[svlug] How reliable are LiveCD HD installs?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting John Conover (conover at rahul.net):

> On the Knoppix CD, there is a text file that lists the gazillion
> "Cheat Codes" to use via the Boot: prompt for HW configuration.

Indeed.  It's mirrored on quite a few Web pages.

> The Ubuntu distribution has good HW detection, too. But the install is
> a bit more complicated than just typing "knoppix-installer"...

But better.  ;->

> the default install is minimal-which can be kind of painful if
> you don't take notes on what you put in your machine, and lose an HD,
> etc., and have to reinstall.

That's why you should store the results of "dpkg --get-selections"
somewhere, e.g., "dpkg --get-selections > /usr/local/src/packages-2005-09-29".
That way, if you have some catastrophe but saved a copy of that file,
you can just install a minimal system again, and run these commands get the 
packages back:

# dpkg --set-selections < packages-2005-09-29
# apt-get -u dist-upgrade