's own
words, the aim of Xfce is to be a simple, light and efficient environment
which is easy to use and configure, stable, fast and at the same time visually
appealing. And not to speak of a clean desktop. In fact, I found out that
the desktop is a separate utility which goes by the name xfdesktop and the
user has the option of not running it in Xfce if he chose to.
Another aspect which endeared me to this light
weight window manager cum desktop is that when you install or uninstall
any software in Linux, the menus in Xfce are automatically updated to mirror
the change which is a comfortable feature which is lacked by other light
weight window managers including popular ones like Fluxbox.
In my opinion, it would be a good idea to install
another light weight file manager called 'Rox'
along side Xfce which I believe integrates quite well with the Xfce desktop.
If you are using a Debian based Linux
distribution, installing rox
is as simple as executing the command:
# apt-get install rox
I recommend using Rox file manager with Xfce
because it is quite easy to associate file types with the applications of
our choice in rox and it is blazing fast.
Software
bundled with Xfce
- xffm
- The light weight file manager
-
xfdesktop
- Enables menus to pop up when right clicked on the desktop.
-
xfce-settings-show
- Xfce settings manager, where you configure the desktop settings, keyboard,
mouse, xfpanel.
-
xfce4-panel
- The Xfce4 panel.
-
xfce4-menueditor
- A useful widget to edit the menu entries in Xfce4.
-
xfmail
- A light weight mail client.
-
xfmedia
- A utility to play audio files.
-
xfcalendar
- This is an optional widget which gives a compact monthly calendar similar
to those found in KDE and Gnome.
-
xflock4
- Activates the screensaver and locks the display.
-
xfrun4
- Run application command dialog box. Can be activated by using key sequence
[Alt+F2]
.
-
xfhelp4
- Opens the Xfce4 documentation in the default web browser.
-
xfce4-terminal
- This is actually a script which runs the ubiquitous xterm but with better
configuration. See
this link for more details.
-
mousepad
- A light weight text editor. (Has to be installed separately).
And if you are usually booting into run
level 2 or 3 and then starting a window manager using the
startx
command, then you may make Xfce the default window manager by creating a
hidden file by name
.xinitrc
in your home directory and entering the command
startxfce4
in it as follows:
$ touch .xinitrc
$ echo "startxfce4" > .xinitrc
$ startx
One thing that I found really annoying
though is that when I start nautilus
(the Gnome file manager), it overlaps my xfce desktop and I stop getting
the xfce menus when I right click on the desktop. I figured a work around
here in that by using the
--no-desktop
flag, I was able to circumvent this problem.
$ nautilus --no-desktop
After using this light weight window manager
(version 4.2.2) for a week now, I am so impressed by it that I have made
it my default window manager in Linux.
posted by Ravi @
8:58 AM
10 Comments:
- At
12:26 AM, Anonymous said...
- I am also using Xfce
as my primary desktop and I am very much satisfied with it. I really wonder
why people fight over Gnome and KDE. It looks really foolish when there
are scores of window managers and desktops around.
Interesting review. :)
- I tried Xfce when I
used Vector Linux and I was impressed as well. It's not quite as slick as
KDE or Gnome, but the low system requirements more than make up for that.
- The last time I tried
XFCE on a Ubuntu machine, I had a huge memory leak problem that would just
keep growing if I left my desktop overnight without logging out. That turned
me off of XFCE some.
The biggest problem with leaving gnome is that you will then miss out on
some integration, and some panel applets which I possibly can't do without
like the networkmanager applet.
- You can even get desktop
icons w/ XFCE4 by letting ROX to manage the desktop.
echo rox -p desktop& > ~/Desktop/Autostart/autorun
chmod +x ~/Desktop/Autostart/autorun
Looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/anxzw
- Actually, XFMail is
not part of the XFCE Desktop - The name is just a coincidence. You can tell
by the look: XFMail is kinda ugly, unlike the rest of the desktop :o)
It might be interesting to note that XFCE will sport a brand-new File Manager
called 'Thunar' on the upcoming 4.4 release, for people like me who don't
like xffm nor the rox-filer.
~Ulmo
- At 2:06 AM, Anonymous said...
- Carthik - You can use
NetworkManager just fine under Xfce.
Make sure you select under the Startup prefs/Advanced options to start Gnome
services (you need this for the gnome-keyring-manager that NetworkManager
uses to store WEP keys),
then just run 'nm-applet' and it should appear in the systray in your panel
(If you addded one) or the taskbar.
Works fine here.
- kevin@tummy.com (fedora-extras Xfce package maintainer)
At 5:53 AM,
TC said...
- I just recently switched
from Gnome to KDE, and I gotta say I think I prefer KDE. XFCE is not bad,
but I don't feel it has enough features. One really (relatively) easy config
in KDE is the bluetooth setup. I needed a bluetooth headset to work with
Skype and KDE was the only one I could get it working under.
- Just some corrections:
"[XFCE] comes bundled with applications like its own light weight xterminal"
Well in fact it does not. I assume you are reffering to Terminal - this
is the XFCE terminal app, but older versions of XFCE just launched xterm
(which is hardly XFCE own). So Terminal is XFCE application but it is hardly
lightweight. :) In fact it is very heavy due to use of vte widget which
sucks in my opinion (it is like 12x slower than f.e. xterm).
"[XFCE] comes bundled with applications like (...) a light weight mail client"
No it does not come with an email client. Unless of course you call mailbox
checking panel applet an email client.
"But what sets Xfce apart from the more popular heavy weights like Gnome
and KDE is its very low memory foot print."
"Another aspect which endeared me to this light weight window manager"
If you think it is lightweight - try WindowMaker. I don't mean to be flaming
but compared to wmaker (which is not the lightest BTW) it is not light on
memory and on X11 usage by any means. This is due to few facts - XFCE4 uses
GTK which is known to be slow. By saying X11 usage I mean that given window
manager is well optimized/designed to work with X11 protocol (over network
FE). In fact this is IMHO more important factor than CPU usag
Using a liveCD as your Linux Desktop
Most of the "Desktop" Linux liveCD distributions
(distros) are meant to to be used for trying out or demoing Linux before installing
them to your hard drive. Popular distros like Ubuntu, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS are
good examples and in my mind are some of the best offerings. I've been there
and done that. These are great distros, and there are many more! If you're looking
for a Linux distribution to install on your hard drive, these are all great
distros, and you won't be disappointed. Test drive the liveCD, install to your
hard disk, and enjoy.
