Posted by mady | Posted in VIRTUAL LINUX | Posted on 6:01 AM
VIRTUAL LINUX
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Definition
1.2. Features
1.3. Easy Upgrade
1.3.1. Five seconds upgrade
1.4. Requirements for “Live Linux CDROM”
1.5. Getting “Live Linux CDROM”
2. DEMOLINUX
2.1. Introduction to DemoLinux
2.2. Idea behind DemoLinux
2.3. Hardware requirements for DemoLinux
2.4. Using DemoLinux CD-ROM
2.4.1. Booting
2.4.2. Choosing the screen resolution
2.4.3. Choose the language and keyboard layout!
2.4.4. Using the disks
2.4.5. Anchoring on a hard disk
2.4.6. Computers without a floppy disk
2.4.7. Booting with graphical mode
2.5. Available versions of DemoLinux
2.6. DemoLinux 1.0
2.6.1. Source
2.6.2. Software on the CD
2.7. DemoLinux 2.0
2.7.1. Source
2.7.2. Known Bugs
2.8. DemoLinux 3.0
2.8.1. Source
2.8.2. Known Bugs
3. KNOPPIX
3.1. Introduction to knoppix
3.2. Minimum system requirements for knoppix
3.3. Creating knoppix
3.4. The compressed loopback device (cloop)
3.4.1. Format of compressed block device file
3.5. CDROM Contents
3.6. The Startup Scripts
3.6.1. For /linuxrc
3.6.2. For /etc/rc.d/sysinit
3.7. Platform and Applications
3.8. Technical Details:
3.8.1. Boot process: Stage 1
3.8.2. Boot process: Stage 2
3.8.3. Boot process: Stage 3
3.9. Security issues
3.10. Sources & Distribution
3.11. Features
4. DYNE BOLIC
4.1. Introduction to Dynebolic
4.2. Features
4.3. Requirements
4.4. Getting DYNE BOLIC
4.4.1. Download Options
4.4.2. Download Instructions
4.5. Redistribution
4.6. Authors & Sources
5. REMAINING ONES…
5.1. Other available “Live Linux CDROM” versions
5.2. Introduction to Virtual Linux
5.3. Sources
5.4. Features of Virtual Linux 1.1
6. BUILD YOUR OWN CD ROM
6.1. Starting up
6.2. Creating a test setup
6.3. Creating the CD
6.3.1. Creating the iso image
6.3.2. Verifying the iso image
6.3.3. Writing the actual CD
6.3.3.1. Further details
6.3.4. Testing
7.Links & Websites
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Definition
Bootable CDROMs with a small Linux rescue system in business card size or regular size live demonstration CDs are becoming popular recently. Open Source groups are developing self-running demos that are preconfigured for certain hardware, or contain a configuration front-end. Such efforts resulted in the "Live Linux CDROM".
The "Live Linux CDROM" is a CDROM, which has the entire file system of Linux Operating System on the CDROM; created copying the live Linux system on to CDROM. The "Live Linux CDROM" directly boots the Linux operating system from the CDROM drive. But you need to setup the BIOS to boot from CDROM first. Generally the boot order is: Floppy Drive, Hard disk, and CDROM. You can enter BIOS setup, by powering on the computer and pressing the DEL key.
1.2 Features
The "Live Linux CDROM" is becoming a reality because of the following reasons:
1. RAM prices are all time low and 512MB RAM costs very low.
2. CDROM drives are becoming extremely fast and current read speed is topping at 72X.
3. CDROM IDE drives are very cheap; CDROM with 52X read speed is available at low prices.
4. DVD-ROM is also getting very cheap and can carry 5 Gigabytes of Linux software and is three times faster than CDROM drive.
1.3 Easy upgrade
A big advantage of “Live Linux CDROM” over other methods of diskless operations like EEPROM is that it is very easy to setup and you can very easily upgrade the Linux CDROM with new versions of the Linux kernel every three months. Simply throw away the old “Live Linux CDROM” and pop in the new version “Live Linux CDROM”. Upgrade is just 20 seconds and. In near future, “Live Linux CDROM” & DVD-ROM will rule the computer desktops.
1.3.1 Five seconds upgrade:
“Live Linux CDROM” promotes RAPID Operating System UPGRADE. You can upgrade an OS in less than 5 seconds!! “Live Linux CDROM” introduces the concept of mass upgrade and RAPID ACTION. Simply throw away the old “Live Linux CDROM” and pop in new CDROM and you are done upgrading!
1.4 Requirements for “Live Linux CDROM”
With “Live Linux CDROM”, you do not need a hard disk, floppy drives and others. All you need to build a diskless workstation is:
1. “Live Linux CDROM”
2. CPU
3. Mother board
4. NIC (Network Interface Card) (Not compulsory!)
5. CDROM drive (IDE or SCSI)
6. RAM (32 MB minimum for full graphics and 16 MB minimum for console mode)
1.5 Getting “Live Linux CDROM”
The "Live Linux CDROM" can be obtained from
· DemoLinux
www.demolinux.org
· Knoppix
www.knopper.net/knoppix
· DyneBolic
http://lab.dyne.org/DyneBolic
· Virtual Linux
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-linux
· Linux - Live on CD
http://www.ocslink.com/~blunier
· SUSE Live Eval Linux
Suse live-eval & http://www.suse.com/download
CHAPTER 2
DEMOLINUX
2.1 Introduction to DemoLinux
The DemoLinux CD allow to use Linux without installation, disk partitioning or any other complex manipulation that still prevent many people from giving Linux a try. This CD does not install Linux on your hard disk, but it allows you to have an idea about Linux before you eventually decide to proceed with a full fledged installation.
This is made possible by a set of technical features in the Linux kernel and by some other free software (notably from S.u.S.E. and RedHat) that we use here.
2.2 Idea behind DemoLinux
The goal is to allow everybody to make by himself an idea of what Linux can offer, and also to provide software publishers with a means to give out easy to use, no-hassle demos of their Linux products.
The Demolinux CD is also a means of using Linux everywhere: you can take your favorite configuration with you in a CD, sit down in front of most PCs running another OS, boot from the CD and find yourself in front of your preferred environment in minutes.
2.3 Hardware requirements for DemoLinux
This allows you to get a running Linux system with a preconfigured desktop.
· An IBM-PC compatible computer with a CD-ROM drive (Atleast an ATAPI one with read speed greater than 32x, )
· RAM Requirement
o Default requiremnet is 64 MB.
o 32 MB for some versions of Demolinux.
o 16 MB is enough for Linux in text mode
o StarOffice requires atleast 128MB.
· A PS/2 or a serial mouse
The DemoLinux CD works with a great number of hardware configuration. But it may happen that certain devices (very old ones) are not recognized by this CD, but this dos not mean by any means that they are bound not to work with a full installation of Linux.
2.4 Using DemoLinux CD-ROM
2.4.1 Booting
The easiest way to go is just to boot off the CD-ROM driver. Most recent PCs allow this via a simple modification in the BIOS settings that you can access and modify at boot time by pressing some special key .Make sure the first boot device is the CD-Rom drive.
If you dont want ot follow this way, then you can boot using a boot floppy using the floppy image available on the CD, and then boot off the floppy. For that, start in DOS (or open an MSDOS window in your Windows) and insert the CD-Rom. (Assuming the CD is in drive D:)In the MSDOS window, type d:\suse and then d:\dosutils\rawrite. This program will ask you for a filename, type BOOT.IMG. Then it will ask for the name of the floppy drive, type A:. After a few minutes, you will have your boot floppy ready. Reboot the PC leaving floppy and CD-ROM in place.
2.4.2 Choosing the screen resolution
After booting your PC from CD-Rom or from the newly created floppy bisk, you will see a presentation page with a few information on the DemoLinux projects that you can access by pressing the F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 and F6 function keys (copyright, screen resolution infos etc.). The boot process will continue with a minimalist choice (640x480 screen resolution) only if you dont touch the machine for 10 full minutes.
Now you have to choose your screen resolution by typing one of 1024 800 or 640 at the
boot:
prompt on the lower left corner of the screen.
The manual that came with your monitor should clearly state which resolutions are supported. Choose preferably the resolution you regularly use on your machine. To get 1024x768, type 1024, to get 800x600, type 800, and for 640x480 type 640 (this is the default resolution).
2.4.3 Choose the language and keyboard layout!
After answering a couple of questions (language choice, keyboard layout), you will see a penguin coming up, followed by strange messages. Loading an OS from a CD is a much longer process than from a hard disk, so wait and after a few minutes you will see a graphical user interface called a "login panel".Click on the penguin (the 'demo' user) then on the 'Enter' button, leaving alone the password field.
2.4.4 Using the disks
The DemoLinux CD does not touch your disks. As the whole sistem is running off the CDROM, it is obviously impossible to install new applications or to modify most of the configuration files. The demo user has almost no right to write outside its own /home/demo directory and on hard disks or floppy disks.
