Baslinux mailing list

[Day Brown <daybrown AT hypertech.net>]

James Miller wrote:

> Yer behind the times, Day.  There are many Linux "live CD" distros that do
> this - Knoppix chief among them.  Its plug and play capapbilities are
> really on a par with M$ stuff.  I don't know about automounting
> drives/partitions: this is probably considered unsafe for obvious reasons.
I've seen rescue mode on most linux install CDs. But what I aint seen is
just the simple boot to a gui browser without loading all the other
stuff. And while 'unsafe' certainly applies to networks, the whole point
of the 'rescue' is to access the trashed, usually M$ drive. Of the *home
win user*. the other post about the Links browser looks very promising.
Sometimes, the whole reason the user has the problem, is a video
hardware failure. Like Arachne, Links loads from the CLI prompt, and
during setup, like Arachne, lets the user try to see what gui modes
still work.

> But in Knoppix all partitions found show up as icons on the desktop that
> get mounted when clicked.  It will set up your modem (if it's not a
> winmodem, but you have to know the COM port it's on to use it) and NIC if
> you use dhcp.  It's pretty incredible how well it works: just stick it in
> the drive and boot.  Autogenerates an XF86Config.  Takes plenty of RAM,
> though (128MB minimum).
Ram is so cheap these days, that aint gonna be an issue.
> Anyway, many other live CD distros are based on
> it, some for lower resource systems, like DamnSmallLinux.  Then, there are
> the "business card CD" class rescue disks.  These typcially focus on
> rescue tools that work in console mode, but I think some of them have gui
> capabilities.  It's quite a wide world out there on the live CD/ rescue CD
> front, Day.  Check it out some time.
I've been doing that. 

But perhaps I was not clear. I see two tasks that the trashed drive
windoz user wants.
1-access to his own data, bookmarks, addys, downloads, family photos,
etc.
2-access to the net with a browser he can use. Dillo dont get it. I have
an ISP that uses frames in the online email menus. I dunno what browser
options that are out there that are enough like IE so that the M$ user
can run it. Mozilla, Firebird & Opera seem to qualify.

The Damnsmalllinux guy offers a nice tool for a service rep to get the
data for a win user, but it wont make a Linux user out of the client
without an immediate browser so he can check his mail. The rep mite need
to bring a real modem.

So far as I can tell, BL with Links would get the M$ user online asap.
Although, it'd prolly need a larger ramdrive. I dunno about ADSL or
whatever; I live out in the country, where 56k is the only option. But I
see that country life is becoming a fad. Anyone who could offer a better
service would prolly do well. I can see where the rescue system mite
also need a CD burner as well to backup client data before doing
anything else.