Re: [tlug] the power of the live CD

["Keith Bawden" <keith@example.com>]

> I've just completed two cool tasks at work using the kubuntu live cd. One was recovering files from a crashed XP machine using rsync over ssh. The second was duplicating my laptop's hard drive to another identical laptop with a larger hard drive, again with ssh but this time using dd so I could get the XP partition data (it's a dual boot). So cool. What's funny is the company I work for hosted a major debate a couple of weeks ago titled "Open Source Software: A Threat or Opportunity?". And some people were arguing that it's a threat. Unbelievable. Especially considering the fact that I use it all the time at work to do sysadmin tasks as well as for my own workstation.

In the past I had used Knoppix a lot for this kind of work. Thankfully
I have not supported any Windows machines for 2+ years now. I have
also used Knoppix as a teaching and advocacy tool. I would hand out
Knoppix CDs to students and encourage them to play about with Linux.
This was a pretty successful ploy. Some of them started to do full
Linux installs as they found Knoppix to be very interesting but wanted
more speed.

If you google you can find many many variants of KNoppix (and possibly
the Ubuntu live CDs) that are tailor made for anything and everything
from playing games through forensics. This may be easier than rolling
your own.

As for "Open Source Software: A Threat or Opportunity?". It is a
threat and an opportunity. However, in my life I have only ever
experienced the opportunity angle from using FOSS :-)

Regards, Keith