You have only limited memory available when running off the CD without touching the hard disk, and this may cause problems if you run applications that try to create too big files... If some applications start to die abruptly, you have hit the limit: close all other applications and delete files you do not need in /home/demo or /tmp.
You may experience slow response times, especially when launching big applications. This is not a Linux defect, only a consequence of the CD-ROM being much slower than a hard disk. A normal installation of Linux on a hard disk would be much faster!
2.4.5 Anchoring on a hard disk
You can partially solve the space limitation problem if you accept to use your hard disk space which does not requier partitioning, just clicking on a couple of buttons). If you do that, you will have some real virtual memory (swap space) and a hard-disk based /home and /tmp. That way you may put much more data in your /home/demo directory, and, most important, find it again the next time you run the CD. The default values are 64Mb for swap and 32 MB for /home and /tmp respectively.
To anchor the CD, just click on the anchor icon on the bottom panel. This will launch a program that will show you the different partitions having enough space for this operation. The modifications will be operation the next time you boot from the CD. The anchor program just copies a few files in a linuxdmo directory on your disk, that take up only 100Mb. You can at any time erase this directory.
2.4.6 Computers without a floppy disk
Add the nofloppy option on the boot: line.
2.4.7 Booting with graphical mode
You can boot in text only mode (level 3 for the RedHat and Mandrake distribution) by giving the corresponding parameter on the boot line (example : boot: 1024 3 on a RedHat/Mandrake DemoLinux).
To anchor in text mode, run the script /etc/rc.d/cddemo/anchor.tcl (DemoLinux 1.0), or /.plomb/.demolinux/ancrage/ancrage-suid (DemoLinux 2.0 sqq)
When anchored, you can configure your own X server, for example if your graphic card doesn't work, or simply to have better performances.
2.5 Available versions of DemoLinux
Currently available versions of DemoLinux are
· DemoLinux 1.0
· DemoLinux 2.0
· DemoLinux 3.0
2.6 DemoLinux 1.0
2.6.1 Source
This first version is based on the Mandrake 5.3 distribution (which is in turn based on the RedHat one), but the technology upon which DemoLinux is based does not depend on any particular distribution : we have already some S.u.S.E. based CDs, for example.
2.6.2 Software on the CD
A great amount of software is already installed on the CD. You will be using the KDE environment, which is quite confortable: the panel at the bottom of the screen give acces to a few "virtual desktops", and allows you to launch a few applications. You will also find there, besides the "K" menu, icons to launch the KDE file manager, the image manipulation software "The Gimp", Netscape Communicator and Corel WordPerfect.
On the desktop one or more icons allow you to access the hard disks on your machine. These disks are also accessible to any application via a path looking like /mnt/hda1. The floppy disk drive (if you have one) is accessible as /mnt/floppy.
2.7 DemoLinux 2.0
2.7.1 Source
DemoLinux 2.0 includes the GNOME and KDE environments, Enlightenment, StarOffice, lots of games, development tools, and a full load of utilities. The current version is based on the Debian Potato prerelease version
A transparent data-compression schema allows DemoLinux 2.0 to provide you with more than 1 Gigabyte of programs and applications that you can immediatly use directly off a traditional 650Mb CD!
2.7.2 Known Bugs
· Loading from Windows works only if the CD-reader is well configurated in MS-DOS mode. Does it exist a loadlin for windows?
You can configure any device after anchoring or installation, using the standard method from the debian distribution.
2.8 DemoLinux 3.0
2.8.1 Source
Among various other improvements, version 3.0 now introduces the Xvesa X server, remplacing the framebuffer used before, which depended on VESA 2.0 cards. It can now handle PCI sound cards, Lucent winmodems, Reiserfs version 3.5.x, certain USB peripherals and several other 2.2.18 kernel devices. As for version 2.0, DemoLinux 3 heavily uses a transparent compression schema that allows to sotre over a gigabyte of applications, including GNOME and KDE and the StarOffice office suite. The compression code has been fixed and now it is faster and more reliable. The list of installed packages is here. Notice this time we included highly demanded tools like ssh (which is downloaded on the fly and not pre-installed, due to legal reasons), gpart, dump etc, as well as a version of TeXmacs.
2.8.2 Known Bugs
If you know how to fix one of the following problems, please tell us!
· Serial mouse does not work when using the 1024vesa/800vesa/640vesa modes: Xvesa only understands PS2 protocols, and gpm does not seem to be able to repeat into PS2 if the input is ms. No work-around (apart from getting a PS2 mouse) is known here.
· DemoLinux 3.0 patches the kernel to add a boot splash screen (this is not LPP, which seems to depend on VESA 2.0 compliant cards). Unfortunately, we came across at least one machine with a broken bios (a version of the HP OmniBook XE2) that has bad interactions with the patch. Your help is welcome in adding a "nologo" kernel command line option to disable at run time the splash screen patch.
· Booting from inside Windows only works if the CD-Rom reader is properly configured under DOS (not gonna happen that often). The simple workaraound (adopted by Mandrake, for example) would be to copy on the Windows hard disk the files needed to boot, but that violates DemoLinux's motto: "don't touch the disk". Has anybouady a loadlin for Windows ?
· ...
You can install all other peripherals using the standard tools from the distribution.
CHAPTER 3
KNOPPIX
3.1 Introduction to KNOPPIX
KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI devices, and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it.
Knoppix is an attempt to not only create a fully featured rescue/demo system on a single CD, but also to unburden the user from the task of hardware identification and configuration of drivers, devices and X11 for his or her specific hardware. The resulting product is supposed to be a platform CD with a stable GNU/Linux base system, which can be used to customize static installations for a specific purpose.
3.2 Minimum system requirements for knoppix
· Intel-compatible CPU (i486 or later),
· 16 MB of RAM for text mode, at least 96 MB for graphics mode with KDE (at least 128 MB of RAM is recommended to use the various office products),
· Bootable CD-ROM drive, or a boot floppy and standard CD-ROM (IDE/ATAPI or SCSI),
· Standard SVGA-compatible graphics card,
· Serial or PS/2 standard mouse or IMPS/2-compatible USB-mouse.
· RAM requirements
o 16 MB RAM for text mode
o At least 96 MB RAM for graphics mode with KDE
o 128 MB RAM for StarOffice
3.3 Creating knoppix
Knoppix is a one-CD live file system that can be customized as rescue system, security scanner or platform for presentations and demos, or as full-featured portable production platform with tools like KOffice or StarOfficeTM. The underlying GNU/Linux base system is modified to boot non-interactively into run level 5 with a working X-Window and KDE configuration, with all auto detectable devices configured, ready to (auto-) start applications. Reducing space limitations by compression. The core system of about 200 MB (uncompressed) is currently based on the popular RedHat distribution and contains all basic commands and tools for a generic Linux system. That leaves, on a standard 650 MB CDROM, over 400 MB for custom applications, which can simply be installed with standard RPM packages on the CD-Rom install/preparation system. As of Version 1.2, Knoppix features a transparently decompressing loopback-block device derived from Paul ’Rusty’ Russell’s cloop kernel module hack. For a standard Linux installation, this reduces the space needed on the CD to about 50% down to 25% of the original file system size and leaves more space to custom applications or multimedia data files. The compressed live-file system is therefore present as a single file on the CD, which is being mounted via cloop from the boot floppy or El Torito boot image at system startup, from the ramdisk containing the root file system. For performance and stability reasons, iso9660 has also been chosen as the underlying file system for the compressed image instead of a read-only ext2 file system that is common on other live CDROMs. The compressed file system not only adds free space on the CD, but also reduces access time and head movement of the CD-Rom drive, but handles physical read errors more ungraciously than an uncompressed file system and increases production time of a new release, because the whole installation file system needs to be compressed before the new version can be burned and tested.
3.4 The compressed loopback device (cloop)
The compressed loop back device (cloop) was first introduced by Paul ’Rusty’Russel for the LinuxCare business card rescue CD.
· Read-only, transparently decompressing block device, based on loopback.c,
· Block index permanently kept in system memory, uses kernel block buffering mechanism,
· File system-independent, no special libc with decompressing filesystem calls necessary (cmp. DemoLinux), uses zlib/gzip compression, compression is done with modified user-space program,
· CD-Rom friendly by reduced head movement (index/block caching, group read aka block read () in fs/block dev.c), currently makes heavy use of Semaphore/spinlocking mechanisms, aims to be SMP-safe.
3.4.1 Format of compressed block device file
All numbers and pointers in network byte order
1. Header with small shell script as loader
(insmod cloop.o file=/path/to/file),
2. Header with information about uncompressed block size and # of blocks,
3. Block index:
(a) Location of first compressed block in file,
(b) Location of second compressed block in file,
(c) ...
(d) End-of-file location.
4. Compressed block # 1,
5. Compressed block # 2,
6. ...
