Others may use them for bragging rights on that new top-of-the-line gaming machine. Whatever your interest, computer benchmarks certainly are fun. However, obtaining system benchmarks can be tedious. In the past, installing benchmarking applications could be expensive or, with some systems, difficult and time consuming.

Phoronix has been providing free and quality benchmarking software for Linux for several years and adding support for other architectures since. Free BSDs, OpenSolaris, and MacOS are among those supported and Windows support is in the pipeline. As nice as these packages are, they still require time and the right software support in order to install and function.

One way to address these inconveniences is to use PTS Desktop Live, a live CD built on Ubuntu containing the test suite which removes any operating system or software requirements for the target machine and avoids having to install any extra software permanently onto your system. Just boot the live CD and you’re ready to go.

The Phoronix Test Suite live CD comes with 52 individual tests and 10 different preconfigured profiles to test the different elements of your system hardware. Profiles, which can be toggled from the menu, are a subset of tests geared toward one particular area such as testing database performance, video encoding, or BSD systems. You can run one test, a subset of tests, or a batch of tests and options.

The point-and-click interface makes obtaining your computer benchmark so easy to do, even for the average Joe. Just in case, an introduction opens at boot with basic information and links to the home site where much more information is found. But no special information is really needed. Just click on the big green “P” on the panel or “Phoronix Test Suite” in the Applications menu under System Tools. At that point merely click on any of the tests to get basic information as to what it benchmarks and then click Install to download and install the test.

Since using Ubuntu as its base, the tools are now delivered as binaries eliminating the need to compile making the process much quicker. The user will be asked if and where to store the results and if they’d like to upload to Global. Remember that this is a live CD and all data will be lost upon shutdown unless moved to a more permanent storage medium. All computer benchmark information is stored in the .phoronix-test-suite directory.

One of the recommended Profiles is Favorites. This is a nice collection of general purpose tests commonly used by Michael Larabel, the founder and lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite. When the test suite is installed, just click the “Run Test” button. When asked what to name this particular test and the Test Identifier, just pick something you’d remember easily.

After completion of the tests, data can be viewed in the included Web browser and displayed in easy-to-read graphs. You can choose to compare the results with other machines listed on the Phoronix Global site and you can upload your results for others to use for comparison or for future reference.

One of my favorite activities is to compare new hardware with old after an upgrade. One of yours might be to show your best friend how much better your machine rocks than his (or vice versa). Remember, the best feature of the Phoronix Test Suite Desktop is the FUN!

What benchmarking tools do YOU use? Let us know all about them in the comments.

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You can download MobaLiveCD from here. A mere 1.6 MB download, MobaLiveCD presents an inviting prospect over virtualization solutions like Virtualbox, although it is not as feature rich. Under the hood, MobaLiveCD uses QEMU – the open source emulator. If you ever tried using QEMU, you would know that it requires a fair bit of configuration and know-how. MobaLiveCD does away with all that and provides you with a single executable file which launches the application, you don’t even need to install MobaLiveCD.

MobaLiveCD is a portable application, the interface is intuitive and straightforward. To run a Linux LiveCD:

• Just click on the ‘Run the LiveCD’ button.
• Browse to the iso image.
• Choose whether to create a virtual hard drive or not and the LiveCD boots up.

MobaLiveCD needs to copy files to the system32 directory, so you should run MobaLiveCD with elevated rights if you see an error like the one below. To do with elevated rights just click on the exe file and choose Run as Administrator.

Keep in mind that you are essentially running another operating system inside Windows thus the resources available to MobaLiveCD will be limited. So you should not expect the same performance levels you would get by restarting the computer and booting from the CD ROM. Nevertheless depending upon your computer’s configuration you can still get decent performance, enough to let you try out the Linux Live CD thoroughly.

You can toggle full screen mode using Ctrl + Alt + F and Ctrl + Alt would bring the cursor back to the host operating system. In addition you can use the Right-Click Menu button that would create a right click context menu entry for ISO files, allowing you to run an ISO file directly within MobaLiveCD from the context menu.

The latest version of MobaLiveCD can also be used to run a Live USB drive right inside Windows. Click on the Run Live USB button and follow the prompts. If you would like to save the state of your work MobaLiveCD also lets you create a virtual hard disk.

