Keeper of the iso's

[tom r lopes]

I have a 1TB portable and thought I could fill it with Linux installers.  

Then bringing this to meetings for people to use.  

I have heard of software Ventoy which is supposed to multiboot 

any number of iso's.  I have not tried it yet but I have heard good things.  

So what distros should I download?  

Ubuntu flavors 

Debian (non-free, multi-arch)

Pop OS

Mint

What else?  Aaron (goosbears) what do you suggest?  

There was discussion on the sf-lug list about checking signatures, so I will 

have to do that.  

I would appreciate any suggestions.  1TB should be able to hold most everything.  

Thomas

[goossbears]

On Friday, June 18, 2021 at 12:08:03 AM UTC-7 trl wrote:

I have a 1TB portable and thought I could fill it with Linux installers.  

Then bringing this to meetings for people to use.  

As far as creating single-ISO bootable media for the Linux installers, I myself tend to notice that there are three major types:

1. USB thumbdrives in storage capacities ranging from 1 GB (for bootable CD-size, netinstall-type ISO's) all the way up to 8 GB (for the vast majority of bootable DVD-size, complete install ISO's.)

2. DVDs.

Note that as of this writing, Michael P still has two DVD-burning SATA drives available as per his BALUG Wiki's Offered/Wanted: Hardware, etc. at  https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc

3. CDs.

Not just useful for netinstall-type ISO's such as that of "Debian (non-free, multi-arch)", but also useful for the tinier distro and Rescue-type CDs around and apparently still in active use. There is also the tiny Plop Boot Manager ISO -- see https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/full.html -- which can be burned to a CD and used to boot USB thumbdrives in machines with older BIOS'es without the ability to directly boot such USB drives.

I have heard of software Ventoy which is supposed to multiboot 

any number of iso's.  I have not tried it yet but I have heard good things.  

So what distros should I download?  

Ubuntu flavors 

Debian (non-free, multi-arch)

Pop OS

Mint

What else?  Aaron (goosbears) what do you suggest?

 

IMHO, it would do well to note that a) Rick M has several suggestions within the Linux Tire-Kicking Department section of his must-read

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/kicking.html and b) Michael P has a comprehensive list of CDs, DVDs, ISOs, images, etc. at https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc

Just offhand, several overlapping ISO-download suggestion "approaches" might be ...

- those in-use distros that other BerkeleyLUG participants are or might be interested in

- similar to the above, new and/or recently upgraded distros that you (Thomas), Wayne, Michael P, Rick M, and/or other local outspoken Linux advocates are most keenly interested in

- distros that those relatively new to Linux and/or BerkeleyLUG would or even "should" seriously consider

- distros currently mentioned by direct or social media "word-of-mouth", or via websites such as DistroWatch (see https://distrowatch.com/ and its Search Distros feature https://distrowatch.com/search.php )

-Aaron

[Michael Paoli]

> From: goossbears <acoh...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Keeper of the iso's
> Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2021 08:58:56 -0700 (PDT)

> Note that as of this writing, Michael P still has two DVD-burning SATA
> drives available as per his BALUG Wiki's Offered/Wanted: Hardware, etc. at
> https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc

Yeah, and also semi-recently, I picked up, at the right price (free - the
"miracle" of the free curb-side giveaway), fair bit more optical
media ... nearly 100 DVD[+-]R[W], and fair number of CD-R[W].
Anyway, haven't yet added 'em to:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc
but probably will manage to do that soon...ish, as I now have more such
media than I have practical use for - so - time to give some away.
Note also that list has lots of available DVD/CD sleeves - so they could
make for a good pairing.

> http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/kicking.html and b) Michael P has a
> comprehensive list of CDs, DVDs, ISOs, images, etc. at
> https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc

Well ... I don't know that I'd quite call it a "comprehensive list", but
well, I guess it is ... insofar as what ISOs I do have available.
And yes, I can make 'em all available ... even in bulk if someone wants
to snag copy of the whole set, or a bunch of 'em or whatever.
And, in general, I've also checked and validated the ISOs - and generally
saved all the files needed to (re)validate them if/when someone wants to
check 'em. So, also, if someone's looking to validate ISOs I happen to
already have, I can generally also make the files to validate them
available.