8
3.5 CDROM Contents
· Base RH 6.2 (GPL version),
· ReiserFS utilities & standard recovery tools,
· KDE 2.0 final Beta (Kandidat),
· GIMP 1.1.26, SANE 1.0.3, KOffice,
· xmms 1.2.3 w/ mp3+smpeg plugins,
· openissl, openssh, konqueror/SSL,
· Nessus, Ethereal, dsniff (Network & security checks),
· Netscape TM 4.75, StarOffice TM 5.2,
· Demos & Games.
3.6 The Startup Scripts
3.6.1 For /linuxrc
· Loads SCSI modules,
· Checks for CD-Rom or hard disk partition with installed system,
· Mounts CD or hard disk partition with KNOPPIX installation,
· Finds and uses existing swap partitions,
· Creates additional ramdisks for /home and /var,
· Gives control to init.
3.6.2 For /etc/rc.d/sysinit
· Starts PCMCIA subsystem if chipset present,
· Starts hardware detection and auto configuration (hwsetup),
· Parses .config files and modifies system on ramdisk accordingly,
· Creates KDE desktop icons and links,
· Starts X-Server and xsession (with KDE or TWM, depending on configuration and available memory).
3.7 Platform and Applications
Knoppix provides a ready-to-run operating system environment to:
· Start security and auditing tools like nmap, nessus, dsniff and alike. Since there is no permanent storage present on a read-only CD-Rom, no sensitive information can be written or exposed accidentally. The security checks can be performed on computers directly within a customers network by simply booting from the CD on a machine that is already connected to the internal network,
· Produce game and application demos that run in a safe and tested environment,
· Have a stable demo installation of GNU/Linux available for presentation at trade shows or consulting talks with customers,
· Build a customized, read-only Linux installation for educational environment which is preconfigured for internet access and contains all commonly used applications for this purpose,
· Present the features and use of GNU/Linux without having to go through a long and maybe complicated installation and configuration process,
· Feature a complete rescue and crash recovery system for all kinds of emergency issues with all necessary file systems in the kernel, and repair tools available.
3.8 Technical Details:
3.8.1 Boot process: Stage 1
In stage 1 of the boot process, the Linux loader LILO from the boot section of the El torito 1.44 MB floppy image on the CD-Rom tries to read the kernel (currently 2.2.16) and a 4 MB compressed initial ramdisk. The size of this initial ramdisk determines the minimal amount of memory needed to use the distribution. Without XFree and KDE, about 8-16 MB of RAM seem to be sufficient for a working text mode-only environment.
3.8.2 Boot process: Stage 2
In stage 2, the boot ramdisk tries to autoprobe for the most common SCSI adapters and identifies the CD-Rom drive where the Knoppix CD is located. The minirootdisk features a statically linked shell with commands like mount built in, since the space on the boot floppy is limited. For compatibility reasons with current floppy drives, only a 1.44 MB floppy image is used on the CD instead of a 2.88 MB. The boot script tries to find the Knoppix CD by mounting all CD-Rom drives and checking for a directory KNOPPIX that may contain a directory tree for the root filesystem or a file with the same name containing a compressed iso9660 image of the file system which is then
Figure 3.1: Boot Process
Mounted via the cloop device. If no CD is found, an attempt is made to find the KNOPPIX directory on an existing ext2 hard disk partition, containing a complete installation tree. In either case, symbolic links are set to the uncompressed (or transparently decompressed) directory tree. After the CD has been mounted, dynamic library cache and paths are initialized and space is freed on the root ramdisk by removing files that are no longer needed for the setup process. If a swap partition is detected during device/partition scan, an attempt is made to utilize it via swap on to increase workspace for applications. Also in this stage of the system startup, additional ramdisks are mounted with a writ able ext2 filesystem for /home and /var. Their size is adapted from the available amount of real memory. Symbolic links to system directories are created and control is given to init.
3.8.3 Boot process: Stage 3
In stage 3 of the boot process, init calls a finalizing setup script named sysinit. In this script, the automatic (or, if ”expert” mode was selected, manual) hardware setup is done. Hwsetup - a self-made tool that uses the kudzu-library - detects devices, loads all necessary driver modules for known hardware, sets up symbolic links in /dev and writes configuration parameters and options to the corresponding files in /etc/sysconfig/ on the ramdisk. Parameters that cannot be auto-detected (frequency ranges of old monitors, desired keyboard layout, language) are assumed with reasonable defaults. A single X-Window session is started if the graphics hardware has been identified correctly. Default is true color in a resolution of 1024x786 pixels if possible, or 800x600/640x480 at 8-bit if the graphics adapter cannot handle higher resolutions or color depths. If detected, the accelerated Xfree (3.3) drivers are used with specific options depending on the detected graphics adapter. The KDE Desktop manager (currently Version 2.0 beta 3 as of this writing) is started only if there is at least 30 MB of RAM left after all ramdisks are mounted and all necessary device drivers are loaded. Otherwise, a less memory-consuming window manager (like twm) is used, if XFree can be started at all. Network device parameters can be set with a tiny dialog-based GUI from within KDE, if needed. For dialup Internet access, kppp or isdn-config are provided.
3.9 Security issues
All user passwords, including the root password, are disabled and locked by default. That makes it impossible to log in via network or even on a local console. Therefore, all processes must descend from the shells running on the system console(s) or from the X-Window session that is spawned by init. If the Knoppix user wants to enable a remote login, for example via the openssh daemon, she has the choice of adding a user with password, or generating an authentication RSA key for this user. There is no inetd Meta daemon and no standalone servers running per default, which could be accessed from the network, if network is even configured. A difficult issue is the local security and access to devices, because there is no reliable way to protect the switching from an unprivileged user account to the system administrators id if passwords have been disabled. Having ”dummy passwords” or default crypto keys that are written on every CD would of course breech security. In the current version, the automatically logged-in user at the system console is the system administrator. This can be changed in inittab and in the xsession init script at the preparation phase of a new CD-Rom image; for example, if the resulting system is supposed to work as a game or demo platform rather than as recovery system or security scanner. Games, user-mode applications or demos should run fine with an unprivileged account. In this user-only mode, runtime configuration of privileged drivers, devices and configuration files is impossible.
3.10 Sources & Distribution
The Knoppix CD currently contains the base Linux system software plus utilities for a rescue system, current security scanners, demos and some of the KDE and Gnome games. It boots and auto-configures correctly on most ix86 compatible desktop machines. The most common PCI cards (network, sound, SCSI) are auto detected, drivers are loaded and mice, modems, CD-Rom devices, CD-Writers etc. are given their appropriate links in the /dev directory. Hard disk partitions are detected and corresponding icons are added on the KDE desktop. Most problem cases where the automatic hardware detection fails have been Notebooks with new chipsets that are not supported by the current Linux kernel yet. In case of failure to correctly auto-detect and configure all necessary hardware components, the CD can be booted with an ”expert” option for interactive setup. The Knoppix base system (excluding vendor-specific add-ons which are separate products) is an Open Source project and covered by the GNU General Public License Version 2. The program sources of the software included is available from the vendors specified in the RPMs, the sources of the Knoppix setup tools or patches for programs needed to generate the automatic setup system can be found at , if not already present on the CD-Rom. Because of legal issues (i.e. US crypto export regulations and software patents that may disrupt commercial and noncommercial use of software included on the CD, that is otherwise covered by a Free Software license, for example strong crypto versions of KDE or other SSL enabled software), the author does not currently distribute the Knoppix CD publicly. Individuals or companies can order a customized CD version for evaluation or software projects directly from the author.
3.11 Features
1. Use a transparently uncompressing block device to increase the space available for installed programs.
Status: Done. Needs cleanup and more checks.
2. Disable spin-down of CD-Rom Drive for faster CD-Rom access after periods of idle time.
Status: Still looking for a way that works vendor independent.
3. Clean up boot disk (only 50 bytes or so left), make insmod a built-in function of the initial shell.
Status: insmod, rmmod and other commands are now built-in part of the initial shell. Most SCSI drivers of Kernel 2.2.16 fit on the 1.44 MB boot floppy now.
4. Generate set-ups that are easily customized for different purposes rather than install and uninstall RPM packets before creating a new image.
Status: Still working on a method to do this easily.
5. Enhance interactive setup for using existing swap partitions.
Status: Existing and previously initialized swap partitions are now detected and utilized during the boot process.
6. Add session configuration that can be customized, which can be saved on removable media.
Status: Not done yet.
7. Enhance the auto-detection process; increase the number of known cards and recognized graphics adapters. Status: Used information retrieved from betatesters to create configurations for problematic hardware (mostly Laptop chipsets), ongoing process.
