This news topic has various sections:
-Introduction
-LiveCD staff positions
-LiveCD suggested applications
-How to file bugs
Its my pleasure to present the CS community with our first LiveCD!
After spending some time building it, the Gentoo-based LiveCD is now in a state that is bootable and useable. Though it does not yet offer much
functionality, it soon will. The LiveCD's current name is FLY.
The 230mb ISO image can be downloaded here. The root password is toor. As of yet, there is no DHCP client available. This is an error in my part, I
forgot to include one in the initial functioning build! You can manually add an IP, mask, and gateway with the following commands:
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.101/24
route add default gw 192.168.0.100
ping -c 1 www.google.com
Where 192.168.0.101 is the IP you want to assign, 24 is the network mask (equal to 255.255.255.0) and 192.168.0.100 is the IP of your gateway/router.
Depending on your IP scheme, you may have to repeat the ifconfig after you get an error message about a bad mask.
At present, the LiveCD should boot on most hardware.
CS is looking to assemble a team of users to help work on the LiveCD. This involves working with Linux applications, the Linux kernel, the boot
process, networking, and security.
The present goal of the CS LiveCD is to give us all a common operating system that functions the way we want it to. That has all the applications,
utilities, tools, and drivers to perform the things we want. We're not designing a penetration testing platform like BackTrack, but an everyday
operating system we can use. Of course, just like the community of CS is everso changing, so will the LiveCD.
Here are the list of available positions to be filled. If interested in working in more than one position, you can do this as well. Please post here
if you are interested. Any questions, feel free to ask here as well.
Project lead
Responsible for the overall construction, direction, and progress of the LiveCD. (NOT an open position)
Kernel configurations
Responsible for configuring and maintaining the LiveCD's kernel. This requires knowledge in kernel configurations. Each update to the LiveCD
may
bring updates to the kernel. At present, kernel is 2.6.24-gentoo-r4 Any modifications to the kernel should be well documented to include the reason
for the change.
Boot processes
Maintain, tweak, and improve the LiveCD's boot process. Working with init, rc.conf, and the contents of the initramfs.
Environment configurations
Responsible for configuring the LiveCD's Window Manager (presently suggested to be Fluxbox) and basic applications, such as calculator, paint
program, media players, etc).
Applications configurations
Responsible for configurations of more advanced applications, such as Firefox (add-ons, skin, etc), an FTP server, VNC connection, SSL,
Kismet, and
other applications and utilities.
Security
Responsible for proposing security features for the LiveCD. Such as drive encryption, RAM encryption, boot authentication, etc.
Artwork
Creative mind to develop all artwork and CS branding for the LiveCD. This includes backgrounds for the GUI session in various sizes
(4:3 and 16:9 formats) as well as a Grub splash image, frame buffer image for CLI, Firefox skin, GTK theme, and CD label and jewel case layout.
CS/wiki
Responsible for creating and maintaining the CS/wiki page(s) relevant to the LiveCD.
Developer's logs
Responsible for maintaining all related documentation on the making of the LiveCD. This should include notes from all team members related to
modified applications, configuration files, kernel configs, boot processes, bug reports and fixes, etc.
Currently suggested applications for the LiveCD are:
(If you have other suggestions, do feel free to let us know!)
Window Manager Fluxbox (evilWM? e16?)
File Manager xfe (rox, Dolphin, Midnight Commander?)
Media player mPlayer (VLC?)
audio player Amarok (Audacious, XMMS?)
Office suite OpenOffice (Abiword?)
Web Browser Firefox2 (Opera?)
CLI Web browser elinks
CLI IRC client irssi
Chat program Pidgin (Kopete, aMSN?)
CLI chat program Finch [which is a part of Pidgin]
Torrent app Azureus
Sound mixer kmix
Paint program Gimp
System display Conky
Terminal xterm
Bugs, suggestions, or modifications to configuration files should be done via CS's bug tracker. You'll need to register an account.
Enjoy the LiveCD!