Oh and in case you are wondering which LiveCD you should download, check out the Unofficial(fake) Chrome OS. And now that we are on the topic, let me confess that it was out of an urge to try out the fake Chrome OS(and laziness to set up a virtual machine in Virtual Box) that I realized MobaLiveCD is a cool application we haven’t covered yet, so now you know about it.

MobaLiveCD is great for testing new Linux distributions with a Linux Live CD, downloading ISO’s before burning them or testing remastered Live CD’s that generally require some hit and miss to get things exactly the way you want. With MobaLiveCD you can test them without needing to set up a virtual machine or burning CD’s.

Have you used MobaLiveCD? Do you know of any other similar application? Let us know in the comments.

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Let’s look at some ways you can use to reset your Linux system’s password. You might know that the root user can change the password for any other user. However what if you forget your root password? This is what we would attempt to achieve here.

So, how to reset password in Linux?

To reset your root password (or any other account’s password for that matter), there are essentially two different situations which require varying approaches.

When you can use GRUB

If you have GRUB installed and you have accesses to edit boot parameters of selected entries then the job is as easy as it can get. Follow along and you shall have root access in no time. Once you have root access you can pretty much do anything you want to do!

• Highlight the GRUB entry for the Linux installation that you want to reset the password for.
• Press ‘e’ to edit. Select the Kernel line. Add ’single’ at the end of the kernel line. Press ‘b’ to boot. If your system still requires you to enter the root password, add init=/bin/bash at the end. Press ‘b’ to boot.





• Either you would be taken to the root prompt directly or shown the recovery menu from where you can choose the root prompt. Use passwd <username> to change the password for any account.



• Type reboot to reboot the system and then log in in with your new password.

Also, note that some distributions will create a recovery mode entry during install. If you have the recovery mode entry listed in GRUB, you need not do any of the above, just choose the recovery mode and then choose root prompt at the screen that follows.

When you can’t use GRUB

If you are unable to use GRUB for whatever reasons (like password protected entries) you can still reset the password using a Live CD (I will be using Ubuntu Live CD, you may use any other). Just follow the steps below to achieve this:

• Boot from the Live CD
• Choose “Try Ubuntu without any changes to your computer”



• When the system is ready, fire up a terminal window and get ready for some command line action
• Type sudo fdisk -l. In the output we are concerned to know which partition Linux is installed on and what name the hard disk is using. (e.g) in this case it is /dev/sda1 is the required partition. If you are sure about the partition you can skip this step.



• Next we need to mount the Linux partition. Create a directory to act as mount point for the partition. Use ‘sudo mkdir /media/linx_part‘



• Mount the linux partition using the command ‘sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/linx_part‘



• Change Root to the mount directory – ‘sudo chroot /media/sda1‘
• Type passwd and then enter the new password to change the password.



• Type reboot to restart the system.

Have you ever attempted such a password recovery? How did you go about it? Have some other nice tricks to show off? Let us know in the comments.

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• Put your Linux Distro on a Live CD (25)
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While the Live CDs are common place in the Linux world, it’s not often that you hear about a Windows Live CD.

Here today we are going to show you how to make custom Windows Live CD

Tools Required

• Bart PE
• Your Windows installation CD

Steps

1. Download and install the latest version of Bart PE. Fire up the PE Builder. This is the main screen that appears:



2. All additional functionality that you want to add is done by means of plug-ins. There are loads of them to choose from. Plug-ins are nothing but a way to add additional software to your Live CD. You can visit the Bart PE plug-in repository here.
3. For our purposes we require a special plug-in called Windows XPE, which gives us a way to boot into a GUI environment similar to Windows as opposed to the usual command line interface. You are free to choose any other plug-ins for additional functionality that you want to add. There are plug-ins for disc recovery, office work, backups, disk imaging and so on.
4. Now insert your Windows Installation disc and point PE Builder to the CD/DVD drive containing the Windows installation disc or the location of the copied files (great if you have a laptop and the i386 folder containing the files).
5. Click on the plug-ins button at the bottom. This allows you to add more software and tweak the existing software/plug-ins. If you get an error here, chances are that the path you provided in source is not correct.



6. Click ‘add’ and browse to the location where you stored the Windows XPE plug-in to add it. Since we are using the XPE plug-in you can safely disable the Nu2shell, PENETCFG and A43 plugins since these offer functionality that is already included with the XPE plug-in.
7. Click ‘close’. You can now directly burn a disc or save an ISO file for testing which you can burn later. Click ‘build’ and PE builder will get to work.



