[wplug] live media recommendations and discussion

[Ted Rodgers]

I'd like to get some input from WPLUG users about livecds.

I know there are tons of them out there, but there aren't very many
I've actually used, those being knoppix and systemrescuecd if I want a
gui or ones meant more for system recovery / tech heads.  Ultimately
the reason for not having tried more is that I've found many that come
in magazines I read won't even boot on my personal desktop hardware,
which means I would never even attempt to run them on a laptop or
someone else's systems.  And yes, this includes recent Mandriva,
Ubuntu, Kubuntu media that comes in my Linux magazines.

What I'm asking and hoping to spark some good civil and objective
discussion about is which livecds are exceptional.  I'm listing some
things here that I feel are important because in the end, I'm looking
for something I could keep on hand and pull out and give to random
people and not have to babysit them while they try it.

1) Gui desktop that starts without hassle and doesn't crash if your
machine has an nvidia or ati card or widescreen display or even dual
head setup (2 monitors or for example LCD + TV vga).  I don't want to
be limiting here, but kde generally looks more like what people are
used to, so if it ran KDE that would be great.
2) Wired and wireless network interface management included that is
easy to use or better yet has a wizard to help with setup.
    (wicd or networkmanager or anything else easy and nice)
3) A good browser and IM client that comes with plugins that actually
work or can be "fake installed" with a click to make *tube sites work.
 A media player that included plugins for file users might have and
not just ones for ogg or matroska or other things new users wouldn't
have a clue what they were.
4) At least some basic productivity tools like OpenOffice, decent pdf
reader, etc.  A basic photo viewing program would be nice too, but I
personally don't think gimp really cuts it for that since I've seen it
scare people when it opens it's 12 windows and starts talking layers
when all the user wants is to see the picture of the grandkids.
5) Sane backend configuration so that usb sticks, external drivers,
and most digital cameras work without learning about the mount or
modprobe command.  I know some devices are odd, but I also know most
things are just usb-storage generic and _can_ just work.  And yes,
I've seen this not work on some livecds.
6) Some cool software that has both a "wow that's cool" effect, but
also without saying it makes them think "On my other system I'd have
to pay for this." A bookmark to google maps that are easily seen may
substitute for map software, etc., but a selection of games or "normal
tools" that aren't totally dos/ncurses based or hard to figure out how
to run, for example, would be nice.
7) Printing / scanning that works pretty much out of the box.  I'd
error on the side of having some bloated configs to get the random
person given the live media to be able to either "just print" or
easily be able to configure it without ever seeing the cups web
interface or having to edit /etc/printcap.  What about wireless
printing, too?
8) Supports both 32 and 64 bit systems using the same media.  There's
probably none that detect system bits on boot, but that would be even
cooler.
9) Never ever ever crashes, for obvious reasons.  If I test drove a
car and the engine died 5 minutes into it, I'd never touch that car
again and it the engine caught fire and burned my legs, I'd probably
never want to drive again period, I'd stick to a bike.
10) Possibly includes some other things that set it apart enough to
show they want the livecd experience to be good for _any_ user,
newbies and old heads alike.


I could create such a livecd myself, but the biggest problem with that
is there is no easy and logical next step from there.  For example I
could build them a nice custom Gentoo cd/dvd/usb but what are they
going to do if they like it?  I can't realistically expect them to run
from it every day or compile their own installation and I couldn't
possibly custom build all their home systems for them.

This is something I'm really interested in, so other users' input
--users of all skill level--would be very helpful.  I will
pre-emptively ask, though, that anyone adding input be open to
feedback (note: not flaming) themselves; other users' experiences with
the same live media that "works every time for you" may not be quite
the same experience you had when you tried it, and I'd like to keep
this a positive, productive thread.

Thanks in advance,

Ted