However, many liveCD distros can be used as a day to day desktop without ever
installing them to your hard drive. Huh? Wait a minute, everyone installs the
OS to a hard disk! Well yes, that's the way it has always been done, but I am
not sure why we should continue in that direction... "ah, but I was so much
older then, I'm younger than that now" (Robert Allen Zimmerman).
Why would anyone want to use a Linux liveCD as a basic day to day desktop? Here
are some thoughts:
- Easy to load and update -- Easy, because your data (including
configurations) are separate from the operating system (OS). The idea of
separating data from the OS has always appealed to me. It seems like a very
logical and smart thing to do. Even when I partition a system for a hard
drive Linux install, I create a separate partition for /home. Doesn't everybody?
- It's portable -- You can take it with you and securely boot up
from just about any PC. Also, Linux liveCDs can often be installed and booted
from a USB drive (thanks to some excellent standards around booting from
USB drives). This really beats lugging a laptop around (especially when
airport security is involved). The downside is that your Live-CD might not
boot on all hardware. The distro might not detect the hardware correctly
or the hardware might not be able to boot from CD or USB.
- Most run on older PC hardware -- Not only do they run, they usually
run quite fast! (Did you ever notice that you usually cannot upgrade old
PCs from Windows 95 to Windows XP?) Some of the older PCs don't support
booting from CD or USB. In such cases, you can usually copy the CD to the
hard drive and create a boot floppy to load the image from the hard drive.
- Security -- It's hard for someone to violate your OS when it
resides on a read only CD. And, you can always reboot to a pristine state.
This is kind of like going to communion and being forgiven for all past
sins. Linux by design is a very secure OS. This just improves on it. Amen.
- It's just plain fun! -- You can remix if you like. You can do
your own. This is one of the great things about open source. I am waiting
for the next version of Windows XP liveCD. Don't get me wrong here, Microsoft
does allow generating DOS 3.1 boot disks so you can network stage new XP
clients. But that is more of an enterprise moment...
If you like the idea of using a Linux liveCD
on a daily basis, there are several features that need to be present to make
this an enjoyable experience:
- Saving and restoring configuration data
from one session to the next. Specifically, changes to /etc, /usr, /root,
and...
- Saving and restoring your home directory.
This includes the configuration files for applications like your browser
or word processor.
- Adding additional persistent software packages
without remixing/re-mastering the CD. Using tools like apt-get or rpm do
not meet this need. I cannot download and install applications each time
I boot up.
- After boot, freeing up the CDROM for other
use (like ripping a CD or just playing CD/DVD). This can be accomplished
by loading the entire OS into RAM or by copying the CD image to your hard
drive and booting and running from there. Loading your OS into RAM creates
a very responsive PC. LiveCD distros without this option do not get much
playing time in my space.
Four four-star liveCD Linux distros
Considering the above, if I were to award a star for each feature, how many
four-star Linux distros would there be? Of the more popular distributions (per
Distrowatch hit count), I would like to highlight four four-stars liveCDs --
Puppy Linux, Kanotix, Damn Small Linux (DSL), and SLAX.
I really like and use all four. They are all capable of saving and restoring
system configuration data and home directories. They also each have an easy
mechanism to add persistent software packages and they all can be loaded entirely
into RAM. One caveat: Kanotix requires a gigabyte or so of memory to load into
RAM; however, memory is cheap, and after you get Kanotix loaded into memory,
it screams!
-
Puppy Linux -- developed by Barry Kauler, this small 60MB
distro is loaded with applications and is one of the easiest distributions
to work with after initial setup. When you boot it up for the first time,
it looks for a place to put it's default 250MB file and just does it. It
saves everything in this file -- configurations, home directory, and added
software packages. Next time you boot up, everything just happens. Software
packages are downloaded and installed with PupGet and DotPup tools. Really
easy with a good selection of packages to choose from. For the size of this
distro, it is really surprising how much you get. Also, it loads and executes
in RAM by default. That's a default I can live with!
Puppy has the option of Booting from writable CD or DVD and saving everything
back to the CD/DVD. No hard drive or USB drive is needed to save your data
or added packages. I have not tried this feature, but it sounds very interesting.
This method seems to create an audit trail of everything you do. When the
CD/DVD fills up, it copies your current state to new media and continues.
One security concern that I have with Puppy is that you boot up as user
root. I would prefer booting up as user doggie or fido and using sudo for
commands needing root privilege. Ubuntu has implemented their distros in
this manner.
- Kanotix
-- developed by Joerg "Kano" Sdhirottke, this distro is somewhat larger
(~700MB) than the other distros discussed. It is full featured based on
Knoppix and Debian-Sid. It contains many of the latest software applications
and is optimized for the i586 architecture. It has the backup/restore and
persistent home directory features found in Knoppix.
In addition, Kanotix comes with a software management tool called Klik that
allow for easy persistent installation of additional software applications.
The Klik agent is installed and ready to use. Each software package from
the Klik website consists of one compressed image file (.cmg). After you
download this file (of course you put this in your persistent home directory),
all you have to do is click on it to load and execute. Simple. If you want
to delete the software package, you delete the one file and you are done.
The solution is quite flexible and most of the downloaded applications actually
work.
-
Damn Small Linux (DSL) -- a small (~50MB) distro developed
by John Andrews and Robert Shingledecker. DSL's backup/restore methods are
unique in that the user can specify the files or directories to backup and
restore. Once done, backup and restore are done automatically by default.
A cheat code is provided to allow you to override this feature. In effect,
this cheat code allows you to be pure again. Amen. It's optional to load
the entire image into RAM. Needless to say, it's an option that I always
select.
The DSL philosophy is to start small and add any additional software that
you need. To do this there are "extensions" or modules that can be loaded
at boot time or when needed. All you have to do is download these extensions
to your persistent area and they are there for you use at every boot. Very
easy! Actually, you can load extensions at boot with cheat codes or manually
after boot.