8. Add support for automatic, non-interactive setup of isapnp devices.
CHAPTER 4
DYNE BOLIC
4.1 Introduction to Dynebolic
DyneBolic is a "Live Linux CDROM" i.e. live bootable CD-ROM. This means having a complete operative system recognizing your sound, video, TV and network cards and running only with Free Software. DyneBolic works without the need of hard disks, you need just some low profile requirements
4.2 Features
· Easy to use
· No need to install or to change any data on the hard disk
· It will work even if you have Microsoft Windows installed
· Automatic hardware recognition and configuration of
o Network cards
o Sound cards
o BTTV video cards
o USB devices
· Ready to use desktop including common netsurfing tools
· Includes MuSE to stream audio on the net
· Includes Mozilla to surf on the net
· Stable and reliable GNU/Linux environment
· Fancy BlackBox desktop to show up with your friends
· Features ZSH shell with a couple of console commands
4.3 Requirements
Requirements for DYNO BOLIC ARE
· i586 CPU (Pentium MMX / AMD K6) or better
· IDE CD-ROM reader (NO hard disk required)
· About 64Mb of RAM
· PS/2 mouse
4.4 Getting DYNE BOLIC
4.4.1 Download Options
You have to download one of the following the compressed ISO Images:
· Dynebolic development version 0.4.2 (30 June 2002)
STREAM ON THE FLY edition - live audio network streaming
dynebolic-0.4.2.iso.gz (77Mb) MD5 checksum: 3a16eb9e4b4f17193c922623d98426dc
· An older version which still includes FreeJ: Dynebolic development version 0.3.1
FREEJ edition - set the veejay free!
dynebolic-0.3.1-freej.iso.gz (48Mb) MD5 checksum: e093dd4c923b8b4006ab37af9bfdf154
4.4.2 Download Instructions
· You have to burn this CD image on a CD-ROM before using it - take care to not burn it as a file! IT'S AN ISO IMAGE. Refer to the instructions of you favourite burning program for further information.
· Please note Microsoft Internet explorer is likely to break the download (a couple of ppl reported problems with file corruption), USE A DECENT DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE
4.5 Redistribution
If you want to redistribute DyneBolic please let us know! We’d like to produce CDs that people can order ... currently we had some orders which we couldn’t satisfy
Redistribution terms of DyneBolic are defined by the GNU General Public License and this also means that once you have those CDs you are free to redistribute and copy them as you like!
If you like, consider to join the mailing list with a mail to dynebolic-subscribe@dyne.org, there you can ask questions to the user/developer community, report bugs and give your suggestions.
4.6 Authors & Sources
The current release of DyneBolic including all the documentation and startup scripts has been done by, jaromil with ideas and solutions contributed by lobo, clcc10, bomboclat, liw, littlejohn
If you want to contribute development and ideas, join our mailing list: mail to (you can see the archives here)
DyneBolic includes the work of hundreds of people all around the world developing free software and GNU/Linux applications, without their efforts DyneBolic would have never existed. Here it is where you can find the source codes of most of the applications included:
· www.gnu.org
· www.xfree86.org
· www.mozilla.org
· www.slackware.com
· www.dyne.org
· www.linux-mandrake.com/harddrake
CHAPETR 5
REMAINING ONES…
5.1 Other available “Live Linux CDROM” versions
· Virtual Linux
5.2 Introduction to Virtual Linux
Virtual Linux can boot from CDROM & can be run with or without hard drive. The previously available versions of virtual Linux are
· Virtual Linux 0.7.1 (Downloaded 17,000 times)
· Virtual Linux 1.0 (Downloaded 46,000 times)
The latest available version is Virtual Linux 1.1 (Tiger Edition)
5.3 Sources
Virtual-Linux is base upon Mandrake Linux and uses the same GPL as Mandrake. This distribution uses a 20-megabyte ramdisk that serves as the system root, and the rest of the operating system is linked from a cloop compressed system image. The cloop compression is the biggest difference from other similar distributions. It allows for great speed and also enables 1.66 GB of data to fit onto one cdrom.
5.4 Features of Virtual Linux 1.1
Virtual Linux 1.1 (Tiger Edition) is basically the Mandrake Linux operating system, modified to run directly from your cdrom drive. With Virtual-Linux 1.1 you get about 1.6 gigabytes of software, all compressed onto one cdrom, using cloop compression.
The features are listed as:
· Development Status: 4 - Beta
· Environment: Console (Text Based)
· License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
· Natural Language: English
· Operating System: Linux
· Programming Language: C#, Unix Shell
CHAPTER 6
BUILD YOUR OWN “Live Linux CDROM”
6.1 Starting up
You can build your own “Live Linux CDROM” and customize the kernel, hardware support, loadable module support etc.
Why would one want to boot a machine from cdrom? Booting from cdrom is interesting everywhere one wants to run a very specific application, like a kiosk, a library database program or an Internet cafe, and one doesn't have a network or a server to use a root over nfs setup.
6.2 Creating a test setup
A test setup can be created as follows:
· For starters just take one of the machines, which you want to use and put in a big disk and a CD burner.
· Install your Linux of choice on this machine, and leave a 650 MB partition free for the test setup. This install will be used to make the ISO image and to burn the CD's from, so install the necessary tools. It will also be used to restore any booboo, which leave the test setup unbootable.
· On the 650 MB partition install your Linux of choice with the setup you want to have on the CD, this will be the test setup.
· Boot the test setup.
· Compile a kernel with isofs and CDROM support compiled in.
· Configure the test setup as described above with the root file system mounted read only.
· Verify that the test setup automatically boots and everything works.
· Boot the main install and mount the 650 MB partition on /test of the main install.
· Put the following in a file called /test/etc/rc.d/rc.iso, this file will be sourced at the beginning of rc.sysinit to create /var:
#/var
echo Creating /var ...
mke2fs -q -i 1024 /dev/ram1 16384
mount /dev/ram1 /var -o defaults, rw
cp -a /lib/var /
· Edit /test/etc/rc.sysinit, comment the lines where the root is remounted rw, and add the following 2 lines directly after setting the path:
#To boot from cdrom
. /etc/rc.d/rc.iso
· Copy the following to a script and execute it to make a template for /var and create /tmp and /etc/mtab links.
#!/bin/sh
echo tmp
rm -fR /test/tmp
ln -s var/tmp /test/tmp
###
echo mtab
touch /test/proc/mounts
rm /test/etc/mtab
ln -s /proc/mounts /test/etc/mtab
###
echo var
mv /test/var/lib /test/lib/var-lib
mv /test/var /test/lib
mkdir /test/var
ln -s /lib/var-lib /test/lib/var/lib
rm -fR /test/lib/var/catman
rm -fR /test/lib/var/log/httpd
rm -f /test/lib/var/log/samba/*
for i in `find /test/lib/var/log -type f`; do
cat /dev/null > $i;
done
rm `find /test/lib/var/lock -type f`
rm `find /test/lib/var/run -type f`
· Remove the creation of /etc/issue* from /test/etc/rc.local: it will only fail.
· Now boot the test partition again, it will be read only just like a cdrom. If something doesn't work reboot to the working partition fix it, try again etc. Or you could remount / rw, fix it, and then reboot straight into to test partition again. To remount / rw type:
# mount -o remount,rw /
6.3 Creating the CD
6.3.1 Creating a boot image
First of all, boot into the working partition. To create a bootable cd we'll need an image of a bootable floppy. Just dd-ing a zImage doesn't work since the loader at the beginning of the zimage doesn't seem to like the fake floppy drive a bootable cd creates. So we'll use syslinux instead.
· Get boot.img from a RedHat CD.
· Mount boot.img somewhere through loop back by typing:
# mount boot.img somewhere -o loop -t vfat
· Remove everything from boot.img except for ldlinux.sys and syslinux.cfg.
· Cp (Copy) the kernel-image from the test partition to boot.img.
· Edit syslinux.cfg so that it contains the following, of course replace zImage by the appropriate image name:
default linux
label linux
kernel zImage
append root=/dev/
· Umount boot.img:
# umount somewhere
· If your /etc/mtab is a link to /proc/mounts, umount won't automatically free /dev/loop0 so free it by typing:
# losetup -d /dev/loop0
6.3.2 Creating the iso image
Now we have the CD containing boot image and an install that can boot from a read-only mount.
· Copy boot.img to /test
· Cd (Change) to the directory where you want to store the image and make sure it's on a partition with enough free space.
· Now generate the image by typing:
# mkisofs -R -b boot.img -c boot.catalog -o boot.iso /test
6.3.3 Verifying the iso image
· Mounting the image through the loop back device by typing:
# mount boot.iso somewhere -o loop -t iso9660
· Umount boot.iso:
# umount somewhere
· If your /etc/mtab is a link to /proc/mounts umount won't automagically free /dev/loop0 so free it by typing:
# losetup -d /dev/loop0
6.3.4 Writing the actual CD
Assuming that you've got CD record installed and configured for your cd-writer type:
# cdrecord -v speed= dev= boot.iso
6.3.4.1 Further details
If you need more information than you can find below, please refer to the CD-Writing-HOWTO.
