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Bodhi Linux: Enlightened Ubuntu

Jack Wallen — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 19:13:31 +0000

If you’ve followed me long enough, you know I have a soft spot for the Enlightenment desktop. I have gone to all lengths to make sure my distribution of choice has either E16 or E17 installed for those days when I just need a little enlightenment. Those days are many. Fortunately there are plenty of others out there who feel the same, and the Enlightenment desktop benefits from this.

You will find many distributions dedicated to Enlightenment. One of those is the new Bodhi Linux. This distribution offers the E17 desktop on top of Ubuntu 10.04, so it melds a lightweight desktop on top of an efficient operating system. As you can expect, this distro is lean and mean.

System requirements

Certainly this distribution would have some fairly low requirements. That assumption is exactly correct. The requirements are:

300mhz i386 Processor
128megs of RAM
1.5g HD space

Think that out of date machine you have sitting around can handle that?

Why yet another distribution?

This question is not always the easiest to answer. As there are already distributions dedicated to the Enlightenment desktop, one wonders why bother create another? The reasons the Bohdi developers set out to create yet another distribution are twofold:

Enlightenment
User choice

As you well know, Ubuntu will soon be making the switch to the Unity desktop. When this happens users will be happy to know they have a choice – they can go with what Canonical offers or they can opt to go a different route. For those that want to stick with Ubuntu, but aren’t happy with Unity…there is a choice and that choice is Bohdi and Ubuntu.

Features

Ubuntu 10.04 core.
Enlightenment E17 desktop.
Dark and light themes.
Kernel 2.6.35-22.
Firefox 4 beta 10

And much more.

Why you should try Bodhi

If you have been looking for a distribution that focuses on a lightweight, feature-rich desktop that strays from the normal desktop metaphor, you need to give Bohdi a try. If you’re a fervent Ubuntu user but are unhappy with the options that will be available to you when 11.04 is released, you should give Bodhi a try. If you just want to experience something different – yes, you should give Bohdi a try.

It’s new, is it stable?

If you are concerned about stability, you should know that the melding of two very stable pieces of software (Ubuntu 10.04 and E17) should certainly result in a stable environment. I have to say, of the various Enlightenment-based distros I have tried over the years, Bohdi Linux is, by far, the most stable and usable. Even when Compositing is turned on, Bohdi still runs like a seasoned veteran distribution.

What does it look like?

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows a sample of the Bohdi Linux desktop (using the Light theme). As you can see it’s a very clean desktop with plenty of features (including the Linux pager, a handy clock and calendar widget, an included shelf and “notification area” (created by using a second shelf).

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a distribution to showcase the Enlightenment desktop environment, you can not go wrong with Bohdi Linux. With the foundation of Ubuntu 10.04 and E17, it’s made for speed, stability, and user-friendliness.

Use Webconverger For Secure Web Browsing

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:04:05 +0000

Internet users have a few choices when it comes to secure web browsing. It begins with modifications in the web browser, like installing the NoScript add-on to block all scripts from loading on websites, over sandboxing the browser like Sandboxie does, to virtual machines and Live CDs.

Webconverger belongs to the Live CD group, with a few differences though. The software has been designed initially for kiosk usage but can be used for all web browsing needs. The software is derived from Debian and uses Firefox with Adobe Flash and pdf reading support.

The distribution has been hardened in several ways. It boots for instance directly into the web browser ignoring any hard drives on the computer system it is booted from. The web browser and underlying operating system are stored in memory which means that no data can be passed on to the local system.

This environment is ideal for Internet banking, financial transactions, shopping and business related web browsing. Webconverger limits the possibility to fall pray to certain attack forms on the Internet. It is for instance not possible to be infected (permanently) with a trojan or worm considering that the malicious code cannot store itself in another location but the computer memory.

The usual precautions still have to apply though as it is for instance still possible to snoop on the network traffic in a browsing session. Users who only open the secure websites of the services they want to interact with should be save however (unless the site has been hacked).

Webconverger should run on most computer systems that have a CD-ROM drive. The software runs for example on a Pentium 3s with 128MB of RAM. Webconverger is available for download at the official project website. The distribution is offered in ISO format which means that users need to burn it to CD or DVD before they can use it.

