View Full Version : Geeky, but cool
Today I have been working a lot in Linux rather than Windows. Not unusual, but different because in this case I've been working on a Linux install I did on a USB memory stick. I got it working over the weekend at home, set my desktop up, brought it into work this morning, booted off the key and away I go. While it is very geeky, I find it very cool, and will be useful in a variety of scenarios, not least recovering other fools files when they cock things up.
That is all.
Davey_Pitch
09-07-2007, 15:29
What size memory stick?
It is geeky, but still very cool, and as you say it'll be useful in a lot of situations. It kinda makes me want to learn linux properly As it is I'll just stick with my CD version of Bart PE to recover files when people have fubar'd their pc's :D
Just 1GB at the moment. If I find myself using it a lot I'll buy a 4GB drive (as they can be had quite cheap - £17.99 at dvd.co.uk iirc) so I can install more apps. I haven't hit a capacity wall yet, but I inevitably will!
Stan_Lite
09-07-2007, 15:40
Would that be DSL (Damn Small Linux)?
IIRC, it comes as small as 50Mb.
Always meant to give it a try but never got round to it.
Nay, it's actually a fully functioning (K)ubuntu system :) I've basically cloned the Live CD on my first attempt (though obviously not keeping it read only), I'm mid way through my second now trying to get a 'proper' install working which would be more space efficient in the end.
It's one of those things you can set off and forget about for a while, lots of disk i/o isn't exactly lightning quick on flash memory of this type!
What size memory stick?
It is geeky, but still very cool, and as you say it'll be useful in a lot of situations. It kinda makes me want to learn linux properly As it is I'll just stick with my CD version of Bart PE to recover files when people have fubar'd their pc's :D
A decent LiveCD should be quicker to boot than Bart PE (in my experience anyway) and allow you to map the drives fairly easy.
There are a few good tools out there for doing a USB key distro, depending on your need. DSL isn't too shabbeh, particularly given its 50Mb.. you could have it installed, customise it a little bit and still have ample space left for docs and stuff on a 256Mb Pen drive!
Did you need to "bodge" a U3 system (digital switchblade style) to get it to boot from the drive? I have tried this in the past but it would seem that it didnt want to boot.
I would dearly love to have BackTrack 2 booting from a pendrive!
Nope, it just worked on my laptop and my workstation - the pen drive appeared in the boot menu when I plugged it in. Both modern Dells though, I guess I'll see problems the older I go.
Most BIOSes from the last 3 - 4 years have an ability to select "USB-HDD" as a boot device, this should work, but YMMV.
Justsomebloke
10-07-2007, 15:41
:cool:
OK then, either i have moved completely into geek world or that is just as cool as ****.
Being honest I've known i was a geek for years but just denied it. Bollocks to that geeks will now inherit the earth so **** it i am on board.
Linux is on my to-do list & i have a very small to-do list. This thread inspires me to learn it Now rather than later.
Totally cool,, as cool as *** in fact :cool:
Possibly the coolest thing i have Ever read on the interweb, definitely the coolest thing I've read this year.
I took this a little further today :)
I bought a new 4GB stick over Chrimbo as the 1GB just wasn't enough for what I wanted. After some playing around and bootloader fighting, I now have the best of all worlds (imo). If I plug it into a Windows system I get to use it as normal - I'll keep portable firefox and pocketputty on there etc. But it will still also boot into Ubuntu (Gutsy now, always had trouble with Feisty on USB). I ended up missing having some portable storage for windows and drastically cut down what the ubuntu install could do. Not now though, it's got a good 1GB of space for changes, has the entire contents of the live cd as standard, and left me with about 2GB of space for win32 stuff that mounts automatically on it's own (previously the partition was second or third down the disk, and Windows wont bother attempting to mount anything other than the first, so I had to give it a letter myself).
Happy (geeky) Darren. It's a proper little swiss army knife :)
Next task: Ditch Windows all together ;)
I well and truly b0rked up my Ubuntu workstation today, fiddling about with xen, to the point where the entire team were going "WTF?! How did you manage that?!", and I made the decision to rebuild (/home is on a separate partition so safe)
All we had kicking around was a Debian Etch minimal install disk... thankfully bandwidth isn't much of an issue when you work for an ISP (100Mb link to our office, usually sits around 40Mb/s usage from normal stuff so a reasonable amount of spare bandwidth for installs)
I'm impressed. Its moved on a fair bit since I last used it, and it was a pain free installation, and apart from the usual niggles of getting ATI drivers to work (apt-get install fglrx-whatever-it-was just doesn't work out of the box, no matter what people say) I soon had the box back up and running nicely. Some of the software is slightly older versions than under Ubuntu but that's to be expected. Runs faster and smoother than Gutsy was with a definite lack of bloat on a standard install in comparison.