6.3.5 Testing
Boot the cd and test it
CHAPTER 7 Links & Websites:
· Diskless with "Live Linux CDROM"
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO
· Dynebolic
http://lab.dyne.org/DyneBolic
· Knoppix
www.knopper.net/knoppix
· DemoLinux
www.demolinux.org
· Virtual Linux
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-linux/
www.virtual-linux.org
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Definition
1.2. Features
1.3. Easy Upgrade
1.3.1. Five seconds upgrade
1.4. Requirements for “Live Linux CDROM”
1.5. Getting “Live Linux CDROM”
2. DEMOLINUX
2.1. Introduction to DemoLinux
2.2. Idea behind DemoLinux
2.3. Hardware requirements for DemoLinux
2.4. Using DemoLinux CD-ROM
2.4.1. Booting
2.4.2. Choosing the screen resolution
2.4.3. Choose the language and keyboard layout!
2.4.4. Using the disks
2.4.5. Anchoring on a hard disk
2.4.6. Computers without a floppy disk
2.4.7. Booting with graphical mode
2.5. Available versions of DemoLinux
2.6. DemoLinux 1.0
2.6.1. Source
2.6.2. Software on the CD
2.7. DemoLinux 2.0
2.7.1. Source
2.7.2. Known Bugs
2.8. DemoLinux 3.0
2.8.1. Source
2.8.2. Known Bugs
3. KNOPPIX
3.1. Introduction to knoppix
3.2. Minimum system requirements for knoppix
3.3. Creating knoppix
3.4. The compressed loopback device (cloop)
3.4.1. Format of compressed block device file
3.5. CDROM Contents
3.6. The Startup Scripts
3.6.1. For /linuxrc
3.6.2. For /etc/rc.d/sysinit
3.7. Platform and Applications
3.8. Technical Details:
3.8.1. Boot process: Stage 1
3.8.2. Boot process: Stage 2
3.8.3. Boot process: Stage 3
3.9. Security issues
3.10. Sources & Distribution
3.11. Features
4. DYNE BOLIC
4.1. Introduction to Dynebolic
4.2. Features
4.3. Requirements
4.4. Getting DYNE BOLIC
4.4.1. Download Options
4.4.2. Download Instructions
4.5. Redistribution
4.6. Authors & Sources
5. REMAINING ONES…
5.1. Other available “Live Linux CDROM” versions
5.2. Introduction to Virtual Linux
5.3. Sources
5.4. Features of Virtual Linux 1.1
6. BUILD YOUR OWN CD ROM
6.1. Starting up
6.2. Creating a test setup
6.3. Creating the CD
6.3.1. Creating the iso image
6.3.2. Verifying the iso image
6.3.3. Writing the actual CD
6.3.3.1. Further details
6.3.4. Testing
7.Links & Websites
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Definition
Bootable CDROMs with a small Linux rescue system in business card size or regular size live demonstration CDs are becoming popular recently. Open Source groups are developing self-running demos that are preconfigured for certain hardware, or contain a configuration front-end. Such efforts resulted in the "Live Linux CDROM".
The "Live Linux CDROM" is a CDROM, which has the entire file system of Linux Operating System on the CDROM; created copying the live Linux system on to CDROM. The "Live Linux CDROM" directly boots the Linux operating system from the CDROM drive. But you need to setup the BIOS to boot from CDROM first. Generally the boot order is: Floppy Drive, Hard disk, and CDROM. You can enter BIOS setup, by powering on the computer and pressing the DEL key.
1.2 Features
The "Live Linux CDROM" is becoming a reality because of the following reasons:
1. RAM prices are all time low and 512MB RAM costs very low.
2. CDROM drives are becoming extremely fast and current read speed is topping at 72X.
3. CDROM IDE drives are very cheap; CDROM with 52X read speed is available at low prices.
4. DVD-ROM is also getting very cheap and can carry 5 Gigabytes of Linux software and is three times faster than CDROM drive.
1.3 Easy upgrade
A big advantage of “Live Linux CDROM” over other methods of diskless operations like EEPROM is that it is very easy to setup and you can very easily upgrade the Linux CDROM with new versions of the Linux kernel every three months. Simply throw away the old “Live Linux CDROM” and pop in the new version “Live Linux CDROM”. Upgrade is just 20 seconds and. In near future, “Live Linux CDROM” & DVD-ROM will rule the computer desktops.
1.3.1 Five seconds upgrade:
“Live Linux CDROM” promotes RAPID Operating System UPGRADE. You can upgrade an OS in less than 5 seconds!! “Live Linux CDROM” introduces the concept of mass upgrade and RAPID ACTION. Simply throw away the old “Live Linux CDROM” and pop in new CDROM and you are done upgrading!
1.4 Requirements for “Live Linux CDROM”
With “Live Linux CDROM”, you do not need a hard disk, floppy drives and others. All you need to build a diskless workstation is:
1. “Live Linux CDROM”
2. CPU
3. Mother board
4. NIC (Network Interface Card) (Not compulsory!)
5. CDROM drive (IDE or SCSI)
6. RAM (32 MB minimum for full graphics and 16 MB minimum for console mode)
1.5 Getting “Live Linux CDROM”
The "Live Linux CDROM" can be obtained from
· DemoLinux
www.demolinux.org
· Knoppix
www.knopper.net/knoppix
· DyneBolic
http://lab.dyne.org/DyneBolic
· Virtual Linux
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-linux
· Linux - Live on CD
http://www.ocslink.com/~blunier
· SUSE Live Eval Linux
Suse live-eval & http://www.suse.com/download
CHAPTER 2
DEMOLINUX
2.1 Introduction to DemoLinux
The DemoLinux CD allow to use Linux without installation, disk partitioning or any other complex manipulation that still prevent many people from giving Linux a try. This CD does not install Linux on your hard disk, but it allows you to have an idea about Linux before you eventually decide to proceed with a full fledged installation.
This is made possible by a set of technical features in the Linux kernel and by some other free software (notably from S.u.S.E. and RedHat) that we use here.
2.2 Idea behind DemoLinux
The goal is to allow everybody to make by himself an idea of what Linux can offer, and also to provide software publishers with a means to give out easy to use, no-hassle demos of their Linux products.
The Demolinux CD is also a means of using Linux everywhere: you can take your favorite configuration with you in a CD, sit down in front of most PCs running another OS, boot from the CD and find yourself in front of your preferred environment in minutes.
2.3 Hardware requirements for DemoLinux
This allows you to get a running Linux system with a preconfigured desktop.
· An IBM-PC compatible computer with a CD-ROM drive (Atleast an ATAPI one with read speed greater than 32x, )
· RAM Requirement
o Default requiremnet is 64 MB.
o 32 MB for some versions of Demolinux.
o 16 MB is enough for Linux in text mode
o StarOffice requires atleast 128MB.
· A PS/2 or a serial mouse
The DemoLinux CD works with a great number of hardware configuration. But it may happen that certain devices (very old ones) are not recognized by this CD, but this dos not mean by any means that they are bound not to work with a full installation of Linux.
2.4 Using DemoLinux CD-ROM
2.4.1 Booting
The easiest way to go is just to boot off the CD-ROM driver. Most recent PCs allow this via a simple modification in the BIOS settings that you can access and modify at boot time by pressing some special key .Make sure the first boot device is the CD-Rom drive.
If you dont want ot follow this way, then you can boot using a boot floppy using the floppy image available on the CD, and then boot off the floppy. For that, start in DOS (or open an MSDOS window in your Windows) and insert the CD-Rom. (Assuming the CD is in drive D:)In the MSDOS window, type d:\suse and then d:\dosutils\rawrite. This program will ask you for a filename, type BOOT.IMG. Then it will ask for the name of the floppy drive, type A:. After a few minutes, you will have your boot floppy ready. Reboot the PC leaving floppy and CD-ROM in place.
2.4.2 Choosing the screen resolution
After booting your PC from CD-Rom or from the newly created floppy bisk, you will see a presentation page with a few information on the DemoLinux projects that you can access by pressing the F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 and F6 function keys (copyright, screen resolution infos etc.). The boot process will continue with a minimalist choice (640x480 screen resolution) only if you dont touch the machine for 10 full minutes.
Now you have to choose your screen resolution by typing one of 1024 800 or 640 at the
boot:
prompt on the lower left corner of the screen.
The manual that came with your monitor should clearly state which resolutions are supported. Choose preferably the resolution you regularly use on your machine. To get 1024x768, type 1024, to get 800x600, type 800, and for 640x480 type 640 (this is the default resolution).
2.4.3 Choose the language and keyboard layout!
After answering a couple of questions (language choice, keyboard layout), you will see a penguin coming up, followed by strange messages. Loading an OS from a CD is a much longer process than from a hard disk, so wait and after a few minutes you will see a graphical user interface called a "login panel".Click on the penguin (the 'demo' user) then on the 'Enter' button, leaving alone the password field.
