Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released [LWN.net]

For those who would like to play with Gentoo but don't feel like spending a few days compiling it: the 11.0 LiveDVD release is now available. There is a wide variety of software available; see the announcement for details. "Desktop environments and window managers include: KDE SC 4.6, GNOME 2.32, Xfce 4.8, Enlightenment 1.0.7, Openbox 3.4.11.2, Fluxbox 1.3.1, XBMC 10.0 and more."

to post comments

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 16:31 UTC (Wed) by mchazaux (guest, #64024) [Link] (9 responses)

I really like the "dd the image to a USB flash disk and boot it" feature of the bootloader they use. It helps testing a distro without even burning a disk. This is really missing on liveCDs from other distros (eg Ubuntu).

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 16:44 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (2 responses)

Surely Ubuntu can do that? The latest Debian release can definitely do that and I think Fedora probably can too so I would be surprised if Ubuntu can't.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 23:06 UTC (Wed) by chithanh (guest, #52801) [Link] (1 responses)

Ubuntu can't.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syslinux/+bug/5...

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 10, 2011 14:04 UTC (Thu) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093) [Link]

But you can achieve the same thing using unetbootinst. This lets you convert an ubuntu iso to something that runs from a flash drive.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 16:55 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (5 responses)

Oh come on. Practically every major distro can do that including Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE and Mandriva. It is a syslinux feature.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 17:39 UTC (Wed) by mchazaux (guest, #64024) [Link] (3 responses)

Cool to see the situation has evolved. A few monthes ago it was not true. I'll test some more distros then ;-)

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 17:55 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (2 responses)

FYI, it is not just a few months. Fedora 12 included this functionality when it was released in November 2009 and openSUSE probably in the same timeframe. I am pretty sure Mandriva had support for it slightly earlier and afaik is the first significant distribution release to do so. Something like dd is not useful for additional features like encryption or persistence and Fedora has a cross platform liveusb-creator for that purpose.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 21:03 UTC (Wed) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]

While it may not seem to you to be so, November 2009 wasn't that much more than a few months ago. Many of us do not keep constantly up to date on all things Linux.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 22:56 UTC (Wed) by chithanh (guest, #52801) [Link]

The Gentoo LiveDVD allows persistence even if you dd the ISO image to your USB drive. Just press F9 at the boot screen.

Given that ISOLINUX supports hybrid booting only since version 3.72, I think it is unlikely that many of the 2009 distros shipped with the "bootable after dd to USB drive" feature.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 17:42 UTC (Wed) by nyfle (guest, #72967) [Link]

Perhaps mchazaux is an "old hand". It used to be the case that one had to rename some files/directories (s/isolinux/syslinux/) and run "syslinux -fm /dev/foo" before being able to boot from USB media.

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 18:58 UTC (Wed) by cventers (guest, #31465) [Link] (1 responses)

Another way to enjoy Gentoo without all that compiling is Sabayon. As a former Gentoo user I'll never look back (but in a way I never really left either!)

Gentoo Linux LiveDVD 11.0 released

Posted Mar 9, 2011 22:11 UTC (Wed) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

> but in a way I never really left either!

That's true. Sabayon is part of the Gentoo ecosystem. Nowadays the Sabayon lead is also a Gentoo developer, with KDE maintenance and avoiding bin package breakage as key points of collaboration. As a Gentoo dev, I recommend Sabayon to people who complain about compile times on old-ish hardware (especially if they don't also have a beefy server or workstation that can offload the compiling via distcc or as a binhost server).