We had a great meeting with about 10 in attendance inclunding 2 new attendees. Not bad for windy night in Boise. On the agenda, the many uses of the System RescueCD 1.20 and Mint 7 "Gloria" which is based on Ubuntu 9.04. These notes are quite long so be sure to click on read more! Clint led off the meeting with a demonstration of Linux Mint 7 "Gloria" which is built on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty). The mission of Linux Mint 7 is to bring the Windows experience to the desktop where you do the install and everything is done incuding the ability to play CD's and Commerical DVD's as well as file sharing. It provides a fully functioning desktop with OpenOffice and Internet programs with support for both Wired and Wireless connections. Other packages are installed that you might also need that are not installed by default in Ubuntu 9.04. Clint showed the well written 58 page users manual which is very good in getting you started with Linux Mint 7. It can be downloaded at http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php where you can also find links for viewing "Whats New", the Release Notes for Linux Mint 7, and download the iso images. Clint showed the various Mint utilities including MintInstall, a very friendly package manager to add other programs to the desktop. Other Mint utilities include Mintupdate and the Mint menu manager. Member Brian then gave his testimonial on using Linux Mint as he has been using it as his primary Linux desktop for over a year. Some discussion followed including showing some of the other features of the desktop, the menu system, and included installing Acrobat Acroread using Synaptec's Package manager. I should mention that I did the install from the LinuxMint-7.iso, not the larger "Universal iso" as the larger one supports other languages but does not include the media codecs so essential for the windows experience. We then talked about the Perfect Desktop as described at Mint 7 Perfect Desktop http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-linux-mint-7-gloria. Page 2 of this web article shows all the programs that are installed by default with Linux Mint7 and Clint's argument was that for most users, Linux Mint 7 is already the perfect desktop with the exception of installing Acroabat's Acrobat Reader and Windows doesn't come with that either. Many of the programs that the "Perfect Desktop" recommends would be "overload" for many users and could actually impact the performance of your computer. In passing, I recieved an email today provided this interesting link on how to upgrade/download Unbuntu which could include moving to Linux Mint 7. http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ubuntu.user/184420 We then moved on to SystemRescueCd 1.20 as Clint booted up the CD and showed off accessing the various disk images and recovery options without actually running the LiveCD. These images include Darik's Burn and Nuke for cleaning hard drives (DBAN), windows password utility, DOS and Partition Managers. He then booted the LiveCD and started the graphical desktop with startx where almost a full desktop is found including Firefox and GParted along with other system utilities and tools. The desktop also includes a root window where you can do the net-setup eth0 command to get the network operational and work with the Samba 7 suite tools for accessing windows and linux file shares. Clint mentioned that smbmount is no longer supported (deprecated) and you should use the command mount -t cifs //sharename/share /mnt/point and he also commented on how to include windows authentication credentials on the command line or referece a credentials file with -o credentials = credentialsfilename. More information on the SystemRescueCd on the following link. Clint recommends that you get the SystemRescueCd and play with it before you really need to use it so that you are comfortable with it and the tools found on it. You can also easily install it to a USB device or share it from PXE environment. SystemRescueCd Manual Index http://www.sysresccd.org/Online-Manual-EN Tools http://www.sysresccd.org/System-tools Main Page http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page http://www.sysresccd.org/Download SystemRescueCd Forums: http://www.sysresccd.org/forums/index.php http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/change-your-forgotten-windo... HOWTO: Backup a Partition Using SystemRescueCD incl. command reference. http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=13735.0 Author's ebook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_To_Backup_Operating_Systems SystemRescueCd: Booting via PXE - The how-to 2 (somewhat deprecated but an interesting approach to PXE publishing of the RescueCd See you at the next meeting!