Booting single user on Linux would be a better solution than a livecd too. On May 13, 2012 4:37 AM, "Nick Holland" <n...@holland-consulting.net> wrote:
> On 05/12/12 14:16, Tyler Morgan wrote: > > On 5/11/2012 8:48 PM, Nick Holland wrote: > >> I suspect the interest in [an OpenBSD Live CD] > >> is rapidly approaching zero. Its a concept who's time has come...and > >> gone, I think. Five or six years ago, yeah...cool. Today...why?. A > >> live CD gives you a very rigid, predefined read-only environment. I > >> think a much more useful tool these days is a USB flash drive -- they > >> are smaller than a CD, more rugged, and probably run on more modern > >> systems than CDs do (I say that with some uncertainty -- some modern > >> computers come with no DVD, virtually all come with USB ports, but some > >> have broken BIOSs). > > > > While I generally agree a USB-based installation of whatever OS you > > prefer is a great solution to many tasks, I don't feel this description > > of a modern live CD environment is completely accurate. > > > > Before I went home on Friday, one of our not-production, local office > > machines needed some more room in its root filesystem so I booted into > > an Ubuntu live CD (11.04, I believe), manually brought up eth0, created > > and setup resolv.conf, apt-get installed lvm2 via network, and used the > > necessary tools to extend an LVM-based ext3 filesystem. Why did I do it > > that way? Because I had done it that way before without any problems, > > the CD was on the bench, the drive was available, it took about 20 > > minutes start to finish, and it effectively accomplished the task. > > With OpenBSD, you do that kinda stuff by either bringing up the system > in single user mode or with bsd.rd, booted from either the standard file > system or standard boot cd. You don't need/want a "live cd". And it > won't take you 20 minutes, unless you need to fsck a really big file > system, which is something you generally shouldn't need to do from > single user mode or bsd.rd. > > Of course, you could do it with a USB flash drive, too, but that's all > the hard way. As is using a Live CD under Unix, problem is, they don't > provide you an "easy" way...so everyone is stuck singing the praises of > an overly complex solution that hauled your butt out of the fire... > hm...Stockholm Syndrome in the IT departments -- singing the praises of > clumsy tools that shouldn't need to exist to get you out of situations > you shouldn't have had to been in in the first place! > > > At no point did I have to jump through any hoops like remounting > > something read/write. It was simply a usable Linux environment. I'm sure > > it had limitations that I do not know about and did not run into, but, > > respectfully (and rhetorically), what about that is "pre-defined" and > > "rigid"? > > It's a CD_ROM_. Read Only Memory. That is, pretty much by definition, > "pre-defined" and "rigid". ok, the person who put your Ubuntu live CD > together gave you the tools you needed, and you downloaded some more to > something other than the CD (either local file system or memory file > system). But compared to a USB flash disk...you can load the tools on > the flash, leaving your local file systems untouched, and without the > memory cost of a memory file system. > > And yes, you can cram a lot of useful tools in a 700k CD, but not ALL > useful tools. You can cram a lot more into a DVD, but not all computers > have DVD drives on them (ok, that's a weak argument, as most machines > that don't have DVD drives won't boot from a USB stick either). And, > you still have a very finite space... However, 8GB flash drives are > getting pretty cheap, you can put whatever _you_ want on one. No matter > how you look at it, a boot flash drive will be more flexible, as you can > make it as you want it, and adjust it afterwards. > > > To digress a little further, one day I was talking to our small-ish, > > local hardware vendor and he said he should charge to remove DVD drives > > from rack-mounted servers because he gets them back to have the drives > > put back in so often, and I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not. USB is > > great but, like you say, some BIOSes are broken and the death of the > > CD/DVD isn't upon us quite yet. I mean, look at OpenBSD's seemingly > > adamant support for floppy-based systems. > > I'm not sure how that connects to the topic at hand. > We aren't talking about removing CD/DVD drives from servers or dropping > support of OpenBSD CD (or floppy) install processes...we are talking > about creating special "Live CDs" (which are not currently generated or > supported by the project, and I have heard ZERO interest in creating > such a thing as part of the project) vs. full, normal installs of > OpenBSD on flash disks (which are completely normal, and thus fully > supported). btw: as USB ports are not as impacted by dust and age as > CDs and DVDs are, in five or so years, today's server might be more > likely to boot from a USB flash drive than the dust-encaked DVD drive. > > A better argument would be that sparc or alpha, or all our other > platforms that can't boot from USB would be better served by a "live CD" > than from USB flash drives. However, I've not heard too many requests > for hppa Live CDs, there seems to be an unspoken bias for amd64/i386 for > these things. :) > > Nick.
