What's it like running Linux on a CD-R?

defunctlizard

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I have recently bought many CD-R's and was wondering what the experience running Linux would be like. Since it is written once read a ton I assume you can't have a persistent boot with a distro like Knoppix. I assume that once you got into it you wouldn't have any problems because it loads all the processes/files into the memory... am I wrong?

TLDR; I bought a ton of CD-R's, can I run Linux on them?
 


You can run Linux on them. Many distros that have "live" will work.

Yes, you can have no persistence (where will it go?).

Puppy Linux, variations and derivatives might be interesting because you can save. It will save little bits to your Hard Drive.

When you switch off all your changes will be lost.

It will run slower than an actual HDD install.
 
Most modern Linux you cannot run on CD because CD's are not big enough. You would need DVD's.

So you will need to limit your search for those that will fit, like Puppy Linux, Slax, and a few others. Because they are smaller, they actually may run fairly well if you have a decent amount of RAM.
 
Most modern Linux you cannot run on CD because CD's are not big enough. You would need DVD's.

So you will need to limit your search for those that will fit, like Puppy Linux, Slax, and a few others. Because they are smaller, they actually may run fairly well if you have a decent amount of RAM.
HaHa, yeah I wasn't expecting to run Ubuntu or Fedora on a CD... just something minimal (xorg, libreoffice, pcmanfm, terminal emulator, lightdm, Firefox)
 
HaHa, yeah I wasn't expecting to run Ubuntu or Fedora on a CD... just something minimal (xorg, libreoffice, pcmanfm, terminal emulator, lightdm, Firefox)
Well, you may be disappointed. Few distros at this scale will have LibreOffice, or even Firefox. Besides scaling down to fit on CD, the distros in this category are also designed for lower RAM and older, slower CPU's. They run well for what they are, and they can save many old computers (even 32-bit) from the scrapyard, but "minimal" by their standards must be different from what you are expecting. Just providing a graphical desktop, a web connection/browser, simple word processor or text editor, and a few light tools or utilities... that's about it.

With a DVD, however, you can have the whole enchilada... but it will run quite slow. USB is much faster, plus you can then get persistence for some distros (not all).

One of my favorite uses for CD's is to create Rescue Disks of various kinds. Some are just lightweight distros like we've been discussing, but some are specialized tools like DBAN, Hiren's Boot CD, Rescatux, System Rescue CD, PLOP Boot Disk, GParted, Clonezilla, and even more. These tools are especially good on CD to save an older computer that doesn't have a DVD drive. Many older computers only had CD-ROM's, and many also will not boot on USB (either flash drives or external USB CD-ROM).

I am obviously an old fart! :eek:o_O:D

Cheers
 
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4662
 
I use this article for scoping minimalist Distros

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-weight_Linux_distribution

... it is current to 2019 and reasonably accurate.

You can cross-reference the Image Size column with that of the Latest Release Year.

Your best bet may be Puppy, developed by Australia's Barry Kauler.

This article

http://puppylinux.com/history.html

reveals that Persistence can even be achieved on a CD-R

There are many different Puppies, and your questions on it are best fielded at

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php

John Murga has been running that site almost since Barry developed Puppy. There is a fellow there name of Mike Walsh whom Brian @Condobloke and I used to work with who is very knowledgeable.

If you find answers there by all means come back here and share with us, won't you?

BTW G'day and welcome to linux.org :D

Good luck and

Avagudweegend

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

0cd7RxV.gif


Wizard disappears in a puff of smoke
 
I use this article for scoping minimalist Distros


... it is current to 2019 and reasonably accurate.

You can cross-reference the Image Size column with that of the Latest Release Year.

Your best bet may be Puppy, developed by Australia's Barry Kauler.

This article


reveals that Persistence can even be achieved on a CD-R

There are many different Puppies, and your questions on it are best fielded at


John Murga has been running that site almost since Barry developed Puppy. There is a fellow there name of Mike Walsh whom Brian @Condobloke and I used to work with who is very knowledgeable.

If you find answers there by all means come back here and share with us, won't you?

BTW G'day and welcome to linux.org :D

Good luck and

Avagudweegend

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

0cd7RxV.gif


Wizard disappears in a puff of smoke

I will definitely check these resources out. I bought about 100 CD-R's, and have tried bionic pup 18.04 and KNOPPIX 7.2. I'm having a great time with them, and persistience on a CD-R kind of makes sense (you overwrite old information I'm guessing).
 

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