2.4.4 Using the disks
The DemoLinux CD does not touch your disks. As the whole sistem is running off the CDROM, it is obviously impossible to install new applications or to modify most of the configuration files. The demo user has almost no right to write outside its own /home/demo directory and on hard disks or floppy disks.
You have only limited memory available when running off the CD without touching the hard disk, and this may cause problems if you run applications that try to create too big files... If some applications start to die abruptly, you have hit the limit: close all other applications and delete files you do not need in /home/demo or /tmp.
You may experience slow response times, especially when launching big applications. This is not a Linux defect, only a consequence of the CD-ROM being much slower than a hard disk. A normal installation of Linux on a hard disk would be much faster!
2.4.5 Anchoring on a hard disk
You can partially solve the space limitation problem if you accept to use your hard disk space which does not requier partitioning, just clicking on a couple of buttons). If you do that, you will have some real virtual memory (swap space) and a hard-disk based /home and /tmp. That way you may put much more data in your /home/demo directory, and, most important, find it again the next time you run the CD. The default values are 64Mb for swap and 32 MB for /home and /tmp respectively.
To anchor the CD, just click on the anchor icon on the bottom panel. This will launch a program that will show you the different partitions having enough space for this operation. The modifications will be operation the next time you boot from the CD. The anchor program just copies a few files in a linuxdmo directory on your disk, that take up only 100Mb. You can at any time erase this directory.
2.4.6 Computers without a floppy disk
Add the nofloppy option on the boot: line.
2.4.7 Booting with graphical mode
You can boot in text only mode (level 3 for the RedHat and Mandrake distribution) by giving the corresponding parameter on the boot line (example : boot: 1024 3 on a RedHat/Mandrake DemoLinux).
To anchor in text mode, run the script /etc/rc.d/cddemo/anchor.tcl (DemoLinux 1.0), or /.plomb/.demolinux/ancrage/ancrage-suid (DemoLinux 2.0 sqq)
When anchored, you can configure your own X server, for example if your graphic card doesn't work, or simply to have better performances.
2.5 Available versions of DemoLinux
Currently available versions of DemoLinux are
· DemoLinux 1.0
· DemoLinux 2.0
· DemoLinux 3.0
2.6 DemoLinux 1.0
2.6.1 Source
This first version is based on the Mandrake 5.3 distribution (which is in turn based on the RedHat one), but the technology upon which DemoLinux is based does not depend on any particular distribution : we have already some S.u.S.E. based CDs, for example.
2.6.2 Software on the CD
A great amount of software is already installed on the CD. You will be using the KDE environment, which is quite confortable: the panel at the bottom of the screen give acces to a few "virtual desktops", and allows you to launch a few applications. You will also find there, besides the "K" menu, icons to launch the KDE file manager, the image manipulation software "The Gimp", Netscape Communicator and Corel WordPerfect.
On the desktop one or more icons allow you to access the hard disks on your machine. These disks are also accessible to any application via a path looking like /mnt/hda1. The floppy disk drive (if you have one) is accessible as /mnt/floppy.
2.7 DemoLinux 2.0
2.7.1 Source
DemoLinux 2.0 includes the GNOME and KDE environments, Enlightenment, StarOffice, lots of games, development tools, and a full load of utilities. The current version is based on the Debian Potato prerelease version
A transparent data-compression schema allows DemoLinux 2.0 to provide you with more than 1 Gigabyte of programs and applications that you can immediatly use directly off a traditional 650Mb CD!
2.7.2 Known Bugs
· Loading from Windows works only if the CD-reader is well configurated in MS-DOS mode. Does it exist a loadlin for windows?
You can configure any device after anchoring or installation, using the standard method from the debian distribution.
2.8 DemoLinux 3.0
2.8.1 Source
Among various other improvements, version 3.0 now introduces the Xvesa X server, remplacing the framebuffer used before, which depended on VESA 2.0 cards. It can now handle PCI sound cards, Lucent winmodems, Reiserfs version 3.5.x, certain USB peripherals and several other 2.2.18 kernel devices. As for version 2.0, DemoLinux 3 heavily uses a transparent compression schema that allows to sotre over a gigabyte of applications, including GNOME and KDE and the StarOffice office suite. The compression code has been fixed and now it is faster and more reliable. The list of installed packages is here. Notice this time we included highly demanded tools like ssh (which is downloaded on the fly and not pre-installed, due to legal reasons), gpart, dump etc, as well as a version of TeXmacs.
2.8.2 Known Bugs
If you know how to fix one of the following problems, please tell us!
· Serial mouse does not work when using the 1024vesa/800vesa/640vesa modes: Xvesa only understands PS2 protocols, and gpm does not seem to be able to repeat into PS2 if the input is ms. No work-around (apart from getting a PS2 mouse) is known here.
· DemoLinux 3.0 patches the kernel to add a boot splash screen (this is not LPP, which seems to depend on VESA 2.0 compliant cards). Unfortunately, we came across at least one machine with a broken bios (a version of the HP OmniBook XE2) that has bad interactions with the patch. Your help is welcome in adding a "nologo" kernel command line option to disable at run time the splash screen patch.
· Booting from inside Windows only works if the CD-Rom reader is properly configured under DOS (not gonna happen that often). The simple workaraound (adopted by Mandrake, for example) would be to copy on the Windows hard disk the files needed to boot, but that violates DemoLinux's motto: "don't touch the disk". Has anybouady a loadlin for Windows ?
· ...
You can install all other peripherals using the standard tools from the distribution.
CHAPTER 3
KNOPPIX
3.1 Introduction to KNOPPIX
KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI devices, and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it.
Knoppix is an attempt to not only create a fully featured rescue/demo system on a single CD, but also to unburden the user from the task of hardware identification and configuration of drivers, devices and X11 for his or her specific hardware. The resulting product is supposed to be a platform CD with a stable GNU/Linux base system, which can be used to customize static installations for a specific purpose.
3.2 Minimum system requirements for knoppix
· Intel-compatible CPU (i486 or later),
· 16 MB of RAM for text mode, at least 96 MB for graphics mode with KDE (at least 128 MB of RAM is recommended to use the various office products),
· Bootable CD-ROM drive, or a boot floppy and standard CD-ROM (IDE/ATAPI or SCSI),
· Standard SVGA-compatible graphics card,
· Serial or PS/2 standard mouse or IMPS/2-compatible USB-mouse.
· RAM requirements
o 16 MB RAM for text mode
o At least 96 MB RAM for graphics mode with KDE
o 128 MB RAM for StarOffice
3.3 Creating knoppix
Knoppix is a one-CD live file system that can be customized as rescue system, security scanner or platform for presentations and demos, or as full-featured portable production platform with tools like KOffice or StarOfficeTM. The underlying GNU/Linux base system is modified to boot non-interactively into run level 5 with a working X-Window and KDE configuration, with all auto detectable devices configured, ready to (auto-) start applications. Reducing space limitations by compression. The core system of about 200 MB (uncompressed) is currently based on the popular RedHat distribution and contains all basic commands and tools for a generic Linux system. That leaves, on a standard 650 MB CDROM, over 400 MB for custom applications, which can simply be installed with standard RPM packages on the CD-Rom install/preparation system. As of Version 1.2, Knoppix features a transparently decompressing loopback-block device derived from Paul ’Rusty’ Russell’s cloop kernel module hack. For a standard Linux installation, this reduces the space needed on the CD to about 50% down to 25% of the original file system size and leaves more space to custom applications or multimedia data files. The compressed live-file system is therefore present as a single file on the CD, which is being mounted via cloop from the boot floppy or El Torito boot image at system startup, from the ramdisk containing the root file system. For performance and stability reasons, iso9660 has also been chosen as the underlying file system for the compressed image instead of a read-only ext2 file system that is common on other live CDROMs. The compressed file system not only adds free space on the CD, but also reduces access time and head movement of the CD-Rom drive, but handles physical read errors more ungraciously than an uncompressed file system and increases production time of a new release, because the whole installation file system needs to be compressed before the new version can be burned and tested.
3.4 The compressed loopback device (cloop)
The compressed loop back device (cloop) was first introduced by Paul ’Rusty’Russel for the LinuxCare business card rescue CD.
· Read-only, transparently decompressing block device, based on loopback.c,
· Block index permanently kept in system memory, uses kernel block buffering mechanism,
· File system-independent, no special libc with decompressing filesystem calls necessary (cmp. DemoLinux), uses zlib/gzip compression, compression is done with modified user-space program,
· CD-Rom friendly by reduced head movement (index/block caching, group read aka block read () in fs/block dev.c), currently makes heavy use of Semaphore/spinlocking mechanisms, aims to be SMP-safe.
3.4.1 Format of compressed block device file
All numbers and pointers in network byte order
1. Header with small shell script as loader
(insmod cloop.o file=/path/to/file),
2. Header with information about uncompressed block size and # of blocks,
3. Block index:
(a) Location of first compressed block in file,
(b) Location of second compressed block in file,
(c) ...
