Question on Bootable CDs ... Bart's PE and similar

jeremy

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Nov 26, 2009, 8:31:16 PM11/26/09

to

I need a CD that can boot up to a GUI environment and run a current
generation web browser on a PC that has NO hard drive installed at
all.
NONE.

Is this possible? Will "Bart's PE" or any of the other "Boot CDs"
allow
doing this?
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Barry Watzman

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Nov 26, 2009, 9:28:08 PM11/26/09

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Yes, it's possible, most of the various "pre-installation" environment
CDs will do this (including the "recovery environment" present on
Windows Vista and Windows 7 CDs).

Gerard Bok

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Nov 28, 2009, 10:39:33 AM11/28/09

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On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:31:16 -0800 (PST), jeremy
<stevej...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I need a CD that can boot up to a GUI environment and run a current
>generation web browser on a PC that has NO hard drive installed at
>all.
> NONE.
>
>Is this possible? Will "Bart's PE" or any of the other "Boot CDs"
>allow doing this?

Sure. As long as there is sufficient RAM present in the machine.

(Next to Windows boot CDs you can also look at some of the Linux
variants. And apart from a boot CD you could also run stuff from
a bootable USB stick.)

--
met vriendelijke groet,
Gerard Bok

Bill Eitner

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Nov 30, 2009, 2:54:46 PM11/30/09

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Where I work we often use bootable (aka live) CDs
for troubleshooting. Our favorite is Puppy Linux
although Damn Small Linux, Knoppix and the Mini XP
that is on Hiren's Boot Disk also work well.

Again, As Gerard wrote, live CDs depend on RAM.
More RAM means smoother, faster operation.
However, other than that, a live CD and a flash
drive is all you need to do all the basic stuff.
I highly recommend you try Puppy as you'll likely
be surprised by how well it works and how many
applications can be had for only 105 MB.
--

AG

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Dec 1, 2009, 8:23:25 PM12/1/09

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To your list of Linux distributions I I would add Linux Mint.

AG

Bill Eitner

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Dec 1, 2009, 10:52:23 PM12/1/09

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I'm checkin' it out as we speak! I'm excited as I've never
heard of it (which means it could be the one and only)!

Where I work we've spent a serious amount of time testing
Linux distributions. Debian, Puppy and Damn Small are the
three that make us complete (currently--but we're always
hoping to find that one perfect distribution). I feel
compelled to mention Fedora as well. Personally, I like
it better than Debian for full installations on hardware
that is reasonably modern (P4 and later) that is going
to end users as it's look and feel is more Windows and
OS X-like in that it doesn't scroll a list of what it's
doing--it just does it. Why it isn't one of our top picks
is that it has a higher incidence of installation problems
compared to Debian (in our experience).

We've come to the conclusion that there is no one "best"
operating system. All have their pros and cons. That
includes NT-based Microsoft and Unix-based Apple operating
systems.

Upon further research we've come to the conclusion that
Mint is a contender for the mainstream market. We're
aware of it now and will test it accordingly.
--

Bill Eitner

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Dec 1, 2009, 10:59:56 PM12/1/09

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Not if you're looking for boot CDs.

According to my research, Linux Mint is a full-on OS.
By that I mean it's not a boot/live cd.

We're talking about boot/live CDs here.

With that in mind, Puppy will kick the shit out of mint.

Mint is designed to compete with the big-boy full install
distributions like (especially) Ubuntu.