Free bootable floppy software for linux

BW3 is a mini-cd live distro, continuing in the philosophy of the original floppy-distro BrutalWare .

BW3 is based on Tomas Matejiceks Linux Live scripts. BW3 contains bonus software of your "daily use" or for fun. BW3 also contains some stuff from the hysterias famed "arxiv".

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.

floppyfw project is a router with the advanced firewall-capabilities in Linux that fits on one single floppy disc.
Main features:
- Access lists, IP-masquerading (Network Address Translation), connection tracked packet filtering and (quite) advanced routing. Package for traffic shaping is also available.
- Requires only a 386sx or better with two network interface cards, a 1.44MB floppy drive and 12MByte of RAM ( for less than 12M and no FPU, use the 1.0 series, which will stay maintained. )
- Very simple packaging system. Is used for editors, PPP, VPN, traffic shaping and whatever comes up. (now this is looking even more like LRP (may it rest in peace) but floppyfw is not a fork.)
- Logging through klogd/syslogd, both local and remote.
- Serial support for console over serial port.
- DHCP server and DNS cache for internal networks.
It will get more features, but only if it is possible to cram it into the one, single diskette. More than one floppy is bloatware.
Enhancements:
- This release is uClibc based, and you can build it in a development environment yourself if you like.

Cool Linux CD is a bootable CD with Linux operating system that contains a 2.4 kernel and many free software packages.
Enhancements:
- Kernel 2.4.20-wolk and 2.4.22 with supermount, squashfs, shfs patches and ALSA 0.9.6 drivers;
- Ability to choose a version of linux kernel and parameters for FrameBuffer and XFree86 (resolution);
- Save and restore your system configuration on floppy;
- Restore configuration from another session on CoolLinuxCD (in multissesion mode);
- Writing the CD-RW disks with CDRW device (if not a boot drive);
- Ability to choose the interface language during the bootup process (currently only English and Russian languages are supported);
- Autodetects all hardware and autoconfigures XFree86;
- USB mouse and keyboard support;
- IceWM window manager with ROX-filer as desktop and file manager.

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

Old Laptop As Firewall is a single, 1440kb floppy Linux with 16-bit PCMCIA support and PPP for using a Pentium I/II laptop to firewall a dial-up connection.
The floppy is msdos-formatted and uses Syslinux to boot into a 4MB ramdisk with a Minix version 2 filesystem. The system was compiled with uClibc 0.9.28.
Main features:
- 2.4.34 non-modular kernel, compressed with lzma
- uClibc 0.9.28
- busybox 1.4.1
- pcmcia-cs 3.2.8
- pppd 2.4.4b1
- iptables 1.3.7
- dnsmasq 2.35
- 100 kb free on the floppy to add more programs!
Version restrictions:
- OLAF has not been tested with more than one computer behind
- the firewall (I only have two boxes to work with.)
- The supplied chat script probably wont work for many people.
- There currently isnt any support for local timezones.
- The Windows and Mac support is lacking; I dont have
- either OS to work with.
Enhancements:
- The file permissions in /etc/* were changed from 0600 to 0644 on all plain text files except gshadow, shadow, and ppp/pap-secrets.
- The file permissions on /bin/busybox were changed from 0700 to 0755.
- The original permissions were too strict for dnsmasq, which runs as user nobody and couldnt access /etc/hosts.

Kate OS is a multitasking operating system, which brings all that is necessary for: programmers, webmasters, administrators and home users. The most important Kate OS features are high efficiency, safety, reliability and low system requirements.
Kate OS contains full support for generally used multimedia. Kate OS is a perfect combination of Linux power and utility. The complexity of installed software makes using the system comfortable, immediately after the installation process. Looking for a perfect solution for the experienced UNIX user? Kate OS is perhaps the best one.
Kate OS combines advantages of all these system types. The installation and configuration process of Kate OS is not as simple as in desktop distributions, but the stability and efficiency are incomparably higher.
The new version contains many improvements and modifications over Kate 1.0. The system has been reconstructed from the ground up and is no longer based on Slackware. Kate OS became much more comprehensive, now it contains greater set of programs and libraries.
Applications, which have been added to simplify your work, are:
- Leafpad- simple, but very functional text editor, similar to Notepad;
- Abiword- advanced text editor;
- Firefox- well-known internet browser;
- Thunderbird- mail client;
- GNU Gadu 2- program working with Gadu-Gadu and Tlen.pl;
Desktop Enviroment- Xfce 4.2 adds some fresh impressions and possibly will satisfy each user. System also contains Aspell and Ispell dictionaries. Kate 2.0 has an extended system of packages, TGZex, which has been adapted for remote actualization.
Kate 2 uses up-to-date sound system ALSA, the older solution OSS is not supported any more. The packages in TGZex standard are adjusted to remote system updating, wich will be available soon- their possibilities have completely replaced the sysupdate tool.
System supports the solution called "supermount", which frees the user from manually mounting and unmounting removable media. To enable this option, you should just uncomment proper lines in /etc/fstab.
And whats the most important thing? The system has acquired a new effectiveness through Kernels 2.6 infrastructure. Kate 2.0 ZYKLON is a perfect solution for desktop and server, you may enter the world of many recent technologies used in Linux. Reveal their power!
Kate Linux 2.3 requirements:
- i486
- 24 MB RAM
- 300 MB HD (For ROOT and SWAP)
- VGA card
- soundcard (optional)
- CDROM (bootable), floppy
Whats New in 2.3 Stable Release:
- We are proud to present the newest milestone release of Kate OS II series. Kate OS 2.3 brings 2.6.14.2 kernel with Reiser4 support, the newest glibc library, XFce 4.2.3.2 desktop environment and many other applications in current versions. We have modified system boot scripts so they present the boot sequence in a clear way. Another new addition in Kate OS is a hardware detection tool discovery, which detects and configures system hardware. ... Additionally, the DVD edition contains GNOME 2.12.1 and KDE 3.4.3 (optimized for i686 class processors).