Getting a taste of (Perl on) Linux

Knoppix is a Perl distribution that can boot and run off of CD. It's a good way to play around with a Debian-based Linux without actually installing it. And it's got Perl 5.6.1 and Apache.

I downloaded a .iso image from one of the Knoppix mirrors and burned it onto a CDR. It booted on my Dell laptop without any problem. (The laptop is skimpy on RAM, and Knoppix recommended against trying to run KDE.) It creates a ramdisk while booting, and copies a minimal amount of stuff onto it.

  mkdir /ramdisk/c
  mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/hda1 /ramdisk/c
[download]

will mount a Win98 disk read-only (I haven't had the nerve yet to remove the "-o ro"). Wandering around on a win98 disk from a Unix shell can feel kinda strange.

It looks like a good way to get a taste of Linux, and may prove useful in rescue situations if a drive's master boot record gets hosed. No word yet on how it handles networking, though the pieces are there.

It didn't occur to me right away that this is also a way to test code that wants to fork() -- something win98 will never, ever do right.

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Re: Getting a taste of (Perl on) Linux by theorbtwo (Prior) on Feb 07, 2003 at 03:17 UTC
Our local LUG's (www.lancaster-linux.org/) leader played with Knoppix at the last meeting I was at (been busy). It was fairly impressive. Also, it wasn't completly nonpersistant. You could save your settings to a floppy with an easy point-and-click, and there was even a function to install to the harddrive. The compression they use is impressive, too -- according to the status screen you get when installing to the HD, you get over a gig of stuff on that CD -- all of it ready to use. I didn't get a chance to look at the installed copy, but I suspect it's pretty much a standard Debian. Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).	[reply]
Re: Getting a taste of (Perl on) Linux by busunsl (Vicar) on Feb 07, 2003 at 08:11 UTC
No word yet on how it handles networking, though the pieces are there. Networking works like a charm! With smbclient on the cd you can even connect to your local windows domain.	[reply]
Re: Getting a taste of (Perl on) Linux by zengargoyle (Deacon) on Feb 07, 2003 at 02:44 UTC
FWIW, in 6+ years i've never had a problem with mounting a VFAT partition read-write. if you're really paranoid just make a C:\incoming directory and only write stuff there. of course my windows partition went away when the linux Quake3 Arena client was released =P	[reply]
Re: Getting a taste of (Perl on) Linux by simon.proctor (Vicar) on Feb 07, 2003 at 01:46 UTC
Why not edit the iso to include tasters of what you like with Perl? Perhaps things to do with NMS or your favourite projects? One use that I could think of is a demo of Apache running a variety of web applications under mod_perl. Perhaps for interview or for running demos at a friends house. A nice way of showing what you can do. Of course you can get firewalls on a CD but that would be just boring!! :)	[reply]