Playing with Pendrivelinux

Always intrigued by alternative operating systems, I decided to play with Pen Drive Linux this weekend...a portable open source operating system which can be booted to from a USB flash drive, or can be run from within Windows without rebooting (for those whose BIOS doesn't support booting from a USB flash drive), from a "virtual machine" environment. It is way cool!

Initially, I tried to get Pen Drive Linux to boot from my thumbdrive, after downloading & extracting Pendrivelinux08.zip to my USB Flash Drive & running the makeboot.bat file, as per their instructions found at:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/02/13/pendrivelinux-2008-install-from-windows/.

I went into the BIOS and selected USB Flash Drive as my primary boot device, & also enabled the External Boot Device option. However, when I rebooted my laptop (Sony Vaio) it still booted to Vista. I even tried starting the boot further back (cold boot), but it still went to Vista. I verified that the file needed to boot to Linux was in the root of my thumb drive, it was. I must be doing something wrong...I'll figure it out later.

Anyway, I am currently entering this blog from within Pen Drive Linux. What I discovered after some poking around, is that there is also a download which enables you to launch Linux from within Windows, without having to reboot. This is just what I needed. :) I downloaded Qemupdlv1.0.1.exe from

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09/19/portable-qemu-persistent-pendrivelinux/

and extracted it to my thumb drive (2G SanDisk Cruzer) to the Qemupdl folder. I ran the LaunchPDL.bat file and here I am.

It gives me something fun & different to play with. Here are some screenshots:

My stats browsing to my blog using the Pen Drive Linux OS & the Gnome browser Epiphany:

So much for today's fun! It is a glorious day out & I'm finally feeling a bit better from my flu. Time to go outside and take in some sunshine. :)

Live Writer Tests

Just playing with Windows Live Writer.  Some of the software in the table below is considered to be a "virus/trojan" by some virus scanning applications.  I use all except for ScramDisk - which I added to the list just because it looks interesting to try...I'd like to see if I can recover the files it "scrambles".

ScramDisk	http://www.scramdisk.clara.net/
Pretty Good Privacy	http://www.pgpi.org/
TrueCrypt - Encryption	http://www.truecrypt.org/
NetCat - Networking Utility	http://netcat.sourceforge.net/download.php
Ethereal - Protocol Analyzer	http://www.ethereal.com/download.html
Back Orifice - Network Administrative Tool	http://www.bo2k.com/software/index.html

 

Live Writers insert map feature.  The random location I picked happens to be a military installation someplace in the SouthEast.   I also added a caption.

Somewhere in the SouthEast

Insert Tag feature:

del.icio.us Tags: Whiteman air force base,southeast us,freeware,netcat,ethereal,back orifice,forensics tools,data forensics,hacking tools

Photo Editing feature - including watermarks, effects, and other advanced editing tools:

 

My annual donation & good deed...adopting the little feller above to help with the efforts to save the Orangutans.  His name is "Sen".

This blog was created using Windows freeware application, "Live Writer".

Testing Blogging With Live Writer

Pretty Good Privacy

A free encryption software program that is the de-facto global standard for E-mail and file privacy. Pretty Good Privacy (or PGP) offers full-strength, 128-bit encryption. PGP has constantly been upgraded over the years and now offers loads of useful features, including secure file wiping; advanced keyserver searching; and seamless integration with Qualcomm's popular Eudora E-mail client. There's also an E-mail plugin for Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and Claris Emailer. Available for Windows, Macs, DOS and Unix. (Free for noncommercial use only).

• U.S. law prohibits export of PGP to non-U.S. residents. However, there is now an "International" version of PGP, compiled and developed outside the U.S., which is available for non-U.S. residents to download. It's available here.

 

Other Privacy software:

http://www.thefreesite.com/Anonymous_Freebies/index1.html