Free bootable cdrom software for linux

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.

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.

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

Linux::CDROM cookbook contains common recipes featuring your CDROM drive as its main ingredient.

Theres a gazillion ways of reading the disc inside your CDROM drive. The most high-level ones would be mounting your CD and using it as a normal directory or - in case of an Audio-CD - using a player to play tracks. This is boring stuff and you dont need Linux::CDROM for any of that.

But when you want to write your own CD-player or -grabber, this is more like it. You can even get at a lower level than that.

PLAYING AUDIO

Linux::CDROM offers a couple of methods dealing with that. For starting playback, you will use either Linux::CDROM::play_ti (ti == track index) or Linux::CDROM::play_msf (msf == minute, second and frame).

All playing operations happen non-blockingly. That means, you start playback and your program does not wait till the playback is done. Instead if will proceed with the next line.

Mounttero automatically mounts most storage devices such as USB drives and cameras, DVDs, CDROMs, hard disks, and floppies.

Devices are mounted when users opens their directory, such as /mnt/auto/cdrom, and are unmounted when the directory remains unused for four seconds.

Usage

For example, when user opens directory /mnt/auto/usb/, digital camera is automatically mounted and all the pictures shown in the directory. After four seconds of inactivity, device is unmounted and can be detached.

Manual Configuration

The rest of this document describes manual configuration of mounttero. If you installed the rpm, it did all this configuration automatically and you dont need manual configuration. The scripts below contain some latest and greatest version 0.5 improvements that have not made it to rpm yet, namely more usb partitions.

Create the directories used by the automounter. The directory is the one mentioned in /etc/auto.master:

# mkdir -p /mnt/auto/autofs

Create auto.master to tell autofs daemon that /mnt/auto/autofs directory is handled according to auto.tero

# /etc/auto.master
# mountpoint map options # see also: man 8 autofs
/mnt/auto/autofs /etc/auto.tero --timeout=4

List the actual mountpoints and devices in the automounter map

# /etc/auto.tero
# http://iki.fi/karvinen/linux/doc/automatic-mounting-autofs.html
# mountpoint_key options location_device # man 5 autofs
cdrom -fstype=auto,ro,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/cdrom
cdrom1 -fstype=auto,ro,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/cdrom1
usb -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,noexec,user,gid=100,umask=000 :/dev/sda1
# second and third partitions in usb device:
usb2 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,noexec,user,gid=100,umask=000 :dev/sda2
usb3 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,noexec,user,gid=100,umask=000 :dev/sda3
floppy -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,noexec,user,gid=100,umask=000 :/dev/fd0

hda1 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hda1
hda2 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hda2
hda3 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hda3
hda4 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hda4

hdb1 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdb1
hdb2 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdb2
hdb3 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdb3
hdb4 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdb4

hdc1 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdc1
hdc2 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdc2
hdc3 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdc3
hdc4 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdc4

hdd1 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdd1
hdd2 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdd2
hdd3 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdd3
hdd4 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hdd4

# Serial ATA (SATA) disks are IDE emulated in Linux 2.6
hde1 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hde1
hde2 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hde2
hde3 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hde3
hde4 -fstype=auto,nosuid,nodev,user :/dev/hde4

# (c) 2003, 2004-05-29, 2004-09-19 Tero.Karvinen atta iki.fi

# /etc/init.d/autofs restart

Now drives are automatically mounted when you try to access them. You can test it by inserting a cdrom, and cd /mnt/auto/autofs/cdrom. The CDROM is automatically mounted, and ls should show you contents of the cd. When you cd to another directory, such as home directory (cd), CDROM is umounted in four seconds and the eject button in the drive starts working.

To see which drives are mountable (have discs in drive), you can create symlinks (similar to shortcuts) to the mountpoints. You can create the symlinks manually for each drive, for example

# cd /mnt/auto/
# ln -s autofs/cdrom cdrom

Multi Distro is a CD that contains multiple small linux distributions. Multi Distro is a compilation of several live, bootable, distributions.
Its based on R.I.P. It uses GRUB, as bootloader. It goes in one, 700MB CD.
Enhancements:
- 11.04.06 RIP from 11.6 to 15.2
- DSL from 0.9.3 to 2.3
- GeexBOX from 0.98.5 to 0.98.7
- INSERT from 1.2.18 to 1.3.6
- SLAX from 4.2.0 to 5.1.0 (PE version)
- added Olive 0.2
- added Mpentoo 2006.0
- added Grafpup 1.0.2
- added Limp 2.2
- released as Multi Distro v2.5

Borg Live is a bootable CD-Rom containing a GNU/Linux operative system, that permits you to boot directly from the CD, without the need of an hard disk installation .
The system is based on Slax , the Slackware Linux Live CD.
Main features:
- Kernel 2.4.24 with Openmosix clustering support
- X Graphical system
- XFCE Window Manager
To use the Live CD , you need:
A Computer PC-Compatible ( not a MAC one )
A Bios that permit to boot from the CD drive
A Pentium III ( or AMD equivalent ) or better CPU
64 Mb RAM
A CD-Rom or DVD unit
A Mouse ( better if PS2 or USB )
# Instructions for the first boot
1) enable BIOS to boot from Cd-rom
2) Insert the Cd
3) Take a look at the boot options , just when the image appears , pressing F1
4) ( Write down your desired options if any , then ) Press Enter
5) Login as root , no password

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system available from a bootable CDROM that provides an easy way to perform administrative tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk or backing up data.
System Rescue CD contains a lot of system utilities (such as parted, partimage, and fstools), and basic programs (such as editors, midnight commander, and network tools).
It also includes QtParted, a Partition Magic clone that makes editing partitons easy with its Qt graphical user interface. This CDROM aims to be very easy to use and accessible to everybody.
Main features:
- GNU Parted is the best tool for editing your disk partitions under linux
- QtParted is a Partition Magic clone for Linux.
- Partimage is a Ghost/Drive-image clone for Linux
- File systems tools (e2fsprogs, reiserfsprogs, xfsprogs, jfsutils, ntfsprogs, dosfstools): they allow you to format, resize, debug an existing partition of your hard disk
- Sfdisk allows you to backup and restore your partition table