[CentOS] Live CD?

Lanny Marcus lannyma at gmail.com
Fri Jun 6 12:20:02 UTC 2008


On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 11:51 -0700, MHR wrote:
> I just used a Live CD for the first time today, in part to show what
> CentOS can do for a co-worker who is looking at using it at work and
> home, but I got the strangest result.
<snip>

Mark: First, I believe that you should always TYS (Test Your Stuff). You
were very lucky the demo was for a colleague and not for your Manager or
his/her boss! Test what you do, as much as is possible, so others do not
catch your mistakes! TYS... There are reasons for V&V (Verification and
Validation), Design Walk Through, etc. The earlier mistakes are found,
the easier it is to fix them.

I have a Live CD for an earlier version of CentOS and we have one old
box (Firewall/Router backup) it will not run on. I believe that's
because of a video problem.

The Live CD's have a number of uses, which include: (a) Being able to
Rescue a box that has bad problems. They usually have many utilities on
them (b) That one can see if the regular Installation will fly on the
HW, before actually trying to install. (c) You can take a Live CD with
you to a store, if you are contemplating buying a box, and see if Linux
will run on it (d) I plan to take a Knoppix Live CD with me, when I
travel, so if I need to use a Public box, I can boot Knoppix, do
whatever I need to do, and not leave a footprint.

The Knoppix Live CD has been recommended here on this ML and is very
popular. In your case, the CentOS Live CD was a better choice, since
your colleague is interested in using CentOS (a great idea).

Seems like you have a TEAC burner. Someone here on this list, last year,
told me that he does not like them. I personally will not buy any more
TEAC drives, because recently, I learned they did not have Diagnostics
for my CD-RW drive. It went into the trash. Drives that we have had good
luck with include: Samsung, SONY & LG. Other's probably work just as
well. We have other TEAC drives, but they are the last TEAC drives we
will purchase.

The CD-R media I usually buy are Imation or Verbatim. Never had a
problem. There are probably other brands equally good.

When I burned the Knoppix Live CDs, K3B burned them at a high speed as I
recall, but, as has been suggested in prior responses, throttling back
on the speed probably greatly increases the chance of getting a good
burn. K3B checks the MD5 sum, as I recall, when it begins the process.
HTH, Lanny




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