Linux Live USB Creator

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:19:56 +0000

One of the greatest options to test out a Linux distribution is to create a Live CD and use that to boot the operating system from. That way, no changes are made to the current system, and the user is still able to test Linux extensively. Then, when the user feels comfortable using the operating system, it can be easily installed next to existing systems, or even as the only new system on the computer.

Most Linux distributions are provided as disk image files, so that they can be burned easily to CD or DVD. Some users on the other hand need to put the distributions on USB instead, for instance if they have a mobile device like a netbook without CD or DVD drive.

The free portable software Linuxe Live USB Creator offers one of the easiest options to create a Linux USB stick. The program displays all available options directly in its interface. Most importantly the option to create the bootable USB device from a disk image, CD or by downloading it.

The download option is probably the best for new users, as it is integrated in the software so that no external files are needed to create the live CD.

linux live cd creator

The whole process is completed in five steps. In step one, the usb key is selected from the list of available drives. Then the Linux distribution source is selected. A lot of Linux downloads are included if download is selected, from Ubuntu and variants, to Debian and Fedora variants to specialized Live CDs for security or recovery purposes. More than 50 different distributions and Live CDs are offered for download.

Users who do not find their distribution in the list have to download it separately to use it for the creation of the Live CD. The selected distribution will be checked by the Linux Live USB Creator. In step 3, the persistence of the data can be configured. The default value of 0 Megabytes has the same effect as a Live CD, which is that no data is written to the USB device. The benefit of sparing storage for persistence is that settings and preferences will be saved and are available even after reboots. Definitely something to consider if the distribution is tested or used on more than one occasion.

Step 4 can be used to configure some options, like formatting the USB device in FAT32 before copying the distribution on it. Finally, in step 5 the Live USB distribution is created.

The main advantage of Linux Live USB Creator is its ease of use, and the integration of many many distributions in the program. The program actually offers another feature that may appeal to Windows users: Virtualization of Linux Live in Windows. This basically allows the user to run Linux in Windows without making changes to the computer’s boot order or file structure.

Linux Live USB Creator is available from the developer’s website. It should run on most 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows without problems.

Create your own customized Ubuntu Live CD

Jack Wallen — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:03:20 +0000

Here on Ghacks I have mentioned a few tools that allow you to create various types of Linux CDs. Most of these tools allow you to create Live CDs that are either images of your current working distribution or tools to create a Live CD with special packages. But none of these tools, so far, have allowed you to really get customized with your Live CD. You can’t specify desktop backgrounds or other configuration options. These are tasks that can really make creating a customized Live CD worth the effort.

In this article I am going to show you how to take a downloaded Ubuntu 9.10 iso image, mount it, customize it, and rebuild the Live CD from your newly customized image. This process can be time consuming, but is worth it. This entire process will be done from the command line, so get your fingers ready to type.

The first thing you are going to need is an ISO image of a recent release. So hop on over to Ubuntu’s web site and download a fresh copy of 9.10. Once that is done you are ready to get to work.

Before you continue with the customization, you need to install some tools that will be necessary. From the command line issue this command:

sudo aptitude install squashfs-tools genisoimage

Now create an empty directory that will be used to work with the ISO image. Let’s create this in your users home directory, so issue the command:

mkdir ~/LIVECD

Now move that freshly downloaded iso image to the new directory and get ready to work.

The first thing to do is to mount the ISO image with the command. You will need to create a subdirectory to mount the image to, so issue the command:

mkdir ~/LIVECD/mount

Now mount the iso with the command:

sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso ~/LIVECD/mount/

Now you will need to create yet another directory that you will then extract the contents of ~/LIVECD/mount to. Issue the command:

mkdir ~/LIVECD/extract-cd

And then extract with the command:

rsync --exclude=/casper/filesystem.squashfs -a mnt/ extract-cd

Now extract the squashfs file system with the command:

sudo unsquashfs mount/casper/filesystem.squashfs

sudo mv squashfs-root edit

The former of the above two commands will take some time. That is normal.
If you will need network access with this system (and you probably will) you will need to edit the /etc/resolv.conf file so it has the proper DNS addresses. To do this just copy your current working resolve.conf file into the ~/LIVECD/edit/etc directory with the command:

sudo cp /etc/resolve.conf ~/LIVECD/edit/etc/

Now to mount some important directories on your system:

sudo mount --bind /dev/ edit/dev sudo chroot edit mount -t proc none /proc mount -t sysfs none /sys mount -t devpts none /dev/pts

It will be very important later on to unmount these directories.