DSL has a very small footprint that can then grow to fill your needs...
a great Linux distro.
-
SLAX -- this distro is based on Slackware, one of the
oldest linux distributions. Developed by Thomas Matejicek, it provides scripts
(Linux Live Scripts) for others to create their own liveCDs. And, there
have been many takers -- STUX, Goblinix, Buffalo and Mutagenix to name a
few. Note that many of these hacks provide four-star features, as outlined
above. Note: if you like gnome, Mutagenix is a worthy distro.
SLAX uses "modules" to load system components and applications. This is
all done at boot time. So, it is very easy to add additional persistent
applications. This same module methodology is used to backup and restore
user data and configurations. Very clever.
The bottom line
There are many Linux liveCD distros that are not really meant for installation
to a hard disk. They can be booted from CD or USB and used as your everyday
desktop. They are easy to update, are portable, work on older hardware, are
very secure and are great fun. Party on!
About the author: Frank Richards is a graduate of the University of Illinois
(EE) and has worked in research, product development, product validation and
information technoplogy at Ford Motor Company for the past 35 years. He is currently
an Infrastructure Architect in Ford Enterprise
Technology (IT), Dearborn Michigan.
DSL, for those of you who don't know it, is one
of several "mini-Linux" distributions. Of the set, it's probably the most well
thought of since it actually manages to pick a GUI into its goodness and, having
turned version 2.0 recently, it's the most mature of the mini-Linuxes.
So how small is it? You can run it on as little as a 33 MHz 486 PC with 32 MB
of RAM. I know, because I've done it.
The site says you can do in as little as 16 MB of RAM and I see no reason not
to believe this.
At a mere 50 MB of operating system and programs, you can load, and run, DSL
off business-card CDs, USB pen drives... whatever. Heck, if it holds more data
than a floppy diskette, chances are you can run DSL off it.
Don't think that because DSL only takes up 50 MB of space you're getting a bare-bones
Linux system with a command line as the only interface and only a handful of
utilities for programs. No, you actually get the
FluxBox GUI,
and pretty much all the basic applications you'll ever need.
FluxBox drives some users crazy because it doesn't have a taskbar and start
button. If that's you, you can just grab a copy of
IceWM, another small
GUI that does include those screen luxuries, and use it instead. For directions
on how to do that, visit Steve Litt's
DSL guide.
No matter which GUI you end up using, you've got some nice applications to work
with.
For example, for Web browsing you can either use Firefox, or the far more obscure
but amazingly fast Dillo.
For word processing, you have
flwriter.
If all you need is basic text editing, there's the editor I always use anyway,
vim, plus two others.
The list goes on and on. Email, ftp, DHCP, the kitchen sink. If it can fit snuggly
in with everything else and still total under 50 MB it's in there.
If you have more than enough computer to run DSL, you can also use it to add
other programs that will never fit into its 50 MB limit like
OpenOffice.org 2.0.
If you want, you can use it to install a full-featured, full-sized Debian/Knoppix
style Linux on your system.
OK, so that's all very nifty, but so far it probably still sounds more like
a clever trick than something useful. What takes DSL from the realm of neat
toy to useful program is that you can use it as the foundation for a dandy system
repair operating system.
With programs like Midnight
Commander, one of my favorite file and directory toolkits, and
Bash Burn,
a CD Burning application, you can dig into a dead box's hard drive and pull
out useful data.
For more on the basics of how to do this, may I recommend this older, but still
useful, article on
using Knoppix to find lost data in the smoking wreckage of dead machines
by Carla Schroder.
In short, DSL makes a fine PC rescue system that you can literally keep in your
wallet or shirt pocket.
And, that my friend, makes DSL one damned useful distribution -- and far from
being just a toy.
Since the OpenSolaris community was launched in June, at least
three derivative distributions --
SchilliX,
BeleniX,
and Nexenta --
have been created and released. Parts of OpenSolaris are also making their way
into other operating systems. A port of
DTrace
is in the works for FreeBSD.
SchilliX,
an OpenSolaris-based live CD, was the first OpenSolaris derivative released,
only days after Sun's release of the OpenSolaris code. OpenSolaris can be installed
from the SchilliX CD to a hard drive or USB memory stick.
We've all had this nightmare. You turn on your
functioning Windows/Linux PC, and all you get is a blank screen, or a message
telling you that certain files are missing, or the kernel has panicked for some
obscure reason. Nothing works, and you need the data on your machine. Yes, now's
the time to whip out that trusty backup disk, and heave a sigh of relief that
all the important stuff is backed up, right? Well, think again.
Most people do not back up on a daily, or even
a weekly basis. Some people do not back up at all. Yes, there are uber-geeks
with scripts that back up all their work on an hourly basis to offshore servers,
but in a small business scenario, there are times when you have to get data
off a computer that has crashed.
Here's where you can use the Source, Luke! The
world of open source has many wonderful tools for just such a life-or-death
situation. Think of them as paramedics for your computer. While they may not
be able to restore your machine to full functionality, they are a quick way
of running tests and diagnostics on the disabled machine. In a pinch, you can
use them to save important files on a different machine on the network, or burn
a CD, before sending the machine off to be fixed.
This article reviews three open source rescue
CDs: System Rescue CD,
LNX-BBC, and
CDlinux. These are
all small downloads, ranging from 17 to 110MB, specifically designed to perform
system rescue. To test the three, I used a recent AMD Athlon 2400+ machine with
256MB RAM, onboard LAN, and a Nvidia graphics card. The test machine had Windows
XP Professional loaded on an NTFS partition on a SATA drive and Centos 4 on
an ext3 partition on a PATA drive.
I tested the three for basic rescue features:
mounting partitions to read and write data, disk management (format, partition,
etc.), network access, CD/DVD writing, and virus scanning. These are the most
important rescue disk features, and if they work well, you are well on your
way to getting your machine working again.
System Rescue CD
System Rescue CD is the largest download at 110MB.
It includes:
- Linux-kernel-2.4.27-xfs
- GNU-Parted-1.6.11 -- This reliable text-based
partition editor is the best Linux partition tool.