(d) End-of-file location.
4. Compressed block # 1,
5. Compressed block # 2,
6. ...
8
3.5 CDROM Contents
· Base RH 6.2 (GPL version),
· ReiserFS utilities & standard recovery tools,
· KDE 2.0 final Beta (Kandidat),
· GIMP 1.1.26, SANE 1.0.3, KOffice,
· xmms 1.2.3 w/ mp3+smpeg plugins,
· openissl, openssh, konqueror/SSL,
· Nessus, Ethereal, dsniff (Network & security checks),
· Netscape TM 4.75, StarOffice TM 5.2,
· Demos & Games.
3.6 The Startup Scripts
3.6.1 For /linuxrc
· Loads SCSI modules,
· Checks for CD-Rom or hard disk partition with installed system,
· Mounts CD or hard disk partition with KNOPPIX installation,
· Finds and uses existing swap partitions,
· Creates additional ramdisks for /home and /var,
· Gives control to init.
3.6.2 For /etc/rc.d/sysinit
· Starts PCMCIA subsystem if chipset present,
· Starts hardware detection and auto configuration (hwsetup),
· Parses .config files and modifies system on ramdisk accordingly,
· Creates KDE desktop icons and links,
· Starts X-Server and xsession (with KDE or TWM, depending on configuration and available memory).
3.7 Platform and Applications
Knoppix provides a ready-to-run operating system environment to:
· Start security and auditing tools like nmap, nessus, dsniff and alike. Since there is no permanent storage present on a read-only CD-Rom, no sensitive information can be written or exposed accidentally. The security checks can be performed on computers directly within a customers network by simply booting from the CD on a machine that is already connected to the internal network,
· Produce game and application demos that run in a safe and tested environment,
· Have a stable demo installation of GNU/Linux available for presentation at trade shows or consulting talks with customers,
· Build a customized, read-only Linux installation for educational environment which is preconfigured for internet access and contains all commonly used applications for this purpose,
· Present the features and use of GNU/Linux without having to go through a long and maybe complicated installation and configuration process,
· Feature a complete rescue and crash recovery system for all kinds of emergency issues with all necessary file systems in the kernel, and repair tools available.
3.8 Technical Details:
3.8.1 Boot process: Stage 1
In stage 1 of the boot process, the Linux loader LILO from the boot section of the El torito 1.44 MB floppy image on the CD-Rom tries to read the kernel (currently 2.2.16) and a 4 MB compressed initial ramdisk. The size of this initial ramdisk determines the minimal amount of memory needed to use the distribution. Without XFree and KDE, about 8-16 MB of RAM seem to be sufficient for a working text mode-only environment.
3.8.2 Boot process: Stage 2
In stage 2, the boot ramdisk tries to autoprobe for the most common SCSI adapters and identifies the CD-Rom drive where the Knoppix CD is located. The minirootdisk features a statically linked shell with commands like mount built in, since the space on the boot floppy is limited. For compatibility reasons with current floppy drives, only a 1.44 MB floppy image is used on the CD instead of a 2.88 MB. The boot script tries to find the Knoppix CD by mounting all CD-Rom drives and checking for a directory KNOPPIX that may contain a directory tree for the root filesystem or a file with the same name containing a compressed iso9660 image of the file system which is then
Figure 3.1: Boot Process
Mounted via the cloop device. If no CD is found, an attempt is made to find the KNOPPIX directory on an existing ext2 hard disk partition, containing a complete installation tree. In either case, symbolic links are set to the uncompressed (or transparently decompressed) directory tree. After the CD has been mounted, dynamic library cache and paths are initialized and space is freed on the root ramdisk by removing files that are no longer needed for the setup process. If a swap partition is detected during device/partition scan, an attempt is made to utilize it via swap on to increase workspace for applications. Also in this stage of the system startup, additional ramdisks are mounted with a writ able ext2 filesystem for /home and /var. Their size is adapted from the available amount of real memory. Symbolic links to system directories are created and control is given to init.
3.8.3 Boot process: Stage 3
In stage 3 of the boot process, init calls a finalizing setup script named sysinit. In this script, the automatic (or, if ”expert” mode was selected, manual) hardware setup is done. Hwsetup - a self-made tool that uses the kudzu-library - detects devices, loads all necessary driver modules for known hardware, sets up symbolic links in /dev and writes configuration parameters and options to the corresponding files in /etc/sysconfig/ on the ramdisk. Parameters that cannot be auto-detected (frequency ranges of old monitors, desired keyboard layout, language) are assumed with reasonable defaults. A single X-Window session is started if the graphics hardware has been identified correctly. Default is true color in a resolution of 1024x786 pixels if possible, or 800x600/640x480 at 8-bit if the graphics adapter cannot handle higher resolutions or color depths. If detected, the accelerated Xfree (3.3) drivers are used with specific options depending on the detected graphics adapter. The KDE Desktop manager (currently Version 2.0 beta 3 as of this writing) is started only if there is at least 30 MB of RAM left after all ramdisks are mounted and all necessary device drivers are loaded. Otherwise, a less memory-consuming window manager (like twm) is used, if XFree can be started at all. Network device parameters can be set with a tiny dialog-based GUI from within KDE, if needed. For dialup Internet access, kppp or isdn-config are provided.
3.9 Security issues
All user passwords, including the root password, are disabled and locked by default. That makes it impossible to log in via network or even on a local console. Therefore, all processes must descend from the shells running on the system console(s) or from the X-Window session that is spawned by init. If the Knoppix user wants to enable a remote login, for example via the openssh daemon, she has the choice of adding a user with password, or generating an authentication RSA key for this user. There is no inetd Meta daemon and no standalone servers running per default, which could be accessed from the network, if network is even configured. A difficult issue is the local security and access to devices, because there is no reliable way to protect the switching from an unprivileged user account to the system administrators id if passwords have been disabled. Having ”dummy passwords” or default crypto keys that are written on every CD would of course breech security. In the current version, the automatically logged-in user at the system console is the system administrator. This can be changed in inittab and in the xsession init script at the preparation phase of a new CD-Rom image; for example, if the resulting system is supposed to work as a game or demo platform rather than as recovery system or security scanner. Games, user-mode applications or demos should run fine with an unprivileged account. In this user-only mode, runtime configuration of privileged drivers, devices and configuration files is impossible.
3.10 Sources & Distribution
The Knoppix CD currently contains the base Linux system software plus utilities for a rescue system, current security scanners, demos and some of the KDE and Gnome games. It boots and auto-configures correctly on most ix86 compatible desktop machines. The most common PCI cards (network, sound, SCSI) are auto detected, drivers are loaded and mice, modems, CD-Rom devices, CD-Writers etc. are given their appropriate links in the /dev directory. Hard disk partitions are detected and corresponding icons are added on the KDE desktop. Most problem cases where the automatic hardware detection fails have been Notebooks with new chipsets that are not supported by the current Linux kernel yet. In case of failure to correctly auto-detect and configure all necessary hardware components, the CD can be booted with an ”expert” option for interactive setup. The Knoppix base system (excluding vendor-specific add-ons which are separate products) is an Open Source project and covered by the GNU General Public License Version 2. The program sources of the software included is available from the vendors specified in the RPMs, the sources of the Knoppix setup tools or patches for programs needed to generate the automatic setup system can be found at , if not already present on the CD-Rom. Because of legal issues (i.e. US crypto export regulations and software patents that may disrupt commercial and noncommercial use of software included on the CD, that is otherwise covered by a Free Software license, for example strong crypto versions of KDE or other SSL enabled software), the author does not currently distribute the Knoppix CD publicly. Individuals or companies can order a customized CD version for evaluation or software projects directly from the author.
3.11 Features
1. Use a transparently uncompressing block device to increase the space available for installed programs.
Status: Done. Needs cleanup and more checks.
2. Disable spin-down of CD-Rom Drive for faster CD-Rom access after periods of idle time.
Status: Still looking for a way that works vendor independent.
3. Clean up boot disk (only 50 bytes or so left), make insmod a built-in function of the initial shell.
Status: insmod, rmmod and other commands are now built-in part of the initial shell. Most SCSI drivers of Kernel 2.2.16 fit on the 1.44 MB boot floppy now.
4. Generate set-ups that are easily customized for different purposes rather than install and uninstall RPM packets before creating a new image.
Status: Still working on a method to do this easily.
5. Enhance interactive setup for using existing swap partitions.
Status: Existing and previously initialized swap partitions are now detected and utilized during the boot process.
6. Add session configuration that can be customized, which can be saved on removable media.
Status: Not done yet.
7. Enhance the auto-detection process; increase the number of known cards and recognized graphics adapters. Status: Used information retrieved from betatesters to create configurations for problematic hardware (mostly Laptop chipsets), ongoing process.
