Hi,

I want to try linux distros without making too much modification to my XP laptop. Actually it belongs to the company I work. Therefore I don't want making much changes at the system.

I want enjoying the maximum speed linux distro can supply using live distro images and I want to select the distro at boot (not inside windows).

For this reason I setup Grub4DOS and added this line to boot.ini.
C:\GRLDR="Start Linux (via GRUB4DOS)"

at the menu.lst file, there are many entries I added, but a very few of them worked
Only "Slitaz" and "Tiny Core Linux" are working
Others are giving strange errors and hangs at the end.

How should I configure my system and menu.lst?
Can I use a tiny distro (like slitaz) for running QEMU (or any other emulator) and point&shoot the distro ISOs from there? I mean does small footprint linux affect QEMU performance?

What are your suggestions?


====== menu.lst ====================================
title Slitaz
map (hd0,0)/linux/iso/slitaz.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

title TinyCore
map (hd0,0)/linux/iso/tinycore.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

title Puppy Linux
map (hd0,0)/linux/iso/puppy.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

title Ubuntu
map (hd0,0)/linux/iso/ubuntu.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

title Debian
map (hd0,0)/linux/iso/debian.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

===========================================

Many thanks.

Newzat.

Hello,
I read your post and I must say it shocked me a bit..Look, you can do as you please, but my thoughts are that this is your Company's Laptop and you are allowed to use it for their benefit and not necessarily for yours..When you make modifications to it for your experimentation you are using it for your benefit..I would not modify someone else's property unless I was asked specifically to do so..I applaud you for wanting to learn new things but please reconsider...
Thank you and good luck,
jolphil

EditThat is a reasonable explanation and
As I said "Goodluck"

Thanks for your reply.

As an IT specialist and support personnel at the company, I use all my skills and knowledge to solve problems at work.

Learning and mastering Linux is another way of developing my skills to support the company. There are many times when I needed an easy and secure way to detect and clean up viruses, spyware, rootkits from the client computers. Also, in case of a serious software/hardware problem which results in Windows to not boot anymore, there is nothing like Linux to help.

I see Linux as an excellent helper at my job.

The above makes perfect sense, and it is good to be proactive like this. I think jolphil's point was simply that you need to get the company's permission to modify the laptop.

Yes, you both are right about the company's rights on the laptop.

Our manager gave me enough permissions on this. Recently I've used an Ubuntu Live CD to securely copy his documents over the network and formatted his virus infected machine. He was impressed then.

Hi -

I wouldn't be "shocked" ... but I *would* check with your IT department about company policy regarding company PCs. Which should be pretty easy - it sounds like your department is IT.

With regard to how to use Linux and Windows on the same PC, I would suggest you have three options:

1. Multi-boot Linux and Windows
- This is the only reason I can think of you'd need "grub" installed.
- Because this is a company PC, I would *not* necessarily use this option.

2. Boot directly from a "Live CD" (or,equivalently, from a USB stick):
- This involves *zero* configuration for your Windows PC
- This is *ideal* for forensic analysis (the "trusted OS" is effectively read-only)

3. Run Linux in a virtual machine (VMWare or VBox)
- VMWare is just another application; Linux is basically just a data file.
- This option lets you to run Linux and Windows at the same time, from the same PC

I would strongly recommend a combination of 2) and 3). I would also recommend you check with IT on your company's policy.

IMHO .. PSM

I'm curious about the technique you described in the OP, I didn't know CD images could be booted that way. Maybe if you post the exact error messages you get, someone can help you with it.

This is not directly related but may help if you play around with it a bit:
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~bernhard/grub-chain-cd.html

It's about putting an entry to boot from CD in the Grub menu. The fact that you need more than just
may be for the same reason that the method you're trying isn't working.

By the way, where did you get map --hook from? The Grub info page doesn't list any options to the map command.

Yes, I work at the IT department.

It's becoming an ethics discussion, and I don't want this to happen. I just desperately need a solution.

and... returning to my question:
I'm interested in booting directly to an ISO on the hard disk. CD's are slow to boot. Sometimes I need to quickly boot the system and look for an answer on the internet, or just quickly look at a documents content. Windows is too slow for that, especially on our configuration, where there are tons of programs installed (including antivirus,antispyware and firewall programs that slows down the boot times).

i dont think you're going to be able to do that, i would suspect, in order to mount the iso image, you would need to be into windows already, in order to start a program that would be able to read the iso...

