CDs or DVDs containing a full Linux system for installation, testing, repair or other special purposes are quite common these days. Chances are high that people make their first steps with the Linux, BSD or Solaris operating system using these so-called Live CDs: They are convenient (no need to install the OS), they are safe (doesn’t write anything to disk unless you really want it to) … but they are slow. Booting from a Live CD like Knoppix or the Ubuntu Desktop CD takes ages and makes you wonder if your CD/DVD drive will actually survive that whole operation, considering that it is permanently seeking. And even if you made it to the desktop, you’ll still have to be patient if you intend to open any application, because the drive has to spin up again and load libraries and data for whatever program you start. Or even worse: In the modern GUI-based environments you have to wait for icons to load even if you just click on a launcher menu. As useful as those Live CDs might be, this a major source of annoyance.

In this post, I will present a method to solve this problem. I do not claim to be the first one to invent it – in fact, I refuse to believe that no one had this idea before me.
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The long-awaited release of the new Ubuntu version, 7.04 alias »Feisty Fawn«, was done today as scheduled. Just after work, I downloaded my copy (rather slowly, just 100 KB/sec, even though I used BitTorrent) and installed it into my Linux playground partition. Here’s what I noticed.
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Today’s long-awaited release of Ubuntu 6.10 »Edgy Eft« was a good opportunity for me to restore the inactive Linux installation on my main workstation. This computer mainly runs Windows and since the installation of Vista RC1, the experimental Linux installation there was inaccessible. In my distribution tests carried out for the LinuxTag, Ubuntu always was among the top three distros, so installing the newest and coolest fresh release seemed like the right thing to do. Unfortunately, the installer is so severely broken that I didn’t even manage to get the thing on my hard disk …
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As you may or may not already know, I use both Windows and Unix-like operating systems, both at work and at home. (I’d like to add OS X to that list, but Apple decided to sell the underpowered x86 Mac minis at ridiculously high prices, but that’s another story …) In the last few days, I had a fair amount of »fun« (note the quotation marks) with Linux, though.
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When writing a program for an iPod, the first and foremost thing to implement is, of course, sound. I, for one, did some of the graphical bells and whistles first, because that’s where my real business is, but today, I wanted to add a little bit of music. It was going to be a smooth ride, I thought, as iPodLinux’ native sound API is just plain and simple OSS.
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Today, I finally took the time to download and test-drive the Kororaa Xgl Live CD. This is a Linux live CD made for the sole purpose of showcasing Xgl. And, what can I say, it does that job great. They even packed the latest nVidia and ATI drivers on the CD, so it works accelerated on commodity hardware without requiring to download and install the drivers first. Only two minutes after booting, I got a nice, clean GNOME 2.12 desktop that didn’t look special in the first place. But clicking a menu or opening a window starts to show the difference …
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Today, Gentoo Linux 2006.0 has been released. I don’t have tried Gentoo ever before, but the 2006.0 Live CD was said to feature a nice user-friendly installer. Because I was still in my »distro testing« mood (a leftover of the preparations for my presentation at CLT), I decided to give the CD a try.
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