- QtParted and PartGui are regarded as the
best free PartitionMagic clones for Linux, and you can use these two graphical
partition tools without XFree86. They work with QtEmbedded and allow you
to see a chart of your hard disk, create, format, delete, and modify partitions.
- Partimage-0.6.4 is a Ghost/DriveImage clone
for Linux.
- GRUB-0.94 / LILO-22.5 -- These tools are
the most common bootloaders used with Linux. You can restore your bootloader
from this System Rescue CD. For example, if Windows removed GRUB, you can
run GRUB from this CD and reinstall the bootloader.
- File system tools
- Evms 2.3 is a powerful logical volume manager.
- Archiving tools tar/gzip/bzip2 are provided
for Unix users. Zip/unzip, while rar/unrar/unace are provided for Windows
users.
In addition to these components, System Rescue
CD includes editors, partition table tools, CD/DVD burning tools, network admin
tools, security tools, an anti-virus package, and many other tools that are
useful in rescuing your system.
System Rescue CD provides good documentation
on its Web site, including a 46-page PDF/HTML manual that gives step-by-step
guidance to help you through common tasks. If you have little or no experience
with Linux, it's a welcome addition.
After burning the ISO image to a CD, I rebooted
my test machine with the CD in the drive. The machine presented me with a boot
screen, where I could choose to boot with the default settings, look up help,
or access a menu. I chose the menu, which led me to an ncurses-based screen
where I could change the graphics mode, disable the framebuffer, and choose
between various keyboard layouts and other kernel parameters, such as enabling
or disabling DMA and APIC. Even though you can manually give all these parameters
to the kernel before starting it, many users will appreciate not having to look
up the commands. The interface is easy to navigate and lays out the options
in an intuitive manner.
After choosing a sensible set of options for
my machine, I booted the System Rescue CD. The standard Linux console messages
scrolled by, and after hardware detection, the system dropped me into a console.
I first checked Internet and network connectivity.
The system took an address from my router, and I was able to ping other machines
on my network, as well as connect to the Internet using Lynx.
I could easily mount partitions, but the NTFS
partition was mounted read-only by default. System Rescue CD includes
Captive,
a program that mounts NTFS partitions with full read/write access, which is
useful for situations where NTOSkernel.exe or other important Windows system
files get corrupted. To mount NTFS partitions using this, you need to have Windows
installed on your machine. You have to mount the partition using the standard
Linux drivers, then run the Captive program, which copies some files from your
Windows installation and tells you how to mount the partition. I found it fairly
easy to use, and it worked like a charm. I created, copied, and deleted files
and directories without a single problem.
The next step was to recover data from the computer
by copying files to a different machine over the network. I used the SMBFS support
to mount a shared directory and copy files into it. It worked without any problems.
Burning a CD was easy through the command line.
I tried initializing a new drive and resizing
a NTFS partition with QtParted. Both operations worked without any problems.
The NTFS resizing functionality is especially useful if you need to install
a Linux distro but don't have sufficient free space. Some distros come with
a built-in resizing functionality, but it's nice to have this feature handy.
In case you need to clone a hard drive or partition,
System Rescue CD includes Partimage. Its interface is easy to learn. The trio
of QtParted, GNU Parted, and Partimage take care of all the disk management-related
tasks.
An anti-virus scanner is another welcome inclusion.
ClamAV scans your drive for viruses, and if you have mounted your NTFS partitions
with Captive, it will remove them. The manual details the steps needed to update
the virus definitions and start a scan. You need a functioning Internet connection
to get the latest definitions. Once the definitions are downloaded, ClamAV scans
the specified partition for viruses. This is useful when you are stuck with
a virus that Windows-based virus scanners are unable to remove. I wish some
sort of spy/adware removal software were available for Linux, so that scanning
and removing spy/adware could be this easy.
System Rescue CD works well for a huge number
of rescue-related tasks. Experienced sysadmins can even create their own versions
of it. The documentation is simple and clear, and contains step-by-step instructions
for the most common tasks.
CDlinux
The next rescue CD that I tried was
CDlinux. This is a
much smaller download at only 17MB, and the feature set is correspondingly smaller
as well.
CDlinux boots up with a help screen telling you
about the various kernel options. You can choose your graphics mode and configure
a CD writer.
The normal Linux bootup process proceeds, following
which you can log in as root. The first thing I tried was mounting my SATA drive,
only to discover that CDlinux doesn't support SATA. It may be possible to enable
support by loading kernel modules, but you'll need to know the exact kernel
module, or download the source and compile it -- a time-consuming process that
may not work. In an emergency situation, you don't have the time to sit and
figure out stuff like this. Without SATA support I was un able to test any of
the NTFS mounting and copying features. The Centos installation mounted right
up, however, and I was able to copy files to and from it.
Internet and network access worked right away.
Mounting an SMB partition worked, and copying files across the network was easy.
CDlinux includes GNU Parted, so disk management is covered. Gpart lets you restore
a damaged partition table. The only thing missing is some documentation. Unless
you really know your way around Linux, you'll need to get some help from the
Internet, or an experienced user. The Web site is rather sparse, but it does
offer a little help to get you started. Don't expect too much from the Mini-HOWTO;
be prepared to do some reading on the Net, and you'll be fine.
CDlinux is aimed at a different audience than
that of the System Rescue CD. While the latter tries to be the perfect recovery
tool, and largely succeeds, CDlinux provides the bare minimum to get you up
and running.
CDlinux is a good a choice when you need to quickly
get some data off a non-functioning PC. Its 17MB download size works for dial-up
users and is trivial for broadband users. You can quickly boot up, copy data
to another machine on the network, a secondary hard drive, or a CD. The lack
of SATA support is a letdown, but future versions will probably include it.
It is possible to create a customized CDlinux distribution, which includes only
what you need.
CDlinux can help you perform more complex tasks,
but you'll need to be an experienced Linux user. A Windows user would be well
advised to stick to the System Rescue CD.
LNX-BBC
LNX-BBC is a Linux
distribution optimized to fit onto a CD that is the size of a business card.