8. If the build process completes without any errors, you have made yourself a Live CD.

Mine completed in just under 2 minutes without any errors and amounted to 270 MB with Windows XPE plug-in and 154 MB without it. Here are the screen shots from my LiveCD which I tested in VirtualBox:

There are additional hacks that you can use to customize the text that appears when loading, the wallpaper and other things. However, that required editing some files and is a little cumbersome. In any case, with or without the visual customizations, you now have a fully functional Live CD with the tools you want according to your specific requirements. There are numerous other possibilities that you can explore with such a tool. For example you can create a Live DVD with all your favorite programs and documents.

Have you ever created a custom Live CD? What PE Builder plug-ins did you use or plan to use when you created one? Do you know of some other tool that can be used tp make Windows Live CD? Why not share it in the comments?

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Now, without worrying you about any of the technical details, you can play Linux games from a Live DVD.

lg-LIVE is a Linux distro that comes preloaded with 13 of the most popular Linux games. It is created by the Linux-gamers team and comes in the form of a Live DVD. The distro itself is based on Arch Linux. Unlike other Linux distros that requires you to install them in your system to use it, lg-Live only needs you to boot up the Live DVD and you will be able to play your favorite Linux games in no time. No installation, no compilation, no configuration. Simply boot and play.

The games found in the Live DVD include the following:

• Astromenace – An exciting 3D scrolling space shooter game with countless ship upgrade possibilities.
• Btanks – Battle Tanks is an interesting battle where you can choose one of three vehicles and eliminate your enemy using the whole arsenal of weapons.
• BzFlag – an online multiplayer cross-platform open source 3D tank battle game.
• Glest – A 3D real-time strategy game, where you control the armies of two different factions: Tech, which is mainly composed of warriors and mechanical devices, and Magic, that prefers mages and summoned creatures in the battlefield.
• Maniadrive – An arcade car game on acrobatic tracks, with a quick and nervous gameplay.
• Nexuiz – A free open-source fast paced 3D first person shooter game.
• Openarena – An open source first-person shooter computer game based heavily on the Quake III Arena style deathmatch.
• Sauerbraten – A free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS.
• Teeworlds – A fast-paced sidescrolling multiplayer-only shoot ‘em up computer game. The game features cartoon-themed graphics and physics, and relies heavily on classic shooter weaponry and gameplay.
• Warsow – A fast-paced FPS game.
• Warzone2100 – a real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game.
• Widelands – a slow-paced real-time strategy game that in many games resembles the popular games The Settlers and The Settlers II.
• World of Padman – A first person shooting game based on the Padman comic strip.

When you boot up the Live DVD, it will run tests and detect your graphics card setting. If you are using ATI/nVidia 3D graphics card, it will prompt you to install the proprietary drivers. For those who want to avoid all technical details at all costs, you can simply select the default option and let it auto-configure your system. You will need to hook on your LAN cable if you want to play multiplayer games.

On the home screen, when you right click your mouse, you will be able to configure the gameplay option. You can change the monitor resolution or change your network setup. If you are tech-savvy enough, you can also turn to the terminal mode and do your own configuration.

In addition, after you have played the game, you will want to save your progress so that you can continue next time round. Since this is the live DVD, you won’t be able to save to the disc. Instead, you can save the game and all configurations that you have made to your USB thumb drive/hard drive. Next time you want to play the game, load the configurations from the USB drive and you can start from where you have ended previously.

If you find that the included games are not up to your liking and you want to add your own game in, linuX-gamers also provides you with a custom mastering script for you to create your own game distro. First download the base system, then run the masterme script to add any prepackaged game and you will have your own Live Linux gaming DVD.

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Not exactly, in fact that kind of image is starting to fade away somewhat as Linux distros such as Ubuntu gain traction and mind share with each new release.

OK so Linux still has a market share closer to 1.5%. However things are beginning to change. Linux has never before been so easy to try. Here’s three ways you can install Linux on your computer.

1. Linux on a ‘Live Disk’

Each distribution can now be downloaded as a ‘Live Disk‘, a disk which will run Linux straight from the CD as if it were an installed operating system.

