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Last update: 30 April, 2008 – 4.3-release.
Why
did you make these ISOs available to the public?
What
is included?
What's the minimum amount of RAM
needed?
These are not official. Can your
downloaded files be trusted?
What does the
environment look like once booted?
How do I boot
the MP kernel?
When I boot, I get these
warning messages as the kernel completes configuration and starts up.
What do they mean?
How do I save my
environment for use on reboot?
This is
-release. Why not -stable or -current? Why only i386 and amd64?
I
want to test an application. Why isn't it already installed on the
CD?
How would I install my own
applications?
I need network connections
that don't use DHCP. How do I configure them?
Do
you have links to other OpenBSD-based LiveCDs?
I
have a problem or an unanswered question. How do I contact you?
I
want to make my own LiveCDs. How did you create these?
To aid with OS familiarization and to aid with hardware testing:
To allow curious people the opportunity to try OpenBSD without actually installing it.
To allow existing users the ability to easily test new hardware for compatibility, without making changes to hard drive data.
It might also serve as a “rescue disc” though most production environments would use alternative disaster recovery solutions.
To be clear, these make testing of the OS easier. You cannot install these OS images onto hard drive, and they are not intended to advocate OpenBSD as the “OS for the masses.”
LiveCDs have been produced over time by members of the community for a number of different reasons. Those that were made available to the public – that I am aware of – have been special-purpose rather than generic OpenBSD, and are not kept up to date with each -release.
The OpenBSD installation process is quick and easy. But, for the new user, the install can be intimidatingThese LiveCDs/LiveDVDs may help a new user decide whether or not to make the minimal, but required, intellectual investment in OpenBSD partitioning schema.
Except for the compiler file set (comp43.tgz), each LiveCD contains the complete 4.3-release for the i386 or amd64 architecture. This includes both uniprocessor and multiprocessor kernels, and the Xenocara version of X.Org.
The Basic LiveCD has no 3rd party applications at all. X is available, with the included fvwm(1) and cwm(1) window managers. OpenBSD includes the lynx(1) text browser; the lightweight Dillo browser is available in an optional ISO image.
The FluxBox LiveCD includes both the FluxBox window manager and the Dillo browser.
The XFCE LiveCD has the complete XFCE environment, and the Dillo Browswer.
The KDE LiveDVD has the complete KDE environment, including Koffice and the Konqueror browser, but the i18n internationalizations are not included.
The Gnome LiveDVD has the complete Gnome environment, including the Epiphany browser.
It varies. Please note that these LiveCDs will not touch your hard drives, so there is no swap space configured. If you run out of memory, the OS will panic or freeze. This table shows absolute minimum MBs to complete boot and log on; any application usage will incur additional memory usage:
|
i386 |
Console |
X |
|
Basic |
96 |
128 |
|
Basic-Dillo |
96 |
128 |
|
FluxBox |
96 |
128 |
|
XFCE |
96 |
160 |
|
GNOME |
128 |
224 |
|
KDE |
96 |
192 |
|
Amd64 |
Console |
X |
|
Basic |
96 |
128 |
|
Basic-Dillo |
96 |
128 |
|
FluxBox |
96 |
128 |
|
XFCE |
96 |
160 |
|
GNOME |
160 |
256 |
|
KDE |
128 MB |
256 |
Of course not. The Internet is a dangerous place. My recommendation:
Before booting a burned CD or DVD you've made from one of these downloads, scan it for viruses and other malware.
To prevent anything from ever touching your hard drives, disable them in your BIOS.
To prevent any damage to your local networks, disable or isolate your network connections.
As configured, these LiveCDs/LiveDVDs will not attempt to use any drive other than your first CD or DVD drive. You may safely disable your hard drives to protect them. If you want to use one of your hard drives with this LiveCD, then you must trust the ISO, if you dare.
The ISOs available for download here have multiple checksums available. Please use the checksums from my downloads page if you obtain these ISOs from elsewhere.
If at startup, you selected the graphical interface, the CD will try to build an xorg.conf file and you will be given an XDM login screen. If you select a console interface, you can switch to alternate consoles via the ALT-CTRL-F2, ALT-CTRL-F3, etc. key sequences, and start X without XDM if you desire, via startx(1) or a related command.
The graphical startup environment will try to configure your monitor, keyboard, and mouse automatically; if that fails, the fallback X environment will be 1024x768 VESA. If for any reason the auto-configuration of X produces unusable video, boot with the console interface and run the pre-built 1024x768 VESA configuration in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, or build your own with xorgcfg(1) or xorgconfig(1), or edit the VESA xorg.conf as desired.
There are two userids: root and user. If you did not provide your own passwords when prompted during startup, their passwords will be “root” and “user”. Their default shells are ksh(1).
The /etc/sudoers file is configured so that user may enter sudo(8) commands without any password prompt.
The sshd(8) daemon is running, and root login is permitted.