At 48MB, it falls neatly in between CDlinux and the System Rescue CD. A Bootable
Business Card (BBC) is easy to carry in your wallet and has a capacity of about
50MB. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from putting CDlinux or a similar
small distro onto a business card CD.
The bootup is similar to that of CDlinux. A help
screen shows you some kernel options and various function keys leads you to
information about the project. Choosing a proper framebuffer mode is important
because LNX-BBC includes a functional X11 server and a few graphical tools,
notably Ethereal and BrowseX.
LNX-BBC was the only distro I tested that did
not automatically configure the network without my typing in a command. After
I did this, I was able to ping other computers on my network and browse the
Internet. SATA support was non-existent, though mounting the CentOS partition
worked. Mounting a Windows shared folder using SMBFS failed with an error message.
LNX-BBC includes a graphical browser, which can
come in handy. Unfortunately,
BrowseX is an old browser,
dating back to 2003. In fact, LNX-BBC is also rather dated, with the last version
being released in May 2003. Development seems to have slowed down or stopped
altogether.
I liked LNX-BBC's inclusion of Ethereal. It's
handy for quick network troubleshooting and packet sniffing. I administer a
large network (+400 machines), and I can think of many uses for this.
LNX-BBC includes some nice tools and can be used
to perform system repair and recovery; however, the dated nature of the CD means
that better alternatives exist. It's difficult to recommend LNX-BBC, but still,
it does most of what it's supposed to, so it is functional. And, of course,
you can carry it in your wallet.
Recommendations
Of the three CDs, the System Rescue CD is the
best in terms of features and hardware support. Functionality and compatibility
come at the price of size, though, and dial-up users may find the large file
difficult to download. At 17MB, CDlinux has the size advantage, and it can quickly
copy data to a diskette or across a network.
I decided to keep a copy of the System Rescue
CD for its well-rounded, fully featured benefits, and CDlinux for its speed.
Although LNX-BBC is functional and has some nice features, the other two CDs
are more useful.
The number of open source rescue CDs are increasing
everyday. A great resource for finding a live CD is
Live
CD List. Frequently updated, this site lists live CDs of all sorts, not
just rescue CDs, so it's a good place to find a live CD tailored to your needs.
- "System Rescue CD" - http://www.sysresccd.org/
- "LNX-BBC" - http://www.lnx-bbc.org/
- "CDlinux" - http://cdlinux.berlios.de/
- "Captive" - http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/
- "BrowseX" - http://www.browsex.com/
- "Live CD List" - http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Last edited 06/17/2005
This tutorial
is based on the tutorial "Creating Images Of Your Linux System With SystemImager"
(http://www.falkotimme.com/howtos/systemimager/index.php
and
http://www.howtoforge.com/howto_linux_systemimager) where you can find the
basics about how to use SystemImager.
Now let's assume
you have a dedicated Linux server (rented or co-location) that is located in
some provider's data center which is normally a few hundred kilometers away
from your office or home. Now you want to make an image of that system so that
you have a back up in case your server crashes, you accidentally deleted all
you customers' web sites, etc. (I'm sure you have enough fantasy to make up
some horror scenarios for yourself here...). Creating such an image is no problem,
even on a remote system that is in a data center, it is all described in the
"Creating Images Of Your Linux System With SystemImager" tutorial.
But how do you
restore such an image? That's the crucial point. The methods described in the
"Creating Images Of Your Linux System With SystemImager" tutorial all
require that you have physical access to your server and that your server has
a floppy drive or a CD-ROM drive. But your server is a few hundred kilometers
away, and nowadays only few servers have a floppy or CD-ROM drive.
There is a solution,
the only requirement is that your dedicated server has some kind of Linux rescue
system which is a feature that normallly comes with dedicated servers offered
by one of the big hosting companies. It basically works like this: your hosting
company gives you the login to some kind of control panel where you can see
a lot of information about your server, e.g. traffic consumption in the last
few months, documentation, passwords, billing information, etc. There will also
be a page that lets you select the boot mode of your server, i.e. normal system
boot or rescue system. If you select rescue system, the server will boot into
the rescue system which you can use to repair your normal system. It is similar
to your Linux machines in your office or at home where you use some kind of
Linux live-CD (e.g. Knoppix) to repair your system.
Now in this tutorial
I will demonstrate how to restore an image on your dedicated server on the basis
of a dedicated server that the German hosting company
Strato gave
to me 3 months for free in order to write this howto. Many thanks to Strato
for their co-operation!
If you have successfully
tried the methods described here on other hosters' dedicated servers please
let me know! I will mention it here.
This howto is
meant as a practical guide; it does not cover the theoretical backgrounds. They
are treated in a lot of other documents in the web.
This document
comes without warranty of any kind!
The
Auditor security collection is a GPL-licensed live CD based on
Knoppix, with
more than 300 security software tools. Auditor gives you easy access to
a broad range of tools in almost no time.
To get started,
download the latest image of Auditor and burn it as a bootable image. Remember
to use the image option -- just copying the file will not produce a bootable
image. After you have successfully written the image to disc, you can start
Auditor directly from the CD. It will not install any permanent software on
the hard disk unless you request it to, so don't be nervous to use Auditor on
a client workstation.
The structure of Auditor
Auditor's menu is divided into several "tool
groups" for easy recognition:
- Footprinting -- Applications to gain initial
knowledge about a server, such as Whois and Dig.
- Analysis -- Tools to analyze a network,
such as Ethereal.
- Scanning -- Tools to scan the network, such
as Nmap.
- Wireless -- Applications to test the wireless
network.
- Brute-forcing -- The brute-force password
cracking word list holds more than 64 million word entries, according to
the Auditor Web site.
- Cracking -- Cracking tools to be used with
the brute-force word lists.
Hi,
I’ve gone through the process of cloning a machine before with no problems but
for some reason I can’t get it to work again.
Machine to be cloned/golden client, (Works as it should)
Partitions: IDE1 standard 80gig hardrive
Hda1 linux – FILE SYSTEM TYPE: reiserfs
Hda5 linux swap
Distribution: Debian Sarge
Boot loader: Grub v0.95
Kernel: 2.6.8-2-i386
Systemimager version 3.4.0
My cloning process, dhcp is set up on a internal network.
