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A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Jan 08, 2002  By Richard Vernon
 in
It's not the first, but it's the newest Linux that you can run without a hard drive.

Zeebra Linux recently announced the availability of the Zeebra Linux CD--a version of Linux that runs from CD, without requiring a hard disk installation.

The CD includes applications for word processing, audio, video, graphics, Internet (browser, mail client etc.), and compilers and editors for development.

The target audience embraces new Linux users who want to experiment before actually installing Linux on their hard drives and those who can benefit from a portable version of Linux, such as schools, where the same hardware might be required to run other operating systems.

Zeebra is not the first to develop a bootable, complete Linux distribution on CD. Linux Journal readers may remember an article by Jordi Bataller, a Spanish university professor. Professor Bataller also developed a bootable Linux CD, called Maragda, motivated by the desire to use Linux in his university on hardware that was carted around to different classrooms for a variety of purposes and needed to retain its original OS.

The latest version of Maragda is based on Debian 2.2r2 and can be downloaded here. An earlier Red Hat 6.2 version is also still available. As Professor Bataller's article explains, the Maragda CD includes:

the base system, printer support, the X Window System, the VGA16 and framebuffer X servers, GNOME (or you can edit .xinitrc and uncomment the line for the window manager you like the most), network server workstation, authoring and publishing tools (LaTeX, etc.), Emacs, development tools (make, egcs, etc.), DOS/Windows connectivity, mail, WWW and news tools, and other packages such as rhide, ssh support and the JDK 1.2.

If anyone has experience with both the Maragda CD and Zeebra, or with Maragda but would be interested in experimenting with the Zeebra CD, we'd like to hear from you.

Richard Vernon is Editor in Chief of Linux Journal.

email: richard@ssc.com

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Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 03/08/2002 - 02:00.

As far as I can see the only option for obtaining Zeebra implementation is by paying for the CD. My question is whether or not that is a violation of GPL ?

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 03/08/2002 - 02:00.

Check this link out, it should answer that question: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

Cheers,

stryder144

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/18/2002 - 02:00.

You can checkout

http://www.linuxrouter.org

which is the linux router project which deals with linux routers from floppies.

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/16/2002 - 02:00.

It's not the first, but it's the newest Linux that you can run without a hard drive.

I'm not interested in the first, or the newest. But I would like to know of two or three succesful Linuxes that operate sans hd. Sounds perfect for use in a firewall or a router.

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/17/2002 - 02:00.

http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 01/29/2002 - 02:00.

http://demolinux.org/

Let's you demo the power of linux KDE GNOME or StarOffice for non-linux people. Multilingual versions available. NOT just a DEMO! You can "anchor" your preferences to a file in the hard drive.

htttp://go.to/linux1

linux1@usa.com

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/24/2002 - 02:00.

As quoted directly from their main page, http://www.freesco.org/

"FREESCO (stands for FREE ciSCO) is a free replacement for commercial routers supporting up to 3 ethernet/arcnet/token_ring/arlan network cards and up to 2 modems.

Why should you use Freesco?

Ease of use - it's insanely easy to set up

Thoroughly documented - it's more or less self contained, read one doc and you're off and running

Like most players in this field, it runs off one floppy

FreeSco runs in as little as 6 Mb RAM.

Unique Web Control Panel

Freesco is the easiest to use, one disk Linux system available."

Happy Routering!! ;-)

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/18/2002 - 02:00.

There are a couple of these boot-from-cd Linux on the http://www.linux.org/dist/ site. Devil-Linux (http://www.devil-linux.org) is a CD based firewall mini distribution. There is also a floppy based firewall from http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/ I haven't really used these other than to just 'play' so I can't attest to their use in any specific situation.

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/18/2002 - 02:00.

I think you should look into the smaller Linux distributions

then.

There is(was?) also some Linux router project allowing

you to run from a single floppy - which you could then

write protect ...

(with the bloated kernels these days I don't even know

if you can fit the kernel onto a floppy anymore :)

Henrik

Re: A New Bootable-from-CD Linux

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/17/2002 - 02:00.

there is a version for gateway/firewall that boots from floppy. may want to take a look.

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/Distributions...

there is also the live cd version from SuSE.