[ossig] Linux live cds - "Unix is hard to install"

[Mukhsein Johari <pythonium@yahoo.com>]

Yeah. Hard to say with conviction these days.

Well, I've been playing with a few live linux cds and
I have to say they have improved by leaps and bounds
since they first came out.

Knoppix is perhaps the most famous
(http://www.knoppix.org/)
It now takes less time to boot than it did before. It
really is a full-featured linux. Unbelievable to many
- until you boot it on their PCs! :-)

Knoppix is based on Debian.

Another is (or rather was), Slackware-Live. It has
since been renamed to Slax (http://www.slax.org/)
Slax, is of course, based on Slackware. Slax however,
is slightly less 'featured' taking up around 180MB -
fits on an 8mm disc (the smaller than normal cds). The
disk and case is about the size of a floppy. Which
makes it very handy - handier than knoppix, somewhat.

Both the above are kde-centric (if you launch X). If
you prefer GNOME, you'd want to try Gnoppix
(http://www.gnoppix.org/) Not as well tested or as
vibrant as knoppix, though (last news item was in
November). 

The longbeards on the lists will remember when we had
install-fests and also remember giving away linux cds
at certain events.  Now we don't even have to have
install-fests to get people to try linux. Simply hand
them a live-cd and they can try _without_risk_ linux
with office software _preinstalled_ and with most
hardware, zero config.

Linux certainly has come a _very_ long way in the last
5 years or so. I would suggest that we have enough CDs
burned to give to each participant the next time we
hold "intro to linux/open source" workshops or
classes. I understand it's "paid" now, right? So we
could give them a CD each to take home and try what
they learned right away - without affecting their
current windows setup.

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