On golden client:
# prepareclient –server 192.168.1.6
On the image server:
# si_getimage -golden-client 192.168.1.37 -image kioskv3.0 -updates-script YES
# si_addclients -host node -domainname example.com -host-range 1-10 -script
kioskv3.0 -ip-range 192.168.1.201-192.168.1.210 2>/dev/null
# si_addclients -host node -domainname example.com -host-range 1-10 -script
kioskv3.0 -ip-range 192.168.1.201-192.168.1.210
I then created a boot floppy for a new machine identical in hardware on the
golden client.
I put in the boot floppy and the cloning process completes successfully.
But when I reboot the machine it stops at
Loading DMI pool data… or something like that it says
Loaded the machine from live-cd and ran the following commands
Anyhow I tried to fix this by booting clone machine 1 from knoppix live-cd
[shell]
root@0[dev]# mount -t reiserfs -o rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
root@0[dev]# grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/mnt/hda1 /dev/hda
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
[/shell]
took out cd and rebooted. got passed the grub loader properly this time and
started loading
up debian but early on it got this error message
/sbin/init: 426: cannot create /dev/null : Read-only file system
/sbin/init: 427: cannot open dev/console : no such file
Kernel panic: Attempted to kill init
can anyone spot anything I’m doing wrong here?
I cloned a machine using the above process which worked perfectly.. the only
difference being it was a ext3 filesystem instead of reiserfs.. ideally I’d
like to keep reiserfs if possible.
I have 20 machines to clone.. and if I don’t sort this soon I’ll have to install
each one of them individually which will take a long time since there is allot
of special configuration.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
Anything at all even give me other suggestions how I might do this.
Thanks,
Derek |
DS2K3
Posted: Mar 20 2005, 05:22 AM
www.linuxhelp.ca
RMS is my Hero
Group: Support Specialist
Posts: 622
Member No.: 4165
Joined: 14-November 04
Looks like the /dev/ filesystem isnt correctly configured. The "Loading DMI
Pool Data..." is just a BIOS messsage while it scans the Floppy-Drive for botable
media.
I dont have any experience with a) cloning machines, or b ) debian, though
DSL is a powerful and versatile yet extremely small
Linux distribution with a lot of potential. This distribution provides an avenue
of freedom to those who have been limited by size and age of their computers
as DSL works extremely well on older hardware.
My Experience:
I was originally drawn to DSL because of the small size (50 MB for a complete
system). The concept of fitting an entire OS on 50 MB was not only interesting
but also challenging in many ways. This distribution allowed you to carry a
50 MB business card CD and start a Linux distribution on virtually any computer.
This was great, but honestly, there are other Live CDs, with more features,
like Knoppix. So because I only initially saw DSL as a live CD is was great,
but I lost interest and moved on.
However, ...there came a time when I was
teaching Linux to an elite group of grade school students. These students were
part of a club I built around the best technology students in 2nd to 7th grades.
Without a budget we were limited in what we could provide students in terms
of technology they could keep and use on their own. I wanted to teach them to
build computers as well as install the operating system. Then I ran into donated
computers that were basically trash. Pentium 166s with 32 RAM. So I started
experimenting with Linux distributions that would work well on these limited
resources. I tried a number including Deli and Slackware.
When I installed DSL I found not only a functional
operating system but also a fast operating system on these computers.
The kids helped me install the DSL and I did 10 hours of instruction
and they took the computers home for themselves. This was a huge success in
not only training students but teaching the community abut Linux and the values
of Open Source.
Summary:
I have played with many Linux distributions but none like DSL, it fits a
unique position in the whole scheme of things. I think one thing that attracts
me to DSL is that the developers are actively making positive contributions
to the system. DSL can revitalize old systems that
would normally be thrown away. The amazing thing is that it makes
these systems so fast!!! Most Linux distributions are clogged programs that
are not used but DSL is finely tuned to be all that you need. Finally, the versatility
of DSL is amazing:
Desktop System
Business card System
Mini-ITX
Embeded Systems
Compact Flash
Thumb Drives
There are a lot of ways to use DSL. DSL may not
be fancy but it certainly gets the job done effectively
The Debian-based live-cd Linux distribution
Knoppix has been
updated to
version 3.9. Among the most notable changes are the update to kernel 2.6.11
and the inclusion of OpenOffice 2.0 BETA and KDE 3.4. This is likely the last
single-CD version of Knoppix before the
split into 'Light' and 'Maxi' versions. Torrent links
here."
Damn Small Linux
is much more than the business-card LiveCD that it originated as. It is a desktop
computing powerhouse. Damn Small Linux` boasts an impressive and useful software
collection while maintaining a slim 50MB footprint. It offers several options
to run or boot the system along with simple configuration. Top it all off with
a custom extension system, as well as apt-get, and you can begin to see why
Damn Small Linux` is my workstation GNU/Linux distribution.
I run Damn Small Linux` on an old Pentium II with 128MB of RAM. With every
new release I reinstall the operating system to the hard drive, which admittedly
kind of sucks, but since my initial install I have began saving most everything
to CD-RW. Running from LiveCD would make the update process easier, or eliminate
it all together, but I must put my old 1.2GB hard drive to use somehow.
Damn Small Linux`'s default window manager is the ultra efficient
Fluxbox. It's
lightweight, very customizable, and a perfect match for Damn Small Linux`. No,
it doesn't include all the bells and whistles of KDE or GNOME, but the minimalist
approach is beneficial to some. I now run Fluxbox on every desktop I use for
the added performance benefit.
Want apps? Dig this. Damn Small Linux` includes
Beaver for text
editing and Xpaint
for basic image manipulation. It contains
Flwriter, a tiny
but useful word processor, as well as equally necessary Word and PDF viewers.
You can listen to your MP3 collection or stream audio from the Web with
XMMS. All the Internet access
applications, including Telnet, FTP, and VNCviewer, are there too. You can browse
the Web with Dillo or
Links, chat with
clients for IRC, ICQ, and AOL Instant Messenger, and exchange email with
Sylpheed.