And ... as far as what ISOs to have handy for folks at LUG meetings and
the like. Mostly folks want new(er) stuff, and generally the more
popular/trendy stuff - along with some good rock solid dependable ones
that have been around quite a while. "Of course" what they want, and
what's actually best for them, are not necessarily quite the same thing.

And ... nowadays, I find much less demand for ISOs at LUG meetings and
such - notably because most have relatively high speed Internet fairly
available, and can generally download such themselves, toss it onto
bootable USB flash, and boot from it. But sometimes someone still
needs/wants the ISO ... on optical, or to be able to copy it to,
e.g. USB flash that can then be booted from. And, what to have on hand.
Although many often state/suggest, e.g. on lists, wiki/web pages, etc.
that folks should email ahead their requirements and what they need
or are likely to need ... unfortunately most of the time that doesn't
happen. Most of the time they just show up, and then start talking
about what they want/need ... which makes it harder to prepare and
anticipate.

[ace36]

On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 8:58 AM, I <acoh...@gmail.com> previously wrote:

As far as creating single-ISO bootable media for the Linux installers, I myself tend to notice that there are three major types:

1. USB thumbdrives in storage capacities ranging from 1 GB (for bootable CD-size, netinstall-type ISO's) all the way up to 8 GB (for the vast majority of bootable DVD-size, complete install ISO's.)

2. DVDs.

Note that as of this writing, Michael P still has two DVD-burning SATA drives available as per his BALUG Wiki's Offered/Wanted: Hardware, etc. at  https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc

So what distros should I download?  

Was mentioning this briefly at today's meetup earlier, but there's an excellent and personally-recommended distro that starts out as as a DVD-bootable liveDVD and then puts USB drives in the popular 16 GB and 32 GB capacities to very good use .

That distro is Knoppix; description at https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix

From the various International download mirrors at https://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html , it seems that one of the latest easily-available English versions of Knoppix is v9.1, a.k.a., KNOPPIX_V9.1DVD-2021-01-25-EN.iso

After downloading, signature-verifying, and burning the 4.4GB Knoppix DVD, one boots that liveDVD and can then format a 16GB or 32GB USB thumbdrive as 1) a system-bootable Knoppix liveUSB partition and 2) a 10GB+ or 26GB+ FAT32 persistent storage partition for portably-available files (can even store the original 4.4GB downloaded ISO in this latter storage partition for future DVD-image creation :-) )

On DVD-burning SATA drives such as those Michael is donating for those who need, their usual uses AFAICT are as internal optical drives in PCs or as external optical drives placed within sufficiently large SATA-drive enclosures for portable use (connected via USB to laptop or desktop machines.) 

BTW as an aside , when I first visited SF Noisebridge's 2169 Mission hackerspace less than 10yrs ago, ISTR someone setting up a mini-tower PC running a *buntu having four SATA hard drives taking up all the internal drive mounts and 2 x 5.25" optical bays space, together with a SATA DVD drive extended way out of the mini-tower case for presumably burning and playing DVDs. I'd guess that one of the SATA data cables for one of the four SATA hard drives was disconnected and then reconnected using a much longer cable (or extra long-extension cable) to the external DVD drive, and probably similar for the SATA power cable extended from the machine's internal power supply.  Sure, either or both of that mini-tower PC's cable extensions going to the DVD drive couldv'e rather been cut-and-splice hacked for all I know and remember :-\

-Aaron

[tom r lopes]

Sorry, I have no desire to cart around a bunch of CD or DVD installers.  Or even a bunch of thumbdrives (I've tried the thumbdrives and it is just too complicated to keep track)  

Anyways the idea came to me from a discussion on SF-lug.  Person there wanted to pass the mantle.  And I asked how they did the new iso's 

(I ended up replying in a private message instead of the group.  Which is how the topic about reply to behavior of mailing lists came up with Rick.  Now I see this google-group has been 

changed to follow the normal mailing list method.)  

It reminded me of some SciFi fantasy thing like Bilbo or Frodo holding the Ring.  So "Keeper of the iso's"  

My idea here is to just carry a portable ssd.  Install a multi-boot loader that can boot iso's.  Then if someone comes to a meeting and needs install media they can either boot 

directly from the portable ssd or burn (or flash) the iso to their disk.  

I could carry one CD with like supergrub for those people with machines that can't boot USB directly.  

