[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Sunday 02022020

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

>     CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso this is 7 GB!*
> Sadly this is an install only distribution.

Have you ever considered doing test installations into a virtual machine
(say, under VirtualBox), on a laptop you bring with available disk space
for this purpose?  This would permit doing _real_ installations of any
Linux distro supporting your CPU class (x86_64 or whatever), not just
live distros, which as I've mentioned before are great (speaking as one
of the grandfathers of the concept) but are not a realistic reflection
of actually running that distribution.

To sketch things out, the above-mentioned idea is this:  Take a decently
capable laptop (like, made in the last six years), running your choice
of operating system with a gig or two of spare RAM and a couple of gigs
of spare disk space.  At home, install VirtualBox for that OS onto it.

Bring the laptop to the cafe.  When you want to test-install an OS, fire
up the VirtualBox admin program, and tell it you want to create a new VM
for a Linux distro (which creates a control environment and starts
allocating some virtual disk space), then you inform the VirtualBox
admin program about the distro ISO file you have in mind to install,
having it mount that ISO as a virtual optical drive inside any VMs.
Now, boot the VM.  The virtual BIOS screens flash by inside the VM
window, then you see the virtual optical disc getting read, and you
enter the distro installer.  You need not worry about that installer
messing up anything at all on your machine's 'host' (real) OS, because
the virtual environment cannot even see any of that hardware, and is
confined in a VM box.  You run through the installer, and at the end
having the VirtualBox admin program unmount the virtual optical disk,
and reboot the VM.  Suddenly, the installed 'guest' OS is fully running,
and thinks it has full charge of a PC, but (as mentioned) is trapped in
a VM box and dealing with only virtual simulations of real PC hardware.  

When you're tired of the installed 'guest' OS distro, you can shut down
the VM and either blow it away or keep it around if you might wish to
fire it up again.  Move on to any second ISO you wish to test-install,
making a blank VM for each.  Shutting down VirtualBox gets you all of
the used-for-testing RAM back.

Wouldn't it be nice to see _realistic_ distro operation, and be able to
install any arbitrary ISO?  Because you've been doing without both of
those things.


>     CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-boot.iso <1 GB.
> 
>      I have a new so-called power rescue/security distribution
> called Kaisen Linux so downloaded a beta. Checksums come with
> the next version I am informed by the developer so no guarantees
> on this.  But he sent me some checksums and I was able to
> verify my download of kaisenlinux20191229-amd64.iso.
>      Unfortunately the Kaisen seems to be presently in French
> only 

Um, _no_, it's not (at least, not as of the prior beta).  See for yourself:
https://mrhacker.co/geek/have-you-tried-kaisen-linux-a-new-system-rescue-linux-distro

What it might very well do (can't say, since I haven't tried it, but
I've tried many similar things) is boot up MATE Desktop by _default_
into a French-language configuration.  Probably you can select a
different language prior to (your next) login in the controls of your
display manager (the thing that gives you a graphical login prompt).

-- 
Cheers,                     "Why doesn't anyone invite copyeditors to parties,
Rick Moen                   when we're such cool people out with whom to hang?"
rick at linuxmafia.com                        -- @laureneoneal (Lauren O'Neal)
McQ! (4x80)