Customer Reviews

Live Linux(R) CDs: Building and Customizing Bootables

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A Linux live CD is more than just a portable Linux system: it is quite versatile, offering a live CD with photo slideshows, presentation capabilities, and customization options - and can run on nearly any PC. LIVE LINUX CDS tells how to use the free software and tools needed to create a customized Linux live SD. Its instructions are step-by-step and specific and offers plenty of tips on configuration and customization. An accompanying DVD includes a bootable live Linux CD set, too, making it a top pick for any user seeking the most versatility from a portable system.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The book describes how to take the included live CDs (or use related technology) to build custom live CDs that contain the software and data (music, video, documents, etc.) you choose. Along the way you will learn how to customize every aspect of the CD, from the boot process to personalized desktops and applications.

Insert the DVD that comes with this book into your computer and reboot. From the boot prompt that appears, there are six remastered Linux live CDs you can launch. Trying them will help you understand the kinds of live CDs you can make before you start customizing or building your own live CD.

For low-end machines, SLAX and Damn Small Linux generally run well. With those CDs, you can add software from the Internet as you run live and save your customizations (to a pen drive or hard disk). KNOPPIX is considered the best full-featured Linux desktop live CD. The Gentoo live CD lets you install that live CD's contents to your hard disk.

If you only have a CD drive, complete images of Ubuntu, MoviX, BackTrack, and other live CDs can be burned from the DVD to run separately. GeeXboX can be remastered to make bootable movies, while Devil-Linux lets you make a custom firewall.

To stimulate ideas about the kind of live CD you might build, the book describes special types of live CDs for security, presentations, gaming, multimedia, and clusters. Once you know the basics for building a live CD, you can pick the packages you want to include from the thousands of software packages available from online software repositories.

If you enjoy tinkering with software, making live CDs is a fun way to spend some time that can result in a completely personalized computer system you can carry in your pocket. I hope you enjoy my book. -- Chris Negus

I recommend this book for those who want to learn not only how to make bootable linux cds/dvds, but to learn about linux as a system. It has nice tips abaout mini-distros. And it's good for fedora fans. Great book.

I'm a newcomer to Linux. I need to build a Live CD that contains certain utilities. I browsed the web and found lots of stuff. Some of it was inarticulate. A lot of articles conflicted with other articles. Many were simply incomprehensible. Confusion reigned - and then I found "Live Linux CDs".

What a great book. Yes, it is compiled from many of the very same web articles I found. The difference is that Christopher Negus is very much a Linux pro and a good writer as well. So he has vastly clarified the language of the original "how to" articles, added a comparatively vast amount of information on how Linux and specifically Linux Live CDs work and put it between covers. The customization of several Linux distributions is covered. For good measure - and as an instructive exercise - Negus also examines several existing Live CDs. The examples are very informative.

Thanks to Negus and his clear, crisp writing style, the book is an easy read. By skipping the chapters on distros that I don't plan on using, I was through the book in a few hours. The best part is that I am looking forward to building my own Live CD. After reading Negus, I have no fear of the process because he has explained it so thoroughly. That is cool.

Jerry

While a little dated, the information in the book is a great resource focusing on live/bootable CDs. It includes a DVD with several live distributions on it, and several methods on how to customize and create bootable CDs. It does NOT provide information on how to build a bootable CD from the ground up, at least, not in any step-by-step method, but more as an academic discussion of the boot process.

It's a great resource for anyone looking for information on making their own bootable linux distribution.

This is a must have book!
I wanted always to create my own Linux Live Cd but i didn't knew how to do it until i bought this book.This book explains in a very simple way how to build and customize a bootable Linux LIve cd, it starts basically with how to use live cds and then it explains how to make the exact live cd the user want.
After reading this book I can create a Live cd that can boot directly to a video or a slideshow presantation, I can add software that i need for my work , or for example I can create a live firewall live-cd or even much better I can create a cluster live cd for grid computing using all my computers.

This book explain some tools, step, examples and straightforward theoris that i need, this is good for beginers and intermediate Linux "distro-yer"

What more can you ask of a book than to give you what it says it will? If you want to create your own customized linux distribution or to tweak an existing one for a special purpose, then this is the book for you.

Best!! Best!!....

Quick in time and superb in quality