I don't distro-hop at all so I don't know what to include.  Knoppix is a good suggestion, Aaron.  But I was expecting you to mention some of the distros you use.  I think you have 

mentioned Antix and Duvean.  Do you think I should include those?  

Thomas

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[goossbears]

On Friday, July 2, 2021 at 12:45:32 AM UTC-7 trl wrote:

It reminded me of some SciFi fantasy thing like Bilbo or Frodo holding the Ring.  So "Keeper of the iso's"  

Have mostly used a /boot directory to multiboot-with-GRUB various stable Linux distros with their kernels and initrd's in that single hard drive directory, so in pseudo LOTR-speak, that's certainly "One /boot directory to Rule Them All" ;-D

 

I could carry one CD with like supergrub for those people with machines that can't boot USB directly.  

Quoting what I wrote previously :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is also the tiny Plop Boot Manager ISO -- see https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/full.html -- which can be burned to a CD and used to boot USB thumbdrives in machines with older BIOS'es without the ability to directly boot such USB drives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I don't distro-hop at all so I don't know what to include.  Knoppix is a good suggestion, Aaron.  But I was expecting you to mention some of the distros you use.  I think you have mentioned Antix and Duvean.  Do you think I should include those?  

Am again deferring to others such as Rick M, Michael P, and others on which distros you "should" include (besides the tiny Plop Boot Manager ISO and Knoppix.)  Further quoting Rick M's more extensive distro writeup within the Linux Tire-Kicking Department section of his must-read

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/kicking.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Which Linux distribution should I get? Which distribution is friendliest to new users? Should I get Ubuntu?

Linux poses three distinct challenges: building, administering, and using the system. You might be ecstatic with a Linux system constructed and configured for you, but will (if you're an "ease of use" person) probably be unhappy with the unfamiliar challenge of loading any operating system on Intel-type PCs. (MS-Windows is typically mis-perceived as "easy to install" by those who never install OSes, and who use whatever comes pre-loaded.)

You can buy pre-assembled, pre-configured Linux systems from many vendors. Those I know of in the San Francisco Bay Area are included in my Other Local Linux Resources list. Please note that all of them do mail-order business.

The questions of which distribution is "best" and which is "friendliest" are both inherently debatable: Most opinions you'll hear will be both bigoted and based on incomplete, out-of-date information concerning most (or, often, nearly all) alternatives.

Anyone who tries to give you an easy answer to either question is trying to sell you something.

You, for your part, should think long and carefully before you ask such questions: Are you even serious about trying Linux at all? How are you going to distinguish between competent, relevant answers and blasts of hot air from people barely less ill-informed than you are?

No, you should not automatically gravitate towards Ubuntu, just because that distribution is best-known in the USA. (Before 2011, this FAQ item used to say "you should not automatically gravitate towards Red Hat" rather than "Ubuntu", but the distribution relentlessly touted to the masses changes from year to year.) One of the glories of Linux is the richness of choices that you can sample many of at low cost. Consider trying several of them consecutively.

I personally strongly prefer the Devuan (and formerly Debian) distribution, especially for servers. However, newcomers should consider starting with Bodhi Linux, Linux Mint, Ultimate Edition, MEPIS Linux, or PCLinuxOS, for desktop Linux machines (not Devuan/Debian).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't want at all to be that "bigoted" person who -- "based on incomplete, out-of-date information" -- "tries to give you an easy answer" to [the question of which distro is "best" and which is "friendliest"] or "is trying to sell you something" ;-o
OTOH, if this helps you and others, have myself been using a limited set of stable and decidedly *non*-newcomer Linux distros for different machines, a few of which are also used as VirtualBox virtual machines/vm's (see https://www.virtualbox.org/.)
FWIW, the vast majority of vbox vm's I've most recently used are either *BSD-based "distros" or rolling-release Linux distros such as Debian Testing, Arch-based distros, and various Ubuntu-based distros other than Ubuntu itself. Other vbox vm's in the past have also been such distros as AntiX, VoidLinux, Kali, ... etc etc.
Note that Michael P has previously discussed and actively demonstrated his extensive use of virtualized machine setups other than VirtualBox, e.g., KVM with libvirt (https://wiki.debian.org/KVM ), as well as a more focused emphasis specifically on Debian (also see http://bad.debian.net/.)

-Aaron