This is perhaps the best way you can try Linux for the first time as it allows you to play around with the OS without having to worry about your data, or partitioning or screwing something up.

The disadvantage is that the OS will run fairly slowly and you will not get much idea of the performance or flexibility of Linux.

Live disks are included with every Linux distribution, and are also provided on the cover of just about any computing and PC magazine. Looking over at my shelf I can see Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, gOS Rocket and Linux Mint on the cover disks of several magazines.

2. Run Linux using Virtual PC

Again, this is just another way to have a bit of a look and play around with Linux in a contained area with no danger of destroying your computer or anything. Microsoft provides Virtual PC 2007 as a free download and can run most distros, although you will perhaps need to find some fairly simple workaround’s for a few.

Again, the disadvantage is performance, both for the Virtual Machine and the host machine which has to lend system resources. The advantage I guess is that you will not have to burn an actual disk in order to try Linux out – the virtual machine can simply mount an ISO file.

3. Install Ubuntu using the Wubi installer

Lastly you can try Linux, Ubuntu specifically, using a special installer called ‘Wubi’. Mackenzie covered Wubi in detail here. Blake also briefly mentioned it in his article here.

Wubi installs Ubuntu as a file on your Windows System. It can be uninstalled like any other program and runs as if you were using a separate system partition. The only disadvantage is that hibernation mode does not work.

The set-up is laughably simple; all you have to do is get Wubi from here and start it up. Wubi is actually included in Ubuntu as of version 8.04 and is an installation option when using a Live disk.

Here are the options you will be presented with:

Pretty simple huh?

You can either download the Ubuntu file, or use a existing ISO image you have previously downloaded. To use a existing file simply place it in the same folder as the Wubi program.

After installing you will have to reset your computer. It’s crucial you reset ‘cleanly’, that means no turning the computer off impatiently, pulling the plug out the all etc. If you do, booting into Ubuntu may fail.

If all is successful you’ll be given a new option upon startup to choose either your previous OS, or Ubuntu:

Booting into Ubuntu will complete the installation and prepare your hard drive for the OS. A final reboot and everything should be working fine, choosing Ubuntu from the boot screen should now load up the OS and you can play around to your heart’s content.

It’s totally risk free, the worst that can happen is that for some other reason the installation fails. I’m sorry but I can’t help you there, simply boot back into Windows and uninstall Wubi through the Add/Remove programs panel.

If this occurs try installing a couple of times. There is a chance it will succeed the second time.

Hopefully this will give you the incentive to try out Linux for yourself!

(By) Wez is a student studying computers, also does programming and video tutorials and writes about technology, software and websites, check out his blog @ www.TheTutorialBlog.com

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Every bootup is like a clean install. This can be great if you have a tendency to break your configs. It’s actually a great way to poke at your system and break things without any repercussions. However, being able to persist changes could be nice, right? Aibek wrote about a few Windows-based solutions to this last week. Linux users can make a persistent live USB stick to solve these problems.

You have two options when getting or making a persistent USB drive. The first option is to have the operating system installed natively on the drive. This is probably more common. The other way is to have a portable virtual machine on the drive which loads using Qemu. The main advantage of the latter is to avoid having to reboot. The former is the preferred choice when there is a chance that the computer lacks a hard drive or if you need to rescue data from a MacBook Air, since they lack optical drives.

There are a few different ways to get one of these. The easiest is to buy a 4GB Mandriva Flash 2008 or 2GB Damn Small Linux USB Drive. The Damn Small one has both an installed system and a Qemu-based system on it, though these do not, to my knowledge, share files. You do have the option to use whichever is more convenient at the time, though. The alternative is, of course, to make one yourself. I guess the remaining option would involve Tom Sawyer-ing your annoying little brother into doing it.

The main difference in installation methods will be whether or not you need to be running from a Live CD already. On the Ubuntu Wiki, there are directions to install which do not require that you be running from a Live CD, though you do need to have the .iso available. The directions are pretty complicated, but all of the steps are there. A friend of mine, who regularly uses a persistent Ubuntu flash drive to boot up and watch Star Trek during his office hours, recommends following Pendrive Linux’s Ubuntu 7.10 directions if possible. Those directions do require that you be running from a Live CD, but he said they were considerably more straightforward. There’s even a nice little script to automate parts of it, and you don’t have to edit any configuration files like you do with the wiki’s directions. Pendrive Linux has directions for tons of distros, including SuSE, PCLinuxOS, Gentoo, and SLAX. Many of these involve scripts for Windows so you can install to the flash drive from inside Windows without a Live CD. Really guys, if you want an easy install—one that doesn’t even involve figuring out how to burn an ISO with whatever CD burning software you have—this is it.

