Running Unix Entirely from CD? 54
Dasein asks: "I am working as a Tech Support Developer, and I had a wonderful idea a few months ago. After stumbling upon Trinux, I modified it so that I could run Linux on any PC with a floppy. By doing this, I was able to backup on our network valuable data on users' computers when their OS failed. This summer I wanted to develop a similar idea but this time with a CD. I was having trouble finding Linux/BSD distributions that could run solely off a CD, and I'm a bit scared to start one from scratch because I wouldn't know where to begin. Does anyone have any suggestions?" nik suggests: On the BSD front, there's the LiveCD project, which seems to do exactly what you want.
Tom's root boot -- not exactly a CD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tom's root boot -- not exactly a CD (Score:2, Informative)
superrescue and isolinux (Score:3, Informative)
check out superrescue [kernel.org]
I guess using that as a base, it wouldn't be too hard to create a bsd system or other.
If you still want to create your own system from scratch, isolinux [zytor.com] is helpful. It takes care of the booting. The only other thing you would have to manage is to mount a ramdisk for /var and maybe /etc (anything that needs rw).
have fun :)
choices (Score:5, Informative)
There's Demolinux, which is quite nice. It comes with gnome and kde and so.
There's the Linuxcare cd, which is like 100 or 200 Mb in size I believe.
There's also the Suse live evaluation cd, which I have no experience with. Suse also offers custom firewalls running from cd.
Re:choices (Score:1)
As far as I can tell, the kernel is rather full featured and should be able to mount vfat fs, although I have not tried it. I know I can mount my ATA RAID and get the network up because I have done that.
Re:choices (Score:1)
SuSE Live Eval CD ROCKS! (Score:2)
Two linuxes... (Score:5, Informative)
Devil-Linux (http://www.devil-linux.org/) is a distribution targeted at servers with a need for security. The
I remember a Slashdot thread that I can't find about floppy-disk distros - some people chimed in about a Super-Rescue CD from kernel.org.
Gentoo (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure how this differs (if at all) from Tom's Root Boot mentioned by 'djn' earlier. You may find this is all you need - burn the CD, insert and switch on computer.
The best (Score:3, Interesting)
virtual-linux (Score:1)
GIbraltar (Score:1)
Hope this helps
David
Knoppix (Score:1, Redundant)
I never used it, but it seems to be quite mature and usable. It even uses swap partitions on the hdd, if there are any.
Regards,
mgk
Slackware live disc (Score:1)
I know that the 4cd sale version of Slackware Linux [slackware.com] comes with a "Bootable live disc, the Ultimate Linux rescue and demo disc!" (as they describe it on the website). I've never actually tried it, but I've never had problems with slackware products.
Re:Slackware live disc (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Slackware live disc (Score:2)
My Win2k hard drive recently died in my Thinkpad. I don't know much about Windows, but I have to use it for work. I took it to my local support guy, explained the problem ("It gets halfway through the pretty 'windows 2000' screen and never finishes"). He tried it for himself, and got the same resutls. To get any data off of it, there were two steps -- he could put it in another machine, or try to install win2k over the old version and boot on its own. The other machine would freeze in the same place every time it tried to boot with my drive in, too. The win2k installer gave wacky messages (different every time), and never in 10 attempts did start to install. His diagnosis: A partition table too corrupt to permit any use.
I told him that I wouldn't give up, but I'd take it home and wack at it with Linux. After a very pessimistic look and explanations that my data was very likely deep in the bit bucket, I was permitted to do so. Once home, I snagged my Slackware 8.0 bootable live CD, booted it up and off we went. I loaded the NTFS module, the module for my net card, and FTPed all the files I wanted to my Mac OS X machine. Say what you want about Slackware's package manager, but it's a slick distro that gets the stuff done. Don't get me wrong, booting off the CD (and loading X, which I did for kicks alone -- worked right away) can be a slow process.
Slightly different requirement... (Score:1)
I have a (very) low-end laptop with a dead hard drive. It does not have the ability to boot of a CD, only a floppy. I would like to boot off the floppy and then root over to the CD. I would use it for a firewall, router, etc. I haven't been able to cram pcmcia pppd and the rest on just a floppy. So If I could utilize the CD I'd be home free.
Does anyone know if any of the above mentioned CD solutions support booting off a floppy?