Next we make it so we avoid any locale issues and allow us to import GPG keys (if necessary) we issue the commands:

export HOME=/root

export LC_ALL=C

Now you can view all packages installed on the mounted ISO with the command:

dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package}\n' | sort -nr | less

You can go through that list and delete any package you don’t want on the Live CD with the command:

aptitude purge PACKAGE_NAME

Where PACKAGE_NAME is the name of the package you want to remove. You can then install new packages on the Live CD by issuing the command:

aptitude install PACKAGE_NAME

Where PACKAGE_NAME is the name of the package to install.

What about desktop background images? Yes, you can customize this as well. If you look at the file /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu-wallpapers.xml you will see where the default background is configured. You can edit that file, but then you will have to make sure the .png file you want to use is located in /usr/share/gconf/defaults/16_ubuntu-wallpapers.

You can also edit the /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml file to make any additional customization changes (fonts, colors, panel options, etc) within that file. Understand that what this file is a blank file which you will add new default values to. If you would rather just use the gconftool to edit these values you can do so with a command like:

gconftool-2 –direct –config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults –type string –set KEY “VALUE”

Where KEY is the key you want to change and VALUE is the value to set for the key.

There are a ton of other possible configurations you can undertake here. But for the scope of this article, we’ll leave it with what we have.

It’s time to make sure to remove any temporary files that might be left behind from any package installation with the command:

aptitude clean

You can also remove the /etc/resolv.conf file you added with the command:

rm /etc/resolv.conf

Time to unmount the directories:

umount /proc umount /sys umount /dev/pts exit sudo umount edit/dev

Put it all back together

Now it’s time to piece everything back together. First you have to regenerate the manifest:

chmod +w extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest sudo chroot edit dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} ${Version}\n' > extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest sudo cp extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop sudo sed -i '/ubiquity/d' extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop sudo sed -i '/casper/d' extract-cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop

Now to compress the file system:

sudo rm extract-cd/casper/filesystem.squashfs sudo mksquashfs edit extract-cd/casper/filesystem.squashfs

The above command will take some time.

Now open up the ~/LIVECD/extract-cd/README.diskdefines file and make any necessary changes.

The next step requires you to remove the old md5 sums and calculate new sums. Do this with the following commands:

cd extract-cd sudo rm md5sum.txt find -type f -print0 | xargs -0 md5sum | grep -v isolinux/boot.cat | sudo tee md5sum.txt

Now it’s time to create the ISO image. Do that with the following commands:

sudo mkisofs -D -r -V "$IMAGE_NAME" -cache-inodes -J -l -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o ../ubuntu-9.04.1-desktop-i386-custom.iso .

Now, in the ~/LIVECD directory you will have your new ISO to burn to disk and use.

Congratulations, you just created your own customized Ubuntu Live CD!