OpenBSD's famous packet filter, pf(4), is not enabled, and there is no default configuration, just the sample /etc/pf.conf.
All sysctl(8) settings are at their defaults. This means packet forwarding for IPv4 and IPv6 are disabled. Enable one or both if you wish to test OpenBSD's functionality as a router.
Your local time is set to GMT, and your system's hardware clock will be assumed to be on GMT also.
/tmp, /dev, /var, /root, /home, and /etc are all ramdisk – mfs(8) – filesystems.
Any hardware NICs found by ifconfig(8) will have been enabled and DHCP will have been run to acquire TCP/IP configuration information, if available.
Your keyboard will assumed to be US 101 key by default. If you want to change it for your locale, see OpenBSD FAQ 7.1.
MP: At the “boot>” prompt, just type bsd.mp and press the return key. You may need to enable acpi and disable apm. See boot(8) for booting with -c and entering enable/disable commands on the UKC console.
WARNING: preposterous time in file system WARNING: file system time much less than clock time
You may safely ignore them. These ISOs use a CD/DVD filesystem (CD9660) and the kernel thinks it is checking a Berkeley Fast File System (FFS) instead. Eliminating those warning messages would require altering OpenBSD kernel source, which I will not do. The LiveCD only modifies the kernel configuration to boot from CD.
Savecore: can't find device 6/1
You may safely ignore this. The savecore(8) program is run at startup, to save a copy of a kernel core dump from swap space should one exist. But, these LiveCDs/LiveDVDs do not have swap space defined.
As noted above, /home, /etc, /var, and /root are in memory. Rebooting will lose any changes you've made. You can save your structures to USB stick or to compact flash, which look like hard drives to OpenBSD. You can save data to your actual hard drive (if you trust the .iso), or you can transfer your structures over a network connection. I recommend storing your changed filesystems using a *nix based archive tool rather than copying individual files. OpenBSD has tar, cpio, pax, and dump/restore included. Please pick one of these.
OpenBSD can write to emulated or real hard drives using Microsoft's FAT format filesystems, or using Linux EXT2 formatted filesystems. Microsoft Windows users should note that OpenBSD has read-only support for NTFS, but it is not part of the GENERIC kernel, and it is not available via these LiveCDs. See OpenBSD FAQ 14.16 for assistance with mounting foreign disk filesystems., and FAQ 14.17 for using flash memory devices.
Regarding -release:
This LiveCD is intended for users new to OpenBSD. New users start with -release.
The -releases are very well tested, typically for two months, by developers and many users.
There are 14 different ISOs. I do not intend to spend the time to build these more than twice per year, with each new -release. I will be delighted to fix and rebuild new LiveCDs, if configuration or operational bugs are found and reported. See the README file in /, /root, or /home/user for more information.
This environment is intended for testing, not for production. -release+errata or -stable are intended for production environments.
Anyone interested in running -current should either not need a LiveCD, or has the skills to make their own.
Regarding i386/amd64
No other architectures are available to me.
There are 4559 3rd party applications ported to OpenBSD for 4.3-release. If I'd installed Application X, someone would ask about Application Y. These ISOs were not designed to be application testbeds. They were designed to let you play with the OS, and, if you are interested in OpenBSD as a desktop, to try out some popular X desktop management environments.
It is much easier just to install OpenBSD. But if you insist:
Replicate the existing /usr/local structure on a partition on a hard drive, usb stick, compact flash memory, or similar device.
Mount the new, writeable /usr/local over the existing /usr/local mount point.
Add your desired package(s). You cannot compile ports
If
/var or /etc needs more capacity, you will need to replicate it in
the same fashion as /usr/local, then unmount the MFS filesystem and
mount your own.
Save your /etc and /var for restoration if they are still MFS, and you want to reuse the application after reboot.
By default, the LiveCD will simply try dhclient(8) with every hardware network interfaces it finds. If you have other network configurations you wish to test, such as static IP or PPP serial connections, you will have to configure them yourself. OpenBSD FAQ 6 is a great place to start.
OliveBSD
OpenBSD
Live-CD Firewall
Anonym.OS
LiveCD
Fugulta
Quetzal
There
are more. These are just the ones I know about. If you have
corrections or additions to this list, please let me know, per the
mailing list or direct e-mail, as described below.
A moderated mailing list is available, and is recommended.
A private e-mail address is in the README file in /, in /home/user, and in /root, or if your browser has Javascript, you can click on the link:
Standing on the shoulders of giants: Andreas Bihlmaier and Kevin Lo. I've made some changes, so if you have a question you can post it to the mailing list or e-mail me directly.
Andreas Bihlmaier, "LiveCD" on the unofficial openbsd-wiki. BSD licensed. http://www.openbsd-wiki.org/index.php?title=LiveCD.
Kevin Lo, "Building an OpenBSD Live CD", Copyright 2005 O'Reilly Media, Inc. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/07/14/openbsd_live.html.
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