I'm going to stick with it for a couple of weeks for now and see how comfortable I get with it. Being Debian it'd be a fairly simple task to upgrade it to Gutsy if I really need to anyway.
I got backtrack2 working in the end after my last post in this thread on a 2Gb drive. When 8Gb drives hit the curve and I have a spare few quid I will have a full BT2 and another linux on there as well as a few ISOs of various things.
Next task: Ditch Windows all together ;)
Heh, I wish!
Seriously though, I've always said I couldn't live without either and that's still the case :)
Heh, I wish!
Seriously though, I've always said I couldn't live without either and that's still the case :)
I reached the stage a few months back where literally the only reason I keep Windows installed on any of my PCs is because I like to play games. For everything else I prefer Linux.
Stan_Lite
04-01-2008, 09:32
This made me LOL ;D
Mine has porn on lol
Amidst all the geekiness, Belmit, the voice of reason, brings things back to a level we can all understand :cool:
Admiral Huddy
04-01-2008, 10:22
Sound good mate. However, I've never quite seen the attraction of Linux. I understand it's free and flexible but if you can't run anything on it, what's the point?? Even windows files sharing has to be done through a Samba share. Seems like a lot of hassle. Maybe you can enlighten me.
I reached the stage a few months back where literally the only reason I keep Windows installed on any of my PCs is because I like to play games. For everything else I prefer Linux.
I still have to admin a lot of Windows systems so I'm stuck. Though for the most part the tools I use dont fight me so it's alright really.
Sound good mate. However, I've never quite seen the attraction of Linux. I understand it's free and flexible but if you can't run anything on it, what's the point?? Even windows files sharing has to be done through a Samba share. Seems like a lot of hassle. Maybe you can enlighten me.
Not sure what you mean by cant run anything on it :/
Other than play games newer games (and even then there are ways and means), there is nothing I couldn't do in my Linux environments. Some things are more convenient in Windows, which I why I still use and rely on it, but there's no limitation if you're willing to get your hands dirty with some of the more Windows centric few things.
The main reason I like Linux is the power it gives me. From a Linux shell I can do whatever I need to very quickly - if there are problems I can find the information I need to troubleshoot it very easily, if I need to make configuration changes I can make them and apply them quickly and without downtime like rebooting. It just lets me do my job I've never had anything come close to it in Windows. Maybe Powershell will change that over time, we'll just have to see.
It's also of course a superior recovery environment. If I'm stuck in a server room at 3:30 in the morning facing a dead server I can pull something out of my pocket to let me get at the data if it's in one piece, or even diagnose hardware problems.
[edit]Dont get me wrong, I'm not a Linux fanboy per se, just an enthusiast. There are things both Linux and Windows give me and I dont see why someone should have to choose.... so I dont. I have both a Windows and Linux server at home and use them both for different things - playing to each of their strengths as I see fit. My Windows box (a VM uner Linux) gives me Exchange, authentication and media sharing, the Linux box looks after file sharing, VPN access to my home LAN, media conversion/ripping (with no gui I should add), web and sql gump and lots of automated stuff - backups and shifting data around.
I could do all of them on either but I choose the best platform for the service and have the best of all worlds.
How easy is it to use linux on a wireless network and share files between that, a vista machine and an xp machine? How much hassle are we talking about to set it all up?
If the wireless cards are supported, absolutely no bother at all with the newer linux distros.
Cool, how much will I have to re-learn if I decide to go down the linux route (linuxmce)?
I don't know if that's a distro or an app. The learning curve for a distro install goes from the obscene (do-it-all-yourself) Gentoo to the noddy (schlep in a CD and get a Linux GUI). Where you take it from there is your own choice.
As for me, I tried a DSL install a few years ago and could never get the stupid thing to boot even though the BIOS claimed to support USB-HDD. Garp is spot on - YMMV.
Sound good mate. However, I've never quite seen the attraction of Linux. I understand it's free and flexible but if you can't run anything on it, what's the point?? Even windows files sharing has to be done through a Samba share. Seems like a lot of hassle. Maybe you can enlighten me.
As I see it currently under windows I use:
browser: firefox
IM: MSN Messenger
Office suite: OpenOffice.org
E-mail: Thunderbird
SSH stuff: Putty
Music/DVDs: Windows Media Player
Games
Of those, games is getting there under Cedega but still not 100%. For IM I'd use Pidgin/GAIM like I do at work. SSH can be done natively from a shell. Music & DVDs there are myriad alternatives like Rhythmbox and so on.
So where does that leave me... Games is literally the only weak spot.
With the command line I've got scripting, programming and all sorts that allow me to be more and more flexible. If I want a really fancy pants GUI, then Beyrl/Compiz provides me with 'bling'.
Forgot to add: When it comes to installing, Debian & Ubuntu are a breeze in most cases. "apt-get install packagname". It'll download it and install all relevant packages for you.
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