Damn Small Linux`'s control panel is one of its coolest features. It lets
you easily start your Web, FTP, or SSH server, back up and restore your LiveCD
settings and files, set up and configure your Ethernet, modem, and printer hardware,
and more. Of course, you could do all this configuration from the command line,
but the GUI makes it so easy. Damn Small Linux` has great support for wireless
LAN cards too, including wlanconfig, ndiswrapper, and Prism2 support.
I saved the best feature for last. The Damn Small Linux` extension system
provides "click and run" access to a ton of great stuff. Simply click on the
MyDSL icon on the desktop and Dillo opens to a page with all available stable
extensions, with a link on the bottom of the page that takes you to the newer
experimental ones. A few of my personal favorites include K3b, OpenOffice.org,
and the GIMP. Recently, many gaming extensions have begun to show up in the
repository, including the classic Wolfenstein 3D. To use them, you'll need Xfree86
and the kernel source in order to recompile the kernel, both of which are available
via
MyDSL.
Desktop distros are the current frontier in Linux computing. Sure, there
are plenty of bloated distros full of commercial software, but that's overkill.
The average home user doesn't need more than Damn Small Linux has to offer,
and it's a great starting point for the Linux noob. It helps you get comfortable
with the bash shell while still providing a "safe" graphical desktop. The small
size of the whole OS makes for easy downloading too, which is good because Damn
Small Linux`'s developers are constantly cranking out new versions.
As far as community goes, the group can seem a little snooty at times, as
is often true of software with a high geek factor.
Damn Small Linux` is small, but dynamite comes in small packages. Easy, powerful,
accessible, and fun -- sounds like some of the things that got you interested
in the Linux revolution to begin with.
What's your desktop OS of choice?
Write an article
of less than 1,000 words telling us what you use and why. If we publish it,
we'll pay you $200. So far, we've heard from fans of
FreeBSD,
Mepis Linux,
Debian,
Xandros,
Slackware,
Windows XP,
Lycoris,
SUSE Professional,
NetBSD,
Ubuntu,
FreeDOS,
Libranet,
Mandrakelinux,
Arch Linux,
Mac OS X,
Knoppix,
Linspire,
Gentoo,
PCLinuxOS,
Yoper,
Fedora Core 3, and
Windows 2000 Professional. Coming soon: VidaLinux, Kanotix, and Scientific
Linux.
[Apr 25, 2005] "The latest release of Knoppix (3.8.1) has arrived"
Frenzy is a "portable system administrator
toolkit," LiveCD based on FreeBSD. It generally contains software for hardware
tests, file system check, security check and network setup and analysis. Size
of ISO-image is 200 MBytes (3" CD)
System requirements
- Pentium processor
or higher.
- 32MB RAM.
- CD-ROM, which
supports booting from a CD and can read a mini-CD.
- HDD is not
required.
Current version of Frenzy is based on FreeBSD
5.2.1-RELEASE. Compressed file system (geom_ugz) used, so there is almost
600 MB of data on 200 MB CD. Loading speed also improved.
When Frenzy boots, it creates required memory
disks, automatically detects and mounts HDD partitions (UFS, FAT16/32, NTFS,
EXT2FS are supported). It also mounts FreeBSD swap space as Frenzy swap,
if found. If you wish you can create a swap file on mounted partitions.
There is also an automatic mouse type detection (PS/2, serial, USB).
There are almost 400 applications in Frenzy
0.3:
- C and nasm
compilers, Perl and Python interpreters
- File managers:
deco, mc, xnc
- Text editors
(among them joe, Vim and AbiWord)
- Viewers and
converters of text files, log file analyzers
- Archivers,
system and file utilities
- File recovery
utilities
- Tools for HDD
- Hardware information
and setup
- Benchmarks
and hardware testing utilities
- Antiviruses
(clamav, drweb) and rootkit detection utilities
- Password and
crypto tools
- Network tools
(LAN, modem, dial-up, VPN, Wireless)
- Web-browsers,
main and news clients, ICQ and IRC clients
- Network calculation
tools
- Traffic monitors
- Proxy, redirect
- Remote control
(telnet, ssh, RDP, VNC)
- MySQL and PostgreSQL
clients
- Samba server
and clients
- Tools for DNS,
LDAP, SNMP, DHCP, ICMP, ARP, IP packets
- Port scanners,
network scanners, service detection tools
- Security scanners,
sniffers, intrusion detection tools
- Picture viewer
(gqview), DjVu, CHM, PDF-viewers
- Video player
(MPlayer)
X Window system doesn't start automatically.
When XFree86 is first started by using of 'startx' script, video hardware
autodetecting will begin. But you may run the detection script manually,
if you expect some troubles with it. Default window manager is fluxbox.
X Window also contains TTF-fonts.
There are some dialog scripts for LAN (static-IP
and DHCP) and PPP (dialup) setup. You can easily backup system settings
to a floppy, USB Flash or hard disk and restore them automatically when
Frenzy starts.
Distribution contains essential FreeBSD documentation
and Frenzy-specific help system.
Software listing for Frenzy 0.3 is
here.
See also
Slashdot Frenzy - FreeBSD-based LiveCD for sysadmins
An admin's savior :-) (Score:5, Interesting)
by JamesTRexx
(675890) on Monday February 28, @08:43AM (#11801777)
(Last Journal:
Saturday
April 24, @06:55AM) |
Cd's like these are very useful, even in our Windows-centric company.
One laptop had a fried harddrive, Windows crashed upon starting. First
I tried the recovery console which was no help because the disk was
beyond repair, then I tried a
BartPE [nu2.nu]
XP cd but that wouldn't recognize neither the NIC in the docking nor
a USB NIC (no, I didn't want to have to add all sorts of drivers etc.
to it first). Downloaded a
FreeSBIE
[freesbie.org] cd and it worked perfectly. The guy was very happy about
his saved data, the shmuck.
*goes off to browse the site* |
|
|
excellent toolkit (Score:5, Informative)
by Ragica (552891)
on Tuesday March 01, @02:08PM (#11814841)
(http://www.vex.net/)
|
| This is a really great collection of software for admins and hackers
(in the good sense of the word). In my opinion it is the most useful
bootable kit i've yet seen.