8. Add support for automatic, non-interactive setup of isapnp devices.
CHAPTER 4
DYNE BOLIC
4.1 Introduction to Dynebolic
DyneBolic is a "Live Linux CDROM" i.e. live bootable CD-ROM. This means having a complete operative system recognizing your sound, video, TV and network cards and running only with Free Software. DyneBolic works without the need of hard disks, you need just some low profile requirements
4.2 Features
· Easy to use
· No need to install or to change any data on the hard disk
· It will work even if you have Microsoft Windows installed
· Automatic hardware recognition and configuration of
o Network cards
o Sound cards
o BTTV video cards
o USB devices
· Ready to use desktop including common netsurfing tools
· Includes MuSE to stream audio on the net
· Includes Mozilla to surf on the net
· Stable and reliable GNU/Linux environment
· Fancy BlackBox
· Features ZSH shell with a couple of console commands
4.3 Requirements
Requirements for DYNO BOLIC ARE
· i586 CPU (Pentium MMX / AMD K6) or better
· IDE CD-ROM reader (NO hard disk required)
· About 64Mb of RAM
· PS/2 mouse
4.4 Getting DYNE BOLIC
4.4.1 Download Options
You have to download one of the following the compressed ISO Images:
· Dynebolic development version 0.4.2 (30 June 2002)
STREAM ON THE FLY edition - live audio network streaming
dynebolic-0.4.2.iso.gz (77Mb) MD5 checksum: 3a16eb9e4b4f17193c922623d98426dc
· An older version which still includes FreeJ: Dynebolic development version 0.3.1
FREEJ edition - set the veejay free!
dynebolic-0.3.1-freej.iso.gz (48Mb) MD5 checksum: e093dd4c923b8b4006ab37af9bfdf154
4.4.2 Download Instructions
· You have to burn this CD image on a CD-ROM before using it - take care to not burn it as a file! IT'S AN ISO IMAGE. Refer to the instructions of you favourite burning program for further information.
· Please note Microsoft Internet explorer is likely to break the download (a couple of ppl reported problems with file corruption), USE A DECENT DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE
4.5 Redistribution
If you want to redistribute DyneBolic
Redistribution terms of DyneBolic
If you like, consider to join the mailing list with a mail to dynebolic-subscribe@dyne.org, there you can ask questions to the user/developer community, report bugs and give your suggestions.
4.6 Authors & Sources
The current release of DyneBolic including all the documentation and startup scripts has been done by, jaromil with ideas and solutions contributed by lobo, clcc10, bomboclat, liw, littlejohn
If you want to contribute development and ideas, join our mailing list: mail to
DyneBolic
· www.gnu.org
· www.xfree86.org
· www.mozilla.org
· www.slackware.com
· www.dyne.org
· www.linux-mandrake.com/harddrake
CHAPETR 5
REMAINING ONES…
5.1 Other available “Live Linux CDROM” versions
· Virtual Linux
5.2 Introduction to Virtual Linux
Virtual Linux can boot from CDROM & can be run with or without hard drive. The previously available versions of virtual Linux are
· Virtual Linux 0.7.1 (Downloaded 17,000 times)
· Virtual Linux 1.0 (Downloaded 46,000 times)
The latest available version is Virtual Linux 1.1 (Tiger Edition)
5.3 Sources
Virtual-Linux is base upon Mandrake Linux and uses the same GPL as Mandrake. This distribution uses a 20-megabyte ramdisk that serves as the system root, and the rest of the operating system is linked from a cloop compressed system image. The cloop compression is the biggest difference from other similar distributions. It allows for great speed and also enables 1.66 GB of data to fit onto one cdrom.
5.4 Features of Virtual Linux 1.1
Virtual Linux 1.1 (Tiger Edition) is basically the Mandrake Linux operating system, modified to run directly from your cdrom drive. With Virtual-Linux 1.1 you get about 1.6 gigabytes of software, all compressed onto one cdrom, using cloop compression.
The features are listed as:
· Development Status: 4 - Beta
· Environment: Console (Text Based)
· License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
· Natural Language: English
· Operating System: Linux
· Programming Language: C#, Unix Shell
CHAPTER 6
BUILD YOUR OWN “Live Linux CDROM”
6.1 Starting up
You can build your own “Live Linux CDROM” and customize the kernel, hardware support, loadable module support etc.
Why would one want to boot a machine from cdrom? Booting from cdrom is interesting everywhere one wants to run a very specific application, like a kiosk, a library database program or an Internet cafe, and one doesn't have a network or a server to use a root over nfs setup.
6.2 Creating a test setup
A test setup can be created as follows:
· For starters just take one of the machines, which you want to use and put in a big disk and a CD burner.
· Install your Linux of choice on this machine, and leave a 650 MB partition free for the test setup. This install will be used to make the ISO image and to burn the CD's from, so install the necessary tools. It will also be used to restore any booboo, which leave the test setup unbootable.
· On the 650 MB partition install your Linux of choice with the setup you want to have on the CD, this will be the test setup.
· Boot the test setup.
· Compile a kernel with isofs and CDROM support compiled in.
· Configure the test setup as described above with the root file system mounted read only.
· Verify that the test setup automatically boots and everything works.
· Boot the main install and mount the 650 MB partition on /test of the main install.
· Put the following in a file called /test/etc/rc.d/rc.iso, this file will be sourced at the beginning of rc.sysinit to create /var:
#/var
echo Creating /var ...
mke2fs -q -i 1024 /dev/ram1 16384
mount /dev/ram1 /var -o defaults, rw
cp -a /lib/var /
· Edit /test/etc/rc.sysinit, comment the lines where the root is remounted rw, and add the following 2 lines directly after setting the path:
#To boot from cdrom
. /etc/rc.d/rc.iso
· Copy the following to a script and execute it to make a template for /var and create /tmp and /etc/mtab links.
#!/bin/sh
echo tmp
rm -fR /test/tmp
ln -s var/tmp /test/tmp
###
echo mtab
touch /test/proc/mounts
rm /test/etc/mtab
ln -s /proc/mounts /test/etc/mtab
###
echo var
mv /test/var/lib /test/lib/var-lib
mv /test/var /test/lib
mkdir /test/var
ln -s /lib/var-lib /test/lib/var/lib
rm -fR /test/lib/var/catman
rm -fR /test/lib/var/log/httpd
rm -f /test/lib/var/log/samba/*
for i in `find /test/lib/var/log -type f`; do
cat /dev/null > $i;
done
rm `find /test/lib/var/lock -type f`
rm `find /test/lib/var/run -type f`
· Remove the creation of /etc/issue* from /test/etc/rc.local: it will only fail.
· Now boot the test partition again, it will be read only just like a cdrom. If something doesn't work reboot to the working partition fix it, try again etc. Or you could remount / rw, fix it, and then reboot straight into to test partition again. To remount / rw type:
# mount -o remount,rw /
6.3 Creating the CD
6.3.1 Creating a boot image
First of all, boot into the working partition. To create a bootable cd we'll need an image of a bootable floppy. Just dd-ing a zImage doesn't work since the loader at the beginning of the zimage doesn't seem to like the fake floppy drive a bootable cd creates. So we'll use syslinux instead.
· Get boot.img from a RedHat CD.
· Mount boot.img somewhere through loop back by typing:
# mount boot.img somewhere -o loop -t vfat
· Remove everything from boot.img except for ldlinux.sys and syslinux.cfg.
· Cp (Copy) the kernel-image from the test partition to boot.img.
· Edit syslinux.cfg so that it contains the following, of course replace zImage by the appropriate image name:
default linux
label linux
kernel zImage
append root=/dev/
· Umount boot.img:
# umount somewhere
· If your /etc/mtab is a link to /proc/mounts, umount won't automatically free /dev/loop0 so free it by typing:
# losetup -d /dev/loop0
6.3.2 Creating the iso image
Now we have the CD containing boot image and an install that can boot from a read-only mount.
· Copy boot.img to /test
· Cd (Change) to the directory where you want to store the image and make sure it's on a partition with enough free space.
· Now generate the image by typing:
# mkisofs -R -b boot.img -c boot.catalog -o boot.iso /test
6.3.3 Verifying the iso image
· Mounting the image through the loop back device by typing:
# mount boot.iso somewhere -o loop -t iso9660
· Umount boot.iso:
# umount somewhere
· If your /etc/mtab is a link to /proc/mounts umount won't automagically free /dev/loop0 so free it by typing:
# losetup -d /dev/loop0
6.3.4 Writing the actual CD
Assuming that you've got CD record installed and configured for your cd-writer type:
# cdrecord -v speed=
6.3.4.1 Further details
If you need more information than you can find below, please refer to the CD-Writing-HOWTO.
6.3.5 Testing
Boot the cd and test it
CHAPTER 7 Links & Websites:
· Diskless with "Live Linux CDROM"
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO
· Dynebolic
http://lab.dyne.org/DyneBolic
· Knoppix
www.knopper.net/knoppix
· DemoLinux
www.demolinux.org
· Virtual Linux
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-linux/
www.virtual-linux.org
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