[CLUG] new livecd synopsis/review

[freegazer]

On 3/31/06, Chris Smart <chris at kororaa.org> wrote:
>
> On 31/3/06 10:16 PM, "freegazer" <freegazer at gmail.com> wrote:
> > just a heads up for all the eye-candy junkies out there
> >
> > Kororaa livecd
> :D
> > General:
> > this is a Gentoo based livecd that loads to ram by default
> > runs a very basic Gnome desktop


Actually, it only loads various components into ram, the rest, uncluding
> /usr, are left readonly. If the whole thing loaded into ram you'd need 2Gb
> ram ;) The minimum seems to be 384, as 0.1 loads 128MB odd into ram. This
> might drop to 256MB if it was running from hdd instead of cd.


> this is however offset by the fact that the Xserver uses xgl graphics
> > i've seen video before of Enlightenment-17 that has many similar
> abilities
> > this is a very nice preview of what the new X servers will be bringing
> to
> > desktops based on the new direct rendering techniques.


Yeah it's pretty cool. It works with e too afaik ;) You could think of it as
> a 3D extension on top of X. Compiz allows all the fancy stuff.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl


do you have a version that will allow loading of an E desktop by default on
the cd? the only use of it (E-17) that I have seen previously was a
(Spanish?) LiveCD that failed to boot on even the most generous systems.


> > Bad:
> > a little warning ahead of time it is ram intensive and for whatever
> reason
> > it seems to be missing many dependencies, kernel modules don't load
> > automatically,


Hmm.. This is strange.. What modules weren't loading? Or are you referring
> to not auto detecting all your devices on boot up?


multiple modules fail during boot, on one laptop that uses a USB based
connection to access the HDD (don't ask why i don't know but its an internal
drive) it loaded all the usb components and still was unable to read the
ext2 partitions giving a depmod and reboot recommendation. on another
computer it simply fails to pass kernel initialization. on another it failed
to start xgl but as it continually tried the system locked up hard.
on another there were several errors reported by the system pointed to the
fact that several kernel modules failed to load, once again the error
pointed to depmoding and rebooting to resolving the issue.
I was not going into detail on these errors ( and still will not) as I was
not and am not attempting to get a resolution to these problems. I simply
want people to know they exist and to emphasis that despite this it is still
a worthwile demo-cd, the installed system may well have solutions to these
issues

>there also seems to be some monitors that it doesn't quite
> > seem to work well with.
> What monitors were you trying on? Maybe it was the video card? 0.1 only
> supports nvidia and ati (fglrx) atm.


samsung LCD, ibm LCD, acer CRT & LCD (several models), only one of the acer
LCD monitors and a laptop screen had issues. As to the Video card read above
and also add at least one case of xserver bombed out with little or no
information in sys logs

> Good:
> > OMG!!!
> > this is some sweet easy eye-candy!
> > if doesn't work on the first system you try it on - try it on another,
> and
> > another!
> > this is too good to miss out on!
> :)
> > Conclusion:
> > When you find a computer this bad boy runs on it is a thing of beauty.
> Keep
> > it on hand for the next time somebody starts saying that the Linux
> desktop
> > is behind the times or to slow or not ready for "real use". This is also
> the
> > one to have running when you want to grab some attention.
> :)
> > Score:
> > I dunno, spell-check keeps telling me I type with ten thumbs so I will
> give
> > this one 6 of them ( I like the cube-style desktop switching )
> > 6/10


Sweet ;) If only I could get fglrx to work without seg faulting the kernel
> we'd be ready for another release.. :(


You said above that you had it working without issue on ATI, fglrx in
particular ..... care to amend that statement?