Free bootable software for linux

BCCD - Bootable Cluster CD was created to facilitate instruction of parallel computing aspects and paradigms. Part of the difficulty instructors face is lack of dedicated resources to explore distributed computing aspects lack of time to preconfigure and test the supporting environment.

The BCCD image addresses this problem by providing a non-destructive overlay way to run a full-fledged parallel computing environment on just about any workstation-class system...Were happy to say that this now includes the MAC too!

The BCCD does share similarities with a few diskless solutions for clustering, such as the Warewulf project, the thin-OSCAR approach, Cluster Knoppix (only an openMosix system, no MPI/LAM/PVM build tools, ...), and so on. This is definitely the trend in HPC. But the main differences are that the BCCD will always fit in your pocket, be highly customizable for specific institutions needs, and will always be geared toward education and not dedicated clusters.

The "gar" build system also sets the BCCD apart from other projects. "gar" is a mix between BSDs "ports" system, Linux from scratch, and gentoo Linux. With gar, you can build an entire BCCD image from net-fetched sources in about two hours (assuming you have a primed ccache!).

The BCCD is also distinctly different from NPACI-Rocks, OSCAR, Cluster in a box or other type of mass-imaging clustering project for two reasons:

1. Its a non-destructive overlay on top of the current hardware. Once a system is rebooted, it reverts back to its original state. It is intended to be booted "over top" of a currently-configured Windows/Linux/BSD/etc. system.
2. Its focus in on educational aspects of High-Performance Computing (HPC) instead of the HPC core. Students will have a much better appreciation and understanding of how to tweak an MTU setting or wire the topology across a cluster if they understand how a distributed computation is laid out! Emphasis is placed upon building, configuring, and running distributed applications.

Phrealon is a bootable linux CD based on Slackware Linux 8.0 (now 9.0)designed to allow the easy imaging of multiple workstations.

It utilizes the udpcast set of Linux tools to accomplish this.

DCC/Live is a Knoppix based bootable CD-ROM which provides a virtual DCC cluster.

The virtual cluster consists of one master-node (node0), and three virtual work-nodes running on User Mode Linux (node1, node2, node3).

makebootfat is a command line utility able to create bootable USB disks for Linux and Windows using the FAT filesystem and syslinux.

makebootfat is the most advanced tool available able to make bootable USB disks. Its able to autodetect/partition/format/populate the USB disk in a single step without any user interaction.

Its also able to create disk images which are compatibles with all the three standards USB-FDD, USB-HDD and USB-ZIP at the same time.

To use makebootfat you probably need also syslinux or FreeDOS

IOSN Live CD is an bootable CD that boots into a usable and fully featured Linux Desktop. In addition to standard FOSS productivity and multimedia applications, it is bundled with a User Guide to Using the Linux Desktop in print and multimedia formats as well as several IOSN Free/Open Source Software Primers.

Note: This is a beta release.

IOSN Live CD is an bootable CD that boots into a usable and fully featured Linux Desktop.

In addition to standard FOSS productivity and multimedia applications, it is bundled with a User Guide to Using the Linux Desktop in print and multimedia formats as well as several IOSN Free/Open Source Software Primers.

IOSN comes from International Open Source Network.

loonix-live is a bootable CD containing the Linux operating system. loonix-live runs Linux directly from the CD (or USB) without installing.


The Live CD described here is based on the gentoo Linux distribution and uses the Unification File System (also known as unionfs), allowing a read-only filesystem to behave as a writable one, saving all changes to memory.

loonix-live was created with the help of Tomas Matejiceks Linux live scripts. Tomas is also the developer of slax a slackware based live cd.