Re:Slightly different requirement... (Score:1)
Re:Slightly different requirement... (Score:1)
Re:Slightly different requirement... (Score:1)
It's quite a slick setup--they've built a nice system! It boots off of the CD, loads configuration data from a floppy (basically stored as diffs from the configuration files on the CD), seems to be pretty secure, runs a 2.4 kernel, etc, etc. After it has booted, everything is loaded into RAM and it doesn't access the CD any more.
-matt
Re:Slightly different requirement... (Score:1)
Make Your Own Debian Live CD (Score:1)
This page [ocslink.com] has a tarball of scripts that let you take a running Debian system and make a Live-CD version of it.
Last time I used it, I managed to get a kernel and enough of a root filesystem together to run an MP3 player out of a ramdisk. With a full CD of space, you could do much, much more.
Re:Make Your Own Debian Live CD (Score:1)
Anyone have a mirror? I'd love to have this!
-F-
plan9 (Score:2)
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
Linux From Scratch (Score:2)
Bootable Dedicated Game Servers (Score:5, Interesting)
Inevitably, at least at the ones I've been to, there is always someone spending half or a third of the day futzing with their spare machine to get a dedicated game server going. Which got me thinking... There are a bunch of these games with a dedicated server versions for Linux. Wouldn't it be sweet if you had, on a bootable CD, a barebones Linux install that booted straight into a pre-configured, and chock-full of maps, game server? You'd need a seperate CD for each game of course. Some games wouldn't even fit on a CD. Perhaps a bootable DVD is the answer? Or swapping CDs with 'mappacks?'
Re:Bootable Dedicated Game Servers (Score:1)
Previous Slashdot article (Score:2, Informative)
Check the HOWTO (Score:2)
Slackware Zipslack (Score:1)
Done it with OpenBSD (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing I've found helpful was to do it first on a harddrive set only for this (trying to boot it, recompiling and all), and then burning the CD. The first time I tried it, I was making it on top of another intallation and that got me tunning the former installation, which had nothing to do with my intended CD, just to cleanly compile it all.
Take a look at this article [daemonnews.org] and man mfs.
Check the distribution list (Score:1)
Easily make your own, custom... (Score:1)
From the web site: BBLCD is a toolkit for building your own bootable Linux CD from your favorite (and possibly customized) distribution. It is more or less an intelligent cp -a /
The current stable version is fully functional. I have tested it with SuSE 7.x, Red-Hat 7 and Debian 2.2. I have user reports that it also works with Red-Hat 6.2. In fact, it would surprise me if it didn't work with any distribution, but there are so many around, so you never know.
Knoppix (Score:2, Informative)
Germans never cease to amaze me!
So go try knoppix [knopper.net] now!
It's autodetection is incredible, you can save state/prefs to floppy between boots, and it's very VERY up-to-date.
ClosedBSD (Score:1)
Telemetrybox (Score:1)
I recently used it to change permissions on a directory that got screwed up on a linux based NAS unit. I was very pleased.
I rolled this myself a few months ago (Score:2)
You'll need some custom init scripts that don't require
This isn't very detailed, but it should get the point across on how to go about implementing.
LNX-BBC (Score:1)
http://www.lnx-bbc.org/
that is designed to fit in your wallet!
Knoppix (Score:1)
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
Jesus christ. (Score:2)
Or has Ask Slashdot become "Ask Slashdot For Help Using a Search Engine"?
- A.P.
Re:Jesus christ. (Score:1)
Google is great and I use it all the time. Sometimes it is better to have a discussion about people's experiences. Sure he/she could have used Google but would some of the solutions discussed have been found? It's always good to get some good tips in one place which is something that Google doesn't do.
The results would show a bunch of straight-forward CD-booting distros but wouldn't have come up with any of the more creative solutions. Google has a HUGE number of websites indexed but it is by no means complete.
Been done lots of times (Score:1)
How do you mount rw /var and /etc on top of ro / (Score:2)
because you can't mount a read/write
read-only root. Am I missing something here?
I want to do the same thing with compact FLASH for various
embedded applications (the car MP3 player I want to build, etc.)
That is writeable but it has limited life, so it would be best to
mount it read-only most of the time.
Make your own (Score:1)
Basically, you set up a partition with a linux distro, customize it all you want, make sure it's smaller then 650M, and tell the program to burn it to a cd.