Shared repository for useful persistent disk images

[greenfly]

Hi Knoppix forum,

I've had an idea rattling around in the back of my mind for some time now (actually since around the time I wrote this online article a few years ago) once I saw just how powerful the ability to remaster Knoppix without remastering was. There are a million remastered Knoppix variants out there, and a lot of them essentially change a theme or two, swap out a few packages, and then create a new name with "ix" on the end. Then everyone who wants to use them has to download another 650Mb ISO and carry around another special-purpose CD with them. You could achieve a lot of these same changes either by booting Knoppix and creating a custom disk image, or just creating a saveconfig-type tarball and knoppix.sh combination.

I've done just this in the past where I would have a "sysadmin" customization with all my admin tools on it, and other special customizations all stored in different directories on my usb key. Then at boot time I could just point Knoppix to one or the other directory depending on what I wanted to do.

Well here's my idea. I'm sure a lot of you also have particularly interesting persistent disk images you have set up for special purposes. What if there were some sort of shared repository (almost like VMware's virtual appliance site) where all of these interesting customizations could be shared and possibly rated, etc. so the really useful ones are easy to identify? The benefit of this in my mind is that it might save some people from having to go through a full remaster when they see a persistent disk image someone else created that they could just tweak instead, plus these disk images take up a lot less space than a site full of .iso images. The extra benefit is that these sorts of tweaks (depending on what you do) generally seem to work across new Knoppix releases (at worst if you install packages you might have to change the package versions you use) so it presumably wouldn't be a huge problem to maintain updates if Knoppix also had a new release.

So, any thoughts or opinions about this? Is it just a solution looking for a problem?

[NewB4Life]

I really like this idea >Knoppix can be so many things to so many people> but can only be shared "just so" _ which made a few of my friends/family say, "that's slow + ugly though" and I didn't "pay" for windows so I don't care (yes I was hurt, no I didn't fully remaster, yes I still /love/use linux/dsl/insert/wolvix/knoppix/xubuntu)

[paradocs]

Greetings greenfly and all,
Thank you for your ideas and support for KNOPPIX.

This can be a great project for stimulating
open-source effort. It makes for nice do-able
projects for Linux learners and creative results
to the benefit of many.

http://grow-knoppix.berlios.de/

grow-knoppix is a xdialog script for customizing
that works with the the KNOPPIX DVD 5.3.1.
It is aimed at cut paste download and a bit
of scripting if you please. The original KNOPPIX
is copied and the new executable and data files
are added to produce a new DVD in 15 minutes.

MODULAR implementation so far is rather simple.
The optional elements are:
1. new or revised index.html, shown or not shown
2. a jpg wallpaper is installed in KDE desktop
3. knoppix-gk.sh is appended on to knoppix.sh
4. executable-files.ast go into ~/.kde/Autostart
the .ast is stripped and starts with KDE desktop
5. configs.tbz configuration file may be made.
6. multiple tarball.tbz extracted at boot place
executable files in /usr/bin or content anywhere
7. .deb files on the DVD install each boot with
dpkg -i /cdrom/*.deb
8. content of any type placed on the DVD root

Data sources of all 8 elements are independent.
A file can be dragged and dropped, linked to local
drives, wget downloaded by simply pasting
Internet address into grow-knoppix.

Reality Check:
This is experimental, mount drives at you own risk.
This is live DVD only. If you don't install, it can't get messed up.
This is not remastering or updating the system
but you can sure impress people.
Hopefully new KNOPPIX releases will work.
I hope we will scavenge enough free DVD space.
Boot times can be lengthy when installing 37 deb
files but probono can help with klik packages.
You can sure go through a pile of DVD's in a hurry.
Who has ideas, who will work, who will share, who will host?

Project types:
Please, no boot up prompts, just turn it on and have it work.
I work with customization for accessibility issues.
I automatically backup all partition on a drive with partimage,
-- hands free KNOPPIX mounts, names, ejects and powers off.
Demonstrate new and keep old versions of software for reference.
Content based projects with DVD for archive and distribution.

Let us hear what you think.

Best Wishes,
paradocs