Linux LiveCD

[5614]

I've had Knoppix LiveCD for a very long time now and it works just as it is supposed to. I put the CD into the drive and boot from it.

 

However yesterday I decided to get Damn Small Linux (DSL) and Julex (which is a stripped down version of Knoppix) - both are LiveCD. So I put of them onto a CD (seperate CDs) and tried to boot from them, it wont't work. It tries to read the CD and then gives up and boots Windows. The same happens for both DSL and Julex (which are installed on seperate CDs). I tried burning Julex onto a 3rd CD but got the same results.

 

Any idea why I can't boot off those CDs?

 

I got Julex via BitTorrent and from the official site (remember that I have burnt it to two CDs, so I downloaded it again from another source, just incase, both copies were identical) (http://julexlinux.sourceforge.net/) and I got DSL from a torrent linked to on the official page (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/). Both distros are the latest versions current available.

[5614]

Hmm, weird, now I burnt the Julex .iso to a CD using Nero (before I just copied the files into the CD window and burnt using Windows own burner)... now it works, ie. I'm on Julex now - it is just about similar to Knoppix, the 'stripped down' is a bit of an exageration though! There's like nothing here!

 

I'll try the same method for DSL and see if it works.

 

[edit]hmm, so I wanted to go back to Windows (was in Julex) so I clicked on Reboot. Nothing happened. Clicked Shutdown. Nothing happened. Tried it all again, still nothing. Not good! So I pressed the power button on my PC (well, held it down) and sure it shut down. Then I pressed it again and I got nothing back a black screen, maybe Julex didn't properly unload from the RAM or something. So I removed the power cable, put it back in and it all worked fine!

 

btw Julex doesn't have NTFS write yet, I don't like it much, esp. when you could just use the full version of Knoppix off a CD instead.

 

[edit2] I booted into Julex again and again it wouldn't let me shutdown, but I managed to restart from the Root Access command line thing by typing:

shutdown -r now

and that worked.

 

[edit3] DSL now works too. I burnt it using Nero.

 

[edit4]

SUMMARY

 

I burnt Julex and DSL onto seperate CDs using Windows own burner - it didn't work.

 

I burnt Julex and DSL onto seperate CDs using Nero - it did work.

 

I don't like Julex as it doesn't have NTFS write. DSL keeps mucking me around saying I don't have rights, if I use chmod then it says I don't have rights to do that! I tried unmount (umount) and remounting like this:

mount -rw /dev/hda1 /mnt

but it still wouldn't let me copy a file saying it's read only. I tried altering permissions etc. said I couldn't - read only!

 

I think at the end of the day I prefer Knoppix!

[bluesmudge]

Windows burner doesn't support ISO burning tis part of your problem - nero does

[Klaynos]

Always check the md5 checksum for the file downloaded.

 

Some times live CD's have issues with some hardware, and it's quite common for home burnt CD's to ahve issues with certain drives (although normally not the one they're burnt in).

 

And also what bluesmudge said...

[5614]

I unzipped the .iso with winRAR and then copied the files to CD and burnt em, I thought that would work, obviously it didn't.

[bluesmudge]

just a note you can always get some good random iso burners from download.com, they'll be on trial versions, but they always seem to get the job donw

[Klaynos]

if you've got 2 optical drives, use knoppix...

[1veedo]

I personally dont like knoppix, but I use it anyway cause I dont feel like trying a bunch of liveCDs out. Just need something to change partition tables in and other misc stuff -- something that doesn't autostart a desktop unless you tell it to.

[augment]

You could also try putting a live linux distro on a flash drive.

[5614]

Yeah you could but my BIOS doesn't support booting off USB, I could probably flash the BIOS but I can't really be bothered, I'm fine with just booting off the CD.