If your flash drive is really small and you don’t mind booting from a Live CD, Damn Small Linux’s Live CD includes a menu option to install to a flash drive. Damn Small is only 50MB, so even that 3 year old 128MB stick you’ve got in the back of the junk drawer will work. The old Pentium II will also be able to handle it extremely well. This is a great choice for old hardware.

I wish I’d known about these the first time my laptop went out of commission. I carried around an external hard drive in an enclosure for 3 weeks, booting random computers from it, while it was being fixed. In a world where CDs are increasingly seen as annoyingly large, a full 3.5″ hard drive is a crazy thing to carry around.

Mackenzie is a college student who likes to promote Linux and Free/Libre Software. Most of her free time is spent on the computer, helping new users, or hanging out with some of the friends she’s made in the Linux community. Check out her blog, Ubuntu Linux Tips & Tricks.

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Live CDs originally came from the old boot-disk-for-diagnosis idea. For example, Knoppix, known for its hardware detection, is often used for testing hardware. While Knoppix may not use the best driver for the hardware, if the hardware is functional it should work. If the hardware doesn’t work in Knoppix, it very likely needs to be replaced.

Some Live distros, like Helix are tuned to a special purpose. In the case of Helix, that purpose is forensics or data recovery. For penetration testing (network security), Backtrack is popular.

Test-drive a distro before installing it

Live CDs have now become a way to test-drive a distro before installing it. This can be really useful when dealing with finicky hardware. Instead of wasting time installing different distros to find one that supports your wireless card easily, you can just try the Live CD for a few minutes. These test-drive Live CDs also give you a chance to feel out how a distro functions. Different distros have different default configurations, desktop environments, and different ways of doing things. You can try a few out without going through an installation to find the one that suits your personal workflow.

You can also use a Live CD as a way of gaining familiarity with a distro before installing it. A new environment can be a bit intimidating, and that can make installation scary. Spending some time in the live environment to get your footing and “practice” your usual tasks while knowing that you can easily go back to your old system where nothing has changed can take away a lot of the anxiety associated with making such a big change to your computer.

You’re secure

In addition, a desire for added security can be a good reason to use a Live CD. When using public terminals or computers whose owners you know are unlikely to ever have run a virus scan a Live CD can be very handy. What if that random computer has spyware? What if there’s a keylogger? What if someone used the USB Hacksaw on the computer? If you boot from a Live CD, none of those (well, except a hardware keylogger) will affect you. Your stuff is still secure.

Of course, a Live CD can also be a way around security. From a Live CD, you have full root access to the underlying system. This is one of the reasons they are used for system repairs. It’s like taking the hard drive out, putting it in an enclosure, and hooking it up to another running system to mess with it, except a lot more convenient, since you don’t need the other computer and the enclosure. Ways of blocking others from doing this to access your hard drive include setting the CD drive to not be bootable and then adding a BIOS password to keep anyone from changing that, but with physical access that’s easy enough to circumvent. With physical access, whether they’ve got a Live CD or an enclosure, there is no such thing as security anyway. That is why many companies and governments are requiring that their employees’ laptops use full-disk encryption nowadays.

Create your own Live CD

What’s becoming popular now is rolling your own custom Live CD. Revisor is a new tool for creating customized Fedora Live CDs and install disks.

For Ubuntu, there are Reconstructor and Remastersys, though Remastersys works for other Ubuntu-based systems like Linux Mint as well. Besides these GUI tools for creating Live CDs, those who are already using Linux can create custom Live CDs for their friends by using the mklivecd tool to make a Live replica of the installed system. You can carry a customized operating system built to suit your needs and preferences in your purse!

Mackenzie is a college student who likes to promote Linux and Free/Libre Software. Most of her free time is spent on the computer, helping new users, or hanging out with some of the friends she’s made in the Linux community. Check out her blog, Ubuntu Linux Tips & Tricks.

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• Put your Life On a USB Stick [Linux] (8)
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