myxiplx
April 19th, 2007, 09:42 AM
Hey folks,
Had an idea and needed to brainstorm with a few folks who know linux better than I.
There are a lot of Live CD's out there, Babel Linux is the latest I've heard of with a nice little twist - centralised storage for all your work (http://www.babeldisk.com/).
Now Live CD's will boot on a lot of hardware, but there are bound to be problems from time to time, either with hardware drivers, or internet / network settings. And if you're dealing with non technical users, getting them to go into the BIOS to enable booting from CD-ROM or USB sticks could be a pain.
So what I'm thinking is this. Can we combine a Live CD with a VMware image on a single 2GB memory stick, and get the best of both worlds? If you can boot straight off the memory stick, great! Plug it in, switch on and you're away. If you're not sure however, just boot the normal OS, and then plug the memory stick in. VMware will use your existing internet connection (even dial up!), and it'll work on Linux or Windows.
So, questions and problems:
1. Does Linux support autorun? Bear with me please, Linux is still pretty new to me :)
2. Is it possible to put a FAT partition as the boot partition on one of these memory sticks? I'm hoping you can get Linux booting from the FAT partition as you could also store the Linux and Windows VMware players on there.
3. Can the VMware player run without installation on Windows and Linux?
If all 3 are possible, Linux On A Stick sounds like something I might put together for my mum :D
Combine the simplicity of booting from that with centralised storage and backup like Babel would be great. I'd give it my mum to use as her home PC. At home I'd configure it to just boot off the USB drive, but when she goes to visit family she can take her photos, e-mail and everything just by putting the memory stick on her keyring. At my aunties there's no need for her to reboot or change BIOS settings (both of which would scare her), she just plugs it in & it runs, with all her settings.
Myx
Had an idea and needed to brainstorm with a few folks who know linux better than I.
There are a lot of Live CD's out there, Babel Linux is the latest I've heard of with a nice little twist - centralised storage for all your work (http://www.babeldisk.com/).
Now Live CD's will boot on a lot of hardware, but there are bound to be problems from time to time, either with hardware drivers, or internet / network settings. And if you're dealing with non technical users, getting them to go into the BIOS to enable booting from CD-ROM or USB sticks could be a pain.
So what I'm thinking is this. Can we combine a Live CD with a VMware image on a single 2GB memory stick, and get the best of both worlds? If you can boot straight off the memory stick, great! Plug it in, switch on and you're away. If you're not sure however, just boot the normal OS, and then plug the memory stick in. VMware will use your existing internet connection (even dial up!), and it'll work on Linux or Windows.
So, questions and problems:
1. Does Linux support autorun? Bear with me please, Linux is still pretty new to me :)
2. Is it possible to put a FAT partition as the boot partition on one of these memory sticks? I'm hoping you can get Linux booting from the FAT partition as you could also store the Linux and Windows VMware players on there.
3. Can the VMware player run without installation on Windows and Linux?
If all 3 are possible, Linux On A Stick sounds like something I might put together for my mum :D
Combine the simplicity of booting from that with centralised storage and backup like Babel would be great. I'd give it my mum to use as her home PC. At home I'd configure it to just boot off the USB drive, but when she goes to visit family she can take her photos, e-mail and everything just by putting the memory stick on her keyring. At my aunties there's no need for her to reboot or change BIOS settings (both of which would scare her), she just plugs it in & it runs, with all her settings.
Myx