Innovative and interesting usage of Linux Live Disk’s

21/04/2010


CD

Photo by bulinna

While searching for some stuff on Internet i came across this post about interesting usage of ubuntu livecd and was wondering how many more methods are possible.

So some basic usage of live cd that everyone understands and atleast expects from a live disk.

  • Bootable Operating system disk

On top of that a large array of disk’s also work in various ways possible some of them listed here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD#Uses

So Here is a non exhaustive list of innovative usage of Live CD’s (already implemented or non implemented.)

  • Banks Providing Live CD with Browser Homepaged to Bank Website.
  • Internet Cafe’s operating on Live CD, Refer Internet Kiosk link here
  • To Setup Diskless dumb terminals / Thin clients booting on Live Disk for cheap workstation alternative. LTSP will be a good alternative
  • Ethical Hacking
  • Un Ethical Hacking or Cracking.
  • Disaster Recovery.
  • Forensic evidence collection.
  • Testing any Distro before switching to it.
  • OS on the RUN (when using Live USB mode)(or custom build)
  • Portable Electronic Workbench. <- Preinstalled toolkit for electronics development.
  • Portable Testing Workbench. <- complete with software testing tools installed
  • Portable bio informatics workbench
  • Quick Deployable bastion host
  • Quick Deployable / Easily Resettable Firewall.
  • Portable WebServer with demo (for web development organizations.) (Browser opening and showing the webpages)
  • Live Gaming Disc for LAN parties / Software Demo.
  • Backup O.S. in case of Hardware failure.
  • Backup, rescue and recovery of files from corrupt OS / Corrupt Partition / deleted files.
  • mass setup / replication of system in corporate or other large scale setup
  • System Migration. (burn a disk in one and reinstall in second)
  • Dedicated partitioning tool for hardware vendors and enthusiast’s
  • Cluster on Live CD / Load balancer on live Disk.
  • Virus cleaning Kit. (antivirus, rootkit checker, togen and malware detector.)

some other very innovative usage that came in during discussion including

  • Coasters
  • Wheels
  • Frisbee

I large number of usage have been collected by the community effort using following threads in various forums :

So what do you thing what else could be done if you have to opportunity to create a  Live Disk

5 thoughts on “Innovative and interesting usage of Linux Live Disk’s”

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  3. Daniel Maher

    Here’s another.

    Here’s what I have:
    – girlfriend’s Macbook booting to gray screen. It has a single 160 gibibyte SATA hard drive.
    – my desktop machine with 1 terabyte SATA hard drive and 80 gibibyte IDE hard drive.

    I needed to get the data off her computer and onto mine so I could reinstall Leopard onto her laptop and copy all her files back over. I took out her hard drive but couldn’t plug it into mine because I only have one SATA cable and it’s being used by my terabyte drive which has Ubuntu on it. In other words, if I hook up her drive, my computer won’t boot to copy the files over. So I burned a 10.04 disc, popped it in, shut down, unhooked my terabyte drive, hooked up her drive and booted into the live environment. This way I had her drive hooked up via SATA and my secondary drive hooked up via IDE. I copied the files over, put everything the way it was, copied the files from my secondary drive to the terabyte drive and now when I fix her machine she can remote into my box and copy all the files back to her machine.

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