Forgot to add:

if you don't get this working and you're still concerned about modifying the company's laptop, you could always just clone the hard drive as it is now, set the laptop up as dual-boot, and restore the drive from the cloned image if and when you have to return the laptop.

The following Grub4Dos manual mentions it :

http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/map.htm#hd32

Also this :
http://it.dennyhalim.com/2009/01/boo...-hdd-with.html

I just tried to boot Puppy again to find the error messages it produces. It gave me the following :

"Searching for Puppy files...
pup-412.sfs not found
Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console...
/bin/ssh: can't access tty; job control turned off"

and it goes no further than console at this point.

Newzat:

Piece of advice:

Certainly you don't want to gamble your Xp along experimentation: do as advised above: image the whole thing first and store it into an external volume.

Ethical: Ask formal permission from the boss in writing; on it convince him how much the company profits from the prospect of future migration to open-source-free-systems, buttress your arguments on the basis of what is true: "security" "portability" "speed" "scalability" and finally, on the face of current crisis the aspect of "economy" or savings. Convince him that you are doing this not merely for yourself but for the interest of the company. Tell him that experimentation cannot affect your productivity; and you begin in a dual boot --just using about 8 Gigs to house Linux and its apps.

Choice: If you go for speed and stability you try Absolute Linux or Slackware. Or if you begin with ease of use you can try GNU/Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora.

By the way: personally I don't like the idea of using grub4dos. If you obtain the 8gig permission from the boss better use full grub and chainload the ntloader wherever it is seated. Grub is preinstalled with Mint, Debian and Ubunto (you have to manually install it under Slackware and Absolute in the place of Lilo.)

Goodluck.

Hi again, Newzat -

1. I was typing in my earlier post before you or pixellany posted (although I didn't actually click "[Submit]", or see your posts) until afterwards. I'm glad that you spoke with your supervisor - it sounds like you're completely squared away in the "ethics" department. Cool :-)!

2. I want to emphasize: *unless* you're multi-booting from your hard drive, I don't think "grub" is essential here.

3. I also want to emphasize: I believe you should be interested in *both*
a) "boot from Live CD"
... AND ...
b) "run in Virtual Machine".
Personally, I think they complement each other, and I've found them both useful in different circumstances.

4. It's easy to boot (or simply read) an .iso disk image from a VM. Try it: you'll like it!

5. "Boot from Live CD" can be either:
a) CD/DVD
... or ...
b) USB stick

I do *not* believe it's worthwhile to "boot from CD" from an .iso image on disk (IMHO). I believe it works best from external media (CD/DVD, or USB). Again, I don't really believe "grub" (or "lilo") really needs to play a role here.

6. Personally, I've used Puppy Linux 4.x (with great success) from both a Live CD (both CD *and* USB), and from a VM (both VBox and VMWare, although I prefer VMWare). And Puppy Linux 4.x is *precisely* the Linux I turn to when I want to run Linux concurrently with Windows on my laptop (I created a VM image for Puppy Linux under VMWare).

Good luck .. PSM

Many thanks, malekmustaq and paulsm4.

Actually, there are two things in my mind that I wish I could accomplish someday. Maybe someday GRUB2 will come to the rescue.

1- I want to use external (USB 2.0) HD as a Linux Live ISO and other virtual disk (such as vmdk's) depot, and easily use them at any computer as a 1st aid depot. For this reason I tried running ISO's on the local HD, but could no succeed.

2- Create and use a virtual system (QEMU, VMWare or VirtualBox image) as a portable Web Development environment, where I can install the programming IDE's I mainly use. This way, I can work at both home and work without carrying the laptop or copying any project files. I would simply carry the USB HD or USB stick and I can start working.

A year or so ago, I played with various distros at home (with my own laptop . I have created 10+ partitions and installed many linuxes there. Unfortunately whenever I installed a distro, it changed their partition GUID's (setup partition and swap partition) and other distros started behaving strangely, because their disc config based on part. GUIDs. And Windows got screwed by the changes in the partition tables and could not boot. At the very end, I gave up.

For the above reasons, I don't want to install distros, instead I want to test live CDs, quickly (with images on HD), without touching the system and got screwed up, and update distro easily (in the above senario #1, I just dl. an ISO, copy & rename it and... use it immediately.
eg. configure the menu.lst on USB HD, giving menu items version independent names (such as ubuntu.iso, puppy.iso)
You see, it's more practical to me.

Regards.