Linux goes from many to a multitude

Network World
February 07, 2005 12:02 AM ET

. What's this?

"More! More!" we hear you shout, and we obey. Yea, verily, ask and ye shall get more Linux stuff . . . even though our editor can hardly contain his enthusiasm.

This week, some more feedback and some crucial, vital, incredibly important stuff. Well, we think it's cool, anyway.

Reader Lee Mulvogue from Australia (yes, Gearhead is terribly international you know) pointed out the information on the Damn Small Linux site is outdated and the biggest change "is that DSL now has Firefox built-in as its primary browser. A few other things have been dropped or changed, e.g. [the scite text editor] has been replaced."

Reader Don Janeway (who may be international, but we're not sure) wrote to ask, "I have an old Dell laptop which does not provide for booting from the CD. You mentioned a floppy boot disk. What is this, and where do I get one?"

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Don, it depends on which version of Knoppix you use. For Versions 3.4 or later, here's the recipe: First you need to download a Knoppix ISO image from a site on the list of mirrors or via BitTorrent .

The file you need will be named KNOPPIX_Vx.x-yyyy-mm-dd-EN.iso, where x.x is the version number (usually the higher, the better), yyyy-mm-dd is the release date and EN indicates the English language version (if you prefer another tongue, find the file with correct country code). Now burn that ISO image onto a CD. Next, butter it lightly and put it into a pre-heated oven at . . . nah, just kidding.

Find a friend with a machine that can boot the Knoppix CD, and when the system comes up, click on the K Menu, then the "Knoppix" menu item, then "Utilities," and finally, "Create boot floppies for Knoppix." Follow the instructions. You'll need two floppies to create the bootable system. When the floppies are cooked, test 'em by rebooting with the first floppy you created in the floppy drive and follow instructions.

For Knoppix Version 3.3, you can follow the instructions for Knoppix-customize. This site has a lot more helpful (although often rather complex) pages, including ways to solve the boot problem for pre-Version 3.4 systems that you can find through the likes of Google. (Don: We hope that answers your question.)

Bootable Linux CDs are known as "Live CDs," and there is a tremendous amount of open source development work going on to create different Live CDs for different purposes.

Reader Ryan Todd recommended checking out DocFinder: 5734 for a story that discusses the merits and shortcomings of 18 different Live CDs. We were rather intrigued by what the author, James LaRue, had to say about PCLinuxOS, which "is an offshoot of Mandrake . . . that has it all: polish, configuration tools, a KDE desktop that seems designed for someone who wants to work, not just show off the software."

LaRue continues: "The best part is that it's all preconfigured . . . you get even more current software than Mandrake. The difference is PCLOS is more tightly integrated and, in my experience, more stable."

And then there's the BeatrIX system which LaRue describes as "a sleeper. It's Knoppix (for hardware recognition), then Ubuntu [yet another Live CD] with one more cycle of focus and distillation. Pop in the Live CD [which fits on a mini-disc], and put it in front of a computer user who has never seen Linux. They won't know or care . . . it is quick, uses industry standard applications and is synched to the gold mine of Ubuntu repositories. This is the CD I carry around with me. The Web site bills this gem as 'Small, Simple and Elegant.' It's true."