Mandriva 2010 installation walk through

Jack Wallen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:42:17 +0000

Mandriva is another one of the Linux distributions that has been around for quite some time. Beginning as Mandrake Linux, the company MandrakeSoft was forced to change its name when sued by the Hearst Corporation because of the claims that Mandrake Linux was inspired by their comic character “Mandrake the Magician”. So the change in name happened in 2005, but the name change wasn’t the only change in 2005. At the same time Mandriva acquired Lycoris and Conectiva. So Mandriva Linux became a combination of Mandrake Linux and Conectiva Linux.
Because of these changes, the Mandriva of today is not the Mandrake of yesterday. The latest version of Mandriva (named 2010) is a modern take on the Linux distribution and in this article you are going to be treated to a walk through of the installation. NOTE: This installation will be done via VirtualBox, so some of the information you might see may or may not apply to your installation.
This installation will be accomplished with the help of the Live CD. You can download the Live CD from the Mandriva download page. You will notice, on that page, there are a number of different downloads. For this installation the download you want is the One 2010 download. Once you have downloaded that Live CD and burned it onto disk, put that disk in your target machine’s disk drive and reboot the machine.
Unlike most Live CDs, with the Mandriva Live CD you will have to answer some questions as well as agree to a EULA. This always takes me by surprise, but it’s a necessity if you want to boot up Mandriva. So agree to that EULA and boot up the Live distro.
Once you are up and running you will see the Install icon on the desktop. Double click that icon to begin the installation. And, of course, the first screen you will see is the inevitable “Welcome” screen. You can just click the Next button to actually begin the installation.
Figure 1
Partitioning
The first work you will have to take care of is the partitioning of your drive. Figure 1 shows the user-friendly configuration tool. With this tool you can either choose to use the free space (the easiest method), or you can create your own, custom partition configuration. As you can see (in Figure 1) this is being installed on a Virtual hard drive 16 Gigs in size. Since this space hasn’t been partitioned, it sees it as free space. So I will select the Free Space option and click the Next button.
Unused hardware support
Figure 2
This is a feature unique to the Mandriva installation. Once you have partitioned the hard drive the installation will compare the available hardware against the installable packages. Any packages that would not be used by the available hardware are not installed. This ensures your kernel will not be loading unused modules which will only slow down boot process, take up space, and use battery. Figure 2 shows the this screen. Just click Next and allow this process to happen. This will take some time (depending upon the speed of your hardware and the amount of packages that will not be installed).
Figure 3
Installation progress
After you hit the Next button you will immediately see the installation progress window (see Figure 3). Depending upon your hardware, this could take some time. Of course you will also be greeted by different information windows during this step. You will learn nothing new by watching…so grab yourself a soda or go play some WoW for a bit and come back when the installation progress reaches its goal.
Figure 4
Bootloader
After all of the packages have been installed you will have to deal with the bootloader installation. Your best bet is to stick with the defaults. If you load the bootloader on the wrong disk your installation will not boot.
As soon as you click the Next button you can then add, delete, or modify all of the entries in your boot menu. This is another section of the installation process that you should leave to the defaults. The only reason you would want to modify any of this information is if you are dual booting or you need to pass specific parameters to Grub for one of your entries. But more than likely, this step will be left to the defaults, so just click the Next button in this window as well.
The final installation window is the bookend for the Welcome screen – the Congratulation screen. This window will inform you to remove your Live CD and reboot your machine. Do this to complete the installation process.
Final steps
Figure 5
Of course you are not completely finished. Did you notice something missing from the installation process? No root password was created and no users were created. Both of these steps are taken care of post-installation. In fact, both configurations are taken care of in one screen (see Figure 5).
After you complete this step, click the Next button only to find yourself on one more screen. This final screen wants you to register with Mandriva, take a survey, and contribute to Mandriva. You can decline all of this if you like by scrolling down and clicking the Decline buton.
After you either decline or complete the various optional information you will finally get to log into your newly installed Mandriva 2010 Linux installation. congratulations, you are the proud user of an outstanding, user-friendly Linux box.