I booted the GUI once briefly, but didn't have a mouse hooked up
so it was useless. I don't really care about the GUI. The focus of this
kit is mostly command line tools (though there are some gui-only tools).
The system boots to a prompt; you have to start X from the command line
if you want it.
It's pretty annoying the way it defaults to Russian if you don't
press e within three seconds during boot up. But hey, it was made by
Russians who are probably pretty annoyed by all the English they are
forced to endure.
The BSD kernel is very nice for detecting hardware. They're method
of automounting drives seems to work pretty well. The little help system
they have included which categorises and lists all of the installed
utilities to help you find your way around is indeed very helpful (it
would be better still if it was searchable).
Anyhow, i love this disk. It's so useful. I tend to us it more than
Knoppix now in many situations. All of the more admin-oriented linux
boot disks i've tried tend to have gotten stale, not updated, and be
hard to find out what tools are on them after booting. Maybe Frenzy
will stagnate as well. But for now it is my favorite.
Also having a lot of BSD boxes of course I am biased. Most of the
linux boot disks don't give much attention to UFS/FFS file systems.
|
Australian company Cybersource says it's currently
talking to two domestic banks about providing Linux-based bootable CDs to consumers
to ensure Internet banking security.
The company yesterday released information about
its Online Banking Coastguard solution. Coastguard is based upon
Knoppix, a Linux distribution
which boots entirely from CD and is known for its automatic hardware detection
features. Cybersource has included
Mozilla Firefox as the
sole browser for Internet banking.
"We've brought it to the attention of several
banks, and are in reasonably serious discussions with two of them," said Rohan
Tronson, Cybersource's Coastguard product manager. Although he wouldn't say
which companies were involved, Tronson acknowledged his company was talking
to both national and regional players.
"One of them has considered the technology, but
has already made a commitment to another technology, which is tokens. While
it's [Coastguard] not incompatible with tokens, they've already made certain
agreements with a certain company involved with those tokens. They've chosen
at this stage not to make it something that they'll carry as a major product,"
Tronson said.
"However we are still in discussions with a section
of that bank, to use the technology in a slightly different area, within the
bank and within a project that the bank supports - we're likely to use something
similar to this," he continued. He said that Cybersource would be shortly demonstrating
its software to the second bank that it was in discussions with.
"We don't expect too much action at this point
from the major banks," said Tronson, although his company has approached them
with the Coastguard solution. "We'd probably expect some of the more regional
ones or some of the providers of other financial services to be the first onboard
with something like this."
However, Cybersource may find it tough going
selling its Firefox-based solution to the major Australian banks. None of the
larger players officially support Firefox- or Linux-based access to their systems,
although various online guides exist to guide Linux users through the process
of configuring their system for each particular bank. The complexity of each
solution varies between banks, with those that provide Java-based Internet banking
(such as St George) requiring the most tweaking.
Tronson did make it clear that if necessary,
his company would customise its product to a bank's needs, saying: "There are
other browsers available (Netscape, Opera, etc). If necessary we would be happy
to replace FireFox with one of these (subject to licensing of course) as part
of the customisation process."
Tronson claimed that the main attacks against
banks and banking customers were "not necessarily solved by alternative security
measures such as tokens and other forms of second factor authentication". Tronson
argued that Coastguard would be a better solution for secure Internet banking
because it provided "a totally locked-down, secure operating system and applications
from non-modifiable media, with DNS-lookup configurations hardwired to secured
servers provided by the banks themselves".
When building Coastguard, Tronson said, Cybersource
recognised that Knoppix "is not particularly friendly or familiar to the majority
of people". So the company took the Linux distribution and used the open source
IceWM window manager to build
a "user interface that had been made to look and behave much like the Windows
XP that most users are used to".
In addition, the company pared down the Linux
distribution so that it would supply "just the tools necessary for the single
purpose of online banking". Tronson also said his company had secured the underlying
Linux system and put extra development effort into ensuring that it would "function
smoothly in a far wider variety of environments" than Knoppix normally would.
Cybersource plans for banks to put their own
branding onto the product and make it an officially supported secure channel
for accessing Internet banking services. The company envisages banks providing
bootable CDs of Coastguard alongside other branded marketing material.
Now there's a live CD that can actually save data
back onto
its own disk! How does it work? The PC boots with a multi-session CD inserted
in the CD-burner drive -- thus,
Puppy
Linux automatically knows which drive is the CD-burner, in case you have more
than one CD/DVD drive. Then you use Puppy in the normal way. At shutdown, all the
changed files in your home directory are saved back to CD. That's it. Next time
you boot, all the personal files are restored!"
After last week's introduction to Linux,
we shall take our first steps into the world of Linux. Many of us have thought
of installing Linux, but have hesitated because the idea of installing a completely
new operating system, and creating new partitions is a terrifying thought. Some
of us have had bad experiences, such as accidentally destroying the main partition
and losing all our data. These sorts of horror stories tend to make a new user
think twice before installing a Linux operating system.
Well, for all those of you who have felt this way, a Linux
Live CD might just be the answer. As the name implies, this is a version of
Linux, which boots directly off the CD, without troubling your hard drives at
all. You can use it to learn about Linux, or to see whether your hardware will
cause problems if you do decide to install Linux on your machine. They also
make a great rescue disk. In case your Windows installation crashes, it's trivially
easy to boot off a Live CD, and save your files on a CD-R or on the network.
There are many, many Live CDs available. Some of the best-known
ones are Knoppix, Gnoppix, Mepis, SuSE Live CD and Mandrake Move Live CD. These
are all freely available, and you can use any one you like. For the purposes
of this article, we will be using the Mepis variant of Live CD.
One caveat before we begin. Using a Live CD is a RAM intensive
operation. Since the entire operating system runs off the memory, the more memory
you have, the better. You should have at least 256 MB of RAM. Anything less
would just be an exercise in frustration. So keeping this in mind, let's begin…
is a beginner-friendly, 134 page freely downloadable book
(released under the GNU Free Documentation License in PDF format). See also
Slashdot Grokking Knoppix
O'Reilly title
Knoppix
Hacks [oreilly.com]
|
General Protection Fault |
Dec 31 2004, 11:35 am
| |
