User:Lemma/Bugsquad-LiveCD

Tip

In case your impatient: the credentials needed for logging in are user user and password live.

On further note, I forgot to package gdb for producing backtraces. Get it by running:

$ sudo apt-get install gdb

About

The Bugsquad LiveDVD is basically just a simple live i385 GNU/Linux mini-distribution containing most of what is going to be KDE 4.1. I'm planning on releasing it prior to each of the KDE Bugsquad's triaging and krush events so people can take part in those events without having to download and compile themselves.

It consists of:

• Debian Sid as the base
• parts of KDE 3.5.9, eg.
  • kdebase (kdesktop, kicker, konqueror)
  • kmail
  • knetworkmanager
• Amarok
• Iceweasel (aka Mozilla Firefox)
• major parts of a current KDE4 snapshot (currently r811964), with the exception of:
  • kdeaccessibility
  • kdeadmin
  • kdeartwork
  • kdebindings
  • kdesdk
  • kdevelop
  • kdevplatform
  • kdewebdev

Download

You can download the ISO from here: torrent (919.4MB).

When you've finished downloading, please consider seeding it. Like that others will have a chance to download it quickly as well.

Running

General

The DVD ran on anything I tried on so I hope it runs on your PC as well. To use it just burn it to a DVD (or a CD if you find one big enough to fit it :-) or load it using your favourite virtual machine.

Boot switches

The DVD uses SYSLINUX and Debian's live-initramfs. The most common switches to use at the SYSLINUX prompt are:

switch	parameter (default)	use to
keyb=KEYBOARD	countrycode (us)	set your keyboard layout
locale=LOCALE	locale (en_US.UTF-8)	set your locale
toram		copy the whole DVD's contents to RAM. Use only if you really have a LOT of it.
xdebconf		try a different method of determining your graphics card
debug		debug the live-boot process (see /var/log/live.log in the booted live system)

Note

On the SYSLINUX prompt you'll have to prefix the parameters you want to put with live, eg.

SYSLINUX: live locale=de_DE.UTF-8 keyb=de

Tip

You can find out more about this and some additional switches by running

$ man live-initramfs

Logging in / Sessions

You can log in using user user and password live. There's no root password set but you can use sudo in case you need root access.

There's two different sessions you can choose using the SYSTEM menu:

• KDE runs a KDE 3.5.9 session. You can use it as a "stable" base for your bugsquashing activities in case the snapshot from svn is behaving unstable.
• KDE4 runs a KDE 4 session.

Tip

You can login using the default KDE session and start a new KDE4 session from the K-menu. Like that you can switch between the sessions using Ctrl+F7 and Ctrl+F8.

Networking

Usually most networks using DHCP should run by default. For WiFi and static-IP users I included knetworkmanager. You can either run it from the K-menu or start it using the krunner (Alt+F2).

As the ISO is based on a standard Debian Sid you can also configure networking manually by modifying /etc/network/interfaces if you know how to do it.

Special needs

Persistence

Warning

Following any of the instructions given in this section might result in data loss if you're messing up. Please don't type any of the commands mentioned unless you're certain you know what they do.

The LiveDVD also supports persistent storage so you can restart your system without loosing all the changes you made. The procedure is fairly straightforward and closely ressembles the one for the Ubuntu LiveCD here. Basically the only difference should be the labels:

• Use bugsquad-live-rw as partition label for the root cow partition
• Use bugsquad-home-rw as partition label for the home cow partition
• Use bugsquad-live-sn as the root snapshot filename
• Use bugsquad-home-sn as the home snapshot filename

Note

The only thing I tried AND could get working was the root cow partition. I tried creating a root snapshot file using bugsquad-live-sn and bugsquad-live-sn.ext3 as filename but haven't succeeded. I'd be happy if anyone could tell me if it works for them (and how).

Installing additional software

The LiveDVD is a Debian Sid system and support installing additional software from the Debian repository using either apt or aptitude. The most common commands are:

command	description
apt-get install <package>	Install the named package from the online repository.
apt-cache search <string>	Search the package database for a package containing the searchstring.
apt-get update	Update the package database from the online repository.

Tip

$ sudo apt-get install kopete

Will download and install kopete from the Debian package repository.

Proprietary graphics card drivers

Warning

This section needs improvements: Please help us to

cleanup confusing sections and fix sections which contain a todo

If you currently want to install a proprietary graphics driver for your NVIDIA or ATI card you're pretty much hosed if you don't know how to do it. This will hopefully change as soon as I find the time to update this section.

FAQ

Non yet :-)

Bugs / Problems / Wishes

Feel free to add any problems, bugs and wishes you have in this section. You can also try to bug me on IRC (lemma).

• Backtraces

Unfortunately I forgot to package gdb which is needed for generating useful bugreports. Please help yourself by installing it using

$ sudo apt-get install gdb