Remastersys: Outstanding solution for backup and custom Live CDs

Jack Wallen — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:07:58 +0000

Recently a Ghacks reader mentioned (in my “Create your own mobile Ubuntu repository with APTonCD” article) the tool remastersys. This particular tool is a must-have for serious Ubuntu/Debian administrators, because it allows the user to create a Live CD of the installed Ubuntu or Debian system. This has two handy uses: As a backup for your system or as a Live CD of your system. As a backup it will allow you to re-install a fully customized system in the same, simple manner in which you installed your base system. As a Live CD it allows you to easily install a custom system on multiple machines without having to go through the process of installing a base and then installing all of the applications you need to create your custom system.
The only drawback (if you can call it a drawback) is that customizations such as themes, fonts, colors, etc are not configured by default. As a backup, Remastersys will copy all personal data. As a Live CD, Remastersys will include all installed applications, but not personal data. In this tutorial you will learn how to install Remastersys and create a backup and a Live CD version of your currently installed Ubuntu desktop.
Installing Remastersys
The first thing you will need to do is open up your /etc/apt/sources.list file in a terminal window. You will need to do this using the sudo nano /etc/aptsources.list command. Once that file is open add the following to the end of the file (depending upon your release):
For Gutsy and Earlier add the following:
# Remastersys deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository remastersys/
For Hardy and Newer add the following: # Remastersys deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository ubuntu/
Save that file and then issue the commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install remastersys
There will be some dependencies to install, so accept those and wait for the installation to complete.
Running remastersys
You will find the menu entry for Remastersys in the Administration sub-menu of the System menu. There you will see two entries: Remastersys Backup and Remastersys Grub Restore. The entry you want is Remastersys Backup. When you first start Remastersys you will get a warning that you must close all other windows as well as unmount any network shares. Naturally this makes for complicating the process of taking screenshots, but when using Linux – we have ways.
Figure 1
The main window of Remastersys is very simple (see Figure 1). You have a window with a number of options to select from. To create a Live CD click the “Make a Distributable copy to share with friends” and then click OK. To create a backup of your current running system (which will include all personal data) click “Backup Complete System” and click OK.
Let’s examine the process of creating a backup. You will want to make sure you have all windows, but Remastersys, closed. Select “Backup Complete System” and click OK. When you click OK the main window will disappear to be replaced by a terminal window. The rest of the process will occur within this terminal window. Depending on how large your system is, the creation of the .iso will take some time (and many CPU cycles). Do not do anything on your machine during this process.
Once the iso is created you will be informed the iso file can be found within /home/remastersys/remastersys. The file name will be custom.iso (unless you have changed the name by using the “Modify the remastersys config file” option before you create your backup or Live CD.
Once the process is complete you will need to burn your iso onto DVD. Most likely your backup will not fit on a CD. You can burn your ISO using the handy K3B tool (For a tutorial on burning ISOs with K3B check out my article, “Burn CD and DVD ISO images with K3B“.) After the DVD is burned you will have a perfect backup of your system, including configurations and personal data.
Final thoughts
If you are looking for a nearly foolproof means of backing up your Ubuntu system, you have most likely found it. Remastersys is an outstanding tool that will create backups and Live CDs of your currently running system.

Fedora Live USB Creator

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:53:49 +0000

Fedora Linux is a popular Linux distribution. It can be installed on a computer system or started from a Live CD or USB stick. The Fedora Live USB Creator aids users in the creation of the Fedora operating system on an USB stick.
The tool will setup Fedora on the USB stick giving the user the option to either select an already present Fedora distribution on the local computer system or to download one of the available Fedora distributions from the Internet. Available distributions include the latest Fedora 11 Beta, Fedora 10 and 9 as well as Sugar On A Stick. The Fedora 11, 10 and 9 editions can be installed as both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Sugar On A Stick has been designed to give children access to a computer system. The downloads can take a while depending on the connection speed of the local computer system and the selected Fedora distribution. Another interesting option is the allocation of persistent storage on the USB device which can later be used to store data on the USB device itself.
The tool will automatically detect connected USB devices that are suitable for installation. The Fedora Live USB Creator is available for both the Linux and Windows operating system. Jack posted an interesting article a while ago about Linux Live CDs that is a good read for users starting to discover Linux.

