FWIS 2.0

Gullible Jones · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:04 am Post subject: UCAP, a new Linux live CD

Bet you guys never saw this coming... Rolling Eyes

I'm kludging together - and kludging really is the right word - a live CD, currently called UCAP. It's based on Ubuntu 10.04 (a very stripped down version thereof) and Tomas M.'s (of Slax fame) Linux Live scripts, which I haven't changed at all.

I'm currently working on the first incarnation, which will probably be pretty short lived, because minimal Ubuntu is turning out to be an absolute shit base system for anything Slax-like. It's designed to give a reasonably normal and intuitive desktop experience on old and sluggish computers. As such it has the XFCE desktop environment set up, with a bunch of applications; but no Flash plugin and nothing too bloaty by default. Minimum system requirements should be in the area of a Pentium II machine with 256 MB of RAM; ideally though you'd want the full 384 MB, or more if the machine is capable. More RAM always = better.

A bit more information on UCAP:

- It will come with all the available Linux video drivers, so most video cards should work out of the box. Proprietary video drivers won't be included by default, but shouldn't be needed for the old machines I'm thinking of.

- It will run single-user, as root. Yeah, yeah, I know... I may change this in future versions, esp. if I migrate away from the Slax based scripts. Meanwhile though, while I don't think it's *secure*, I think it's secure *enough* for typical desktop use. Also, if you feel paranoid, you can always install NoScript.

- It will be installable to an empty hard drive in two easy steps: copy the two big directories from the CD onto the drive, and run a file in one of those directories. If the drive in question is already formatted as FAT32, it won't even need to be reformatted.

- NTFS read/write support WILL be included. Not sure if this will allow installation to NTFS partitions, as the driver is in userspace; maybe someone can try it and find out once I release it? Anyway, this will allow retrieval and editing of files on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 partitions.

If you're wondering why I decided to do this... It's because I've got some old computers on hand, and am very dissatisfied with all the current distros for old PCs. Puppy Linux is buggy and kind of strange; Slitaz is interesting but very limited; and Slax, my long-time favorite, is pretty much dead. So I figured I'd brew my own based on Slax.

I'll post more once I've completed the build and tested the first CD...

Gullible Jones · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:56 am Post subject:

Update: well the Linux Live scripts were a spectacular failure, they seem incompatible with Ubuntu. I am instead following this set of instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomizationFromScratch

Hopefully that will get me somewhere.

Gullible Jones · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 4:59 am Post subject:

Blargh, it didn't.

Meanwhile I'm ditching this project for now, as I've discovered the awesomeness that is Slax Remix - an update of the original Slax that does everything I intended with UCAP and more.