Get To Know Linux: Live CD

Jack Wallen — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:57:38 +0000

I have mentioned, many times, various Live CDs to use for giving Linux a try or installing Linux. I have had some feedback asking to explain just what a Live CD is. Some users are hesitent to use a Live CD for fear of deleting their data or damaging their hard drive. My hope is that, upon reading this, your fears will subside and the Live CD will become a useful tool to aid you in your quest to get to know Linux.
What exactly is a Live CD? A Live CD is a CD (or flash drive) that contains a complete and bootable operating system that is run directly from the CD and not the hard drive. There are many types of Live CDs that serve different purposes. There are live distributions for repairing Windows or Linux systems (such as SystemRescueCD). There are live cds for nearly every Linux distribution that allow you to test and/or install the distribution (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, ELive). You can even do stress testing and benchmarking with Live CDs like Inquisitor. Or what about a complete, embedded firewall distribution m0n0wall.
Why Use a Live CD?
The main purpose of a Live CD is to test drive Linux. A Live CD runs directly from the CD and the PCs RAM and does not even need a hard disk to run. Because of this, you can rest assure that a Live CD is not going to alter your hard disk unless you actually choose to install the Live CD onto your drive.
There are many reasons why a Live CD would be preferred. For instance, hardware diagnostics. I have employed Puppy Linux on numerous occassions in order to get information on a piece of hardware or test to see if a piece of hardware is working. I have also used that same Live distribution to run older machines where only certain functions are necessary. Live CDs are also great choices for cafes where you want to start with a clean slate every day. Another great use for a Live CD is when a machine has no mutable storage (a hard drive) and you want to run the computer as a pseudo “dumb terminal” or “thin client”. This would allow users to execute certain tasks so long as they didn’t need to save any work.
But what if you want to save information? For that you can use the flash drive-based Live distributions. With a large enough flash drive the user can also save data as well as run the operating system. If you’re looking for a pre-installed solution Mandriva has the Mandriva Flash Drive which has 6 gigs of free space for data.
One of the best reasons for using a Live distribution, in my opinion, is testing to see if that distribution works well with the hardware you have. I have one particular laptop that, when it comes time to upgrade operating systems, I wind up burning numerous distributions onto CD and running each one of them until one of them can work with the finicky hardware on that machine.
Drawbacks
One of the biggest drawbacks of using a Live CD is the speed. Remember, you are running this from RAM so the amount of RAM the machine has (as well as the speed of the CD drive) will determine how fast your Live CD distribution will run. So a machine with low RAM will run poorly. This isn’t such an issue if you are planning on installing immediately. But using the Live CD on a low-RAM machine will be painfully slow.
The other drawback was already mentioned, unless you are using a flash drive-based Live distribution, you can not save data. If you are only testing the distribution out to see if you like it, that’s not a problem.
Final Thoughts
Live CDs are here to stay. They have many uses and few drawbacks. If you are hesitant to use a Live CD because you don’t want to lose data, you shouldn’t worry about that (unless you accidentally click the installation button and accidentally click through all of the steps to install the operating system.)

Ubuntu Privacy Remix

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:18:40 +0000

Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a live CD that is based on Ubuntu 8.04 currently. The sole purpose of this Ubuntu spin off is to create a secure working environment for private data. This is achieved by several measures that distinguish the Ubuntu Privacy Remix distribution from any other.
The operating system will only boot from CD which means that its data cannot be altered by malware or other forms of malicious software. It furthermore ignores local hard drives completely so that no data can be read or written to those storage devices.
A modified system kernel ensures that no network hardware can be activated which means that there is no possibility for connections to the Internet, local area network or other types of external connections. The only way to work with data is by using extended True-Crypt volumes which can be used to save system configurations and user data. (read working with extended True-Crypt volumes for additional information)
The Ubuntu Privacy Remix Live CD can be downloaded directly from the project’s homepage. The disk ISO image has a size of 688 Megabytes and has to be burned to CD after the download. A GnuPG signatur is available for verification.

Run Linux Live CDs In Windows

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:52:47 +0000

Testing Linux distributions could not be easier already. All it usually takes is to burn the image of the Linux distribution to CD and boot from the CD to experience that distribution. There is not a possibility to save configuration data usually but that is not the point of Live CDs which provide a testing environment without installation. They do serve other purposes as well, for instance booting into a secure environment on a computer.
An alternative to burning Live CDs would be MobaLiveCD which is an application for Windows operating systems that emulates the process using Qemu. This essentially means that Windows users can run Linux live CDs in Windows without having to burn them to CD first and boot the computer from the CD afterwards.
This means it offers a quick way of testing a Live CD without having to boot the computer. It actually takes only two clicks to start a Linux live CD in Windows with Moba Live CD. This obviously requires a Live CD in ISO format on the computer. A good repository for Linux Live CDs is the LiveCD List.
The live CD is loaded in a window and the user can interact with that Linux distribution normally.
Emulation has the downside that running the Linux live CD in Windows cannot be used to determine hardware compatibility. Another problem is that emulation is always slower than booting from the live CD directly. Speed is probably the main concern for most users especially for those with older hardware. If a user keeps those two aspects in mind he should be able to get the full experience from Moba Live CD.

Testdisk – A Free Data Recovery CD

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:40:52 +0000

Ever encountered a problem on your computer that made it impossible to access a partition or complete hard drive ? Or something that erased your Master Boot Record which meant that you were not able to boot your operating system as usual ? Something like this could happen if you try to install a new operating system to dual boot both systems for example. If you do not know what caused this and do not know tools that can fix this your only option is to install the operating system again.
Testdisk, which is a open source data recovery tool, might be the tool you need when you encounter a situation like the one described above. Testdisk will only help if the errors are software based, if you encounter a problem that is hardware based you are out of luck. Just download the version of Testdisk that is offered for your operating system and execute it. If you can’t boot the system you might want to use the gparted linux distribution instead which includes testdisk and can be booted from CD. (recommended)
Please note that you need to know what you are doing, you should have at least basic knowledge about partitions, file systems and the like to proceed using a tool like testdisk. You might erase data on other partitions otherwise. After selecting wether you would like to create a new log, append to an existing log or use no log you have to choose one of the hard drives that is currently connected to your computer.
You might want to disconnect other hard drives from your computer to avoid mistakes that could erase the data on that drives. Select a partition type afterwards, Intel/PC, Apple, None, Sun and Xbox.
After that you have many options – all of them are explained in great detail in the testdisk wiki. You may analyse the partition which displays partitions and searches for lost ones, write a test MBR, change the disk geometry, erase all data and access advanced filesystem utilities for Fat, NTFS and EXT2/EXT3 which leads to options to repair the partitions.

Anonym.OS LiveCD

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:26:19 +0000

Kaos.theory’s Anonym.OS LiveCD is a bootable live cd based on OpenBSD that provides a hardened operating environment whereby all ingress traffic is denied and all egress traffic is automatically and transparently encrypted and/or anonymized. The size of the live cd is 575 megabytes which makes it almost only available for broadband users. Still it´s a good way to surf “relatively” anonymous and leave no traces on the computer that you are using.

Damn Small Linux 2.2 released

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:22:56 +0000

Seems a lot of my favorite tools and distributions come out in new versions these days. Damn Small Linux is a Linux distribution that is only 50 megabytes in size. It can be used as a live CD, means you can boot it from cd once you burned it to one. (Is also able to run from usb and from within windows).
The distribution is perfect for older computers, I don´t think lots of people are using computers that do not meet the minimum specs. Should run fine on every Pentium or AMD cpu with 16 or more ram. Has also the ability to run fully in ram, you only need 128 megs for this feature. Check it out, its worth a try.

Linux Live CD for Windows Users

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:23:48 +0000

I know what some of you might be thinking right now. I´am using windows, everything is fine, why should I download and burn a linux live cd ? Whats my gain ? Its partially true of course, for most of the time windows is a pretty stable system but sometimes one encounters small problems that might lead to big ones. For example windows crashes and does not load up anymore, not even in save mode.
If you only use windows your choice number one would be to install a new copy and reinstall all your software probably. This is lots of work and might take some hours, hours that you might be able spare if you would have a linux live cd. A live cd is nothing more than a complete linux operating system on one cd or dvd disc. It won´t use your hard drives, which makes it ideal for lots of occasions. You have an important email that you want to send but windows won´t start or crashes immediatly ? You want to surf anonymously without leaving traces on your hard drives ?
I will give a brief overview of one liux live cd that i analysed , a complete list of more than 50 is available at FrozenTech’s LiveCD List
Kanotix:
The Kanotix cd comes with a lof of useful features, it supports IDE, SATA and Raid hard disks, supports Fat32 and NFTS, is able to perform system (hd, ram, file) and security tests, is able to partition drives and can reset windows passwords. It also comes with an office suit, email, browsing and the like.
Comes of course with a virus scanner, intrusion detection system, is able to restore data and can create images of hard disks.
And the best thing, you can simply download and burn it, and then try it out to see if you feel comfortable using it. You can even make backups before something happens to your windows system, pretty handy and recommended.

Why Every Windows User Needs a Linux Live CD

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:04:00 +0000

Help2go has some useful information about why every windows user needs a linux live cd. First, you need it if you need information out of your computer and windows seems to have a problem starting or behaves abnormally just in the moment you need it most.
The rescue comes in form of a free linux live cd which boots from cd and normally does not change a thing on your hard drives. You will have lots of handy tools at your disposal, email, browser, word processing to name a few.
You can then finish your work using the linux tools and fix the windows problem later on (probably a re-installation anyway). Simply download one of the free iso files mentioned in the article of help2go and burn it to a cd. Make sure you check it out before the first problem occurs.