[tools] Monoppix 1.0 is out

Summary

Monoppix 1.0 has been released! Our new website, www.monoppix.com is live! Help wanted!

What is it?

Monoppix is a GNU/Linux distribution which includes Mono, XSP, MySql, and Monodevelop, and runs completely off a CD. It allows you to get familiar with Mono development or test your existing .NET apps in Linux without installing anything on your computer.

Monoppix was based on Knoppix and Miniknoppix and was developed by Roiy Zysman (zroiy at gmail dot com).

What's new?

The Monoppix Preview (0.2.2.3) Release came out in September 2004.  Based on user feedback, Monoppix 1.0 adds the following:

  • MySql support, including the ByteFX ADO.NET managed provider (XSP sample included, uses compiled codebehind)
  • XSP code runs on RAMDISK, so you can more add and edit code without any configuration changes
  • GTK# for desktop applications (sample included)
  • Best of all, a great new desktop image!

Downloads / Links

First of all, www.monoppix.com is live. That will be the official source of info on Monoppix going forward, although I'll continue to announce releases here.

If you're familiar with Knoppix, download the ISO and get cracking.

If not, don't worry, it's a simple process:

1. Download the Monoppix ISO

The Monoppix ISO is available here. Please download via BitTorrent if you can.

2.  Burn the ISO to a bootable CD

The easiest ways to burn an ISO to a bootable CD in Windows are:

  1. Nero, using the CD-ROM (BOOT) option
  2. ISORecorder (free, XP SP2 or Windows 2003 need to use the ISORecorder v2 beta release)
  3. CDBurn (part of free Windows 2003 Resource Kit, works on Windows XP, command line only)
3. Running Monoppix off the CD

Make sure the CD is in the CD drive and restart your computer. If it boots in your normal operating system, reboot again and change the start device priority in your BIOS to set the CD drive to higher priority in the boot order than the Hard Drive. At the prompt, you'll need to enter a Knoppix cheat code to tell Knoppix what hardware to use. If you're using standard equipment, you're probably okay with just "knoppix " (without the quotes). If you're using a laptop or LCD monitor, "fb1024x768" will probably work.

Knoppix mounts your hard drive and places a link to it on your desktop, so you can execute your .NET / ASP.NET code off your hard drive. Linux only mounts NTFS partitions as read only, though, so if you want to save your work you'll need to be creative (save to a floppy, upload to an FTP, e-mail yourself, create a VFAT partition, etc.).

4. Running Monoppix on Virtual PC or VMWare

You can run Monoppix in a virtual machine environment. In both cases, you just create a new virtual machine and capture the ISO file as a CD drive. This lets you keep save your session state without setting up an alternate home drive.

Virtual PC's emulated Video Drivers conflict with the default Knoppix display settings, which expect 24 bit color while VPC only supports 16 bit color. Use the following cheat code when running Monoppix in VPC: "knoppix xserver=XFree86 xmodule=s3 depth= 16". 

Walkthroughs

Walkthroughs are included on the ISO, linked to from the desktop. Screenshots are available at www.monoppix.com/screenshots.php. The walkthroughs on my site will be updated from the ISO content and moved over to monoppix.com.

Suggestions / Feedback / Want to get involved?

You can post suggestions as comments on this post, or e-mail Roiy Zysman (zroiy at gmail dot com). We'll be setting up a forum at www.monoppix.com soon. We'd love to have some help at any level, from documentation to building the releases. Let us know if you're interested - it's a great opportunity to learn something new.

By the way, thanks to Patrick for pointing me to BlogTorrent, which was very easy to set up.

[fin]

5 Comments

  • Is anyone else having issues with the Torrent file? I might be doing something wrong, but I'm having issues connecting to it.

  • Look forward to trying this, maybe it will convert me to the Darkside ;)



    Seriously though I am intruiged.

  • It's something weird about the firewall here at my work. I remotely connected to my home computer and have it going there. I downloaded via HTTP and am now seeding.



    Patrick

  • This is awesome; I checked out the earlier version, and I'm really glad you guys have persisted to v1.0.



    I haven't had a chance to try out v1 yet, but I see from the screenshots that it uses KDE as opposed to Gnome (I'm assuming mutual exclusivity as I doubt both desktops could fit on the one CD along with all the other Mono stuff). Personally, I think that's an unfortunate decision, as I believe Mono pairs better with Gnome and, indeed, the Mono project was conceived with Gnome developers in mind. Now that GTK# is part of Monoppix, the selection of KDE is even more puzzling.



    At any rate, this is not a huge deal, and this comment is not a troll. I understand that the Gnome/KDE debate is a fairly religious one. I just thought I'd chime in anyway.



    Again, thanks for your contribution! :)



    --Stuart

  • Hi Stauart,

    You're probably right about what you said here. The excuse I have for choosing KDE and not gnome is that I had real time consuming problems adjusting Gnome to this livecd . I did install some GTK libraries for GTK# and other GTK related libraries that were needed for this , but as I worked on the project I realisied that I spend too much time on trying to adjust Gnome as the desktop. (This is my first livecd project) . eventually I decided to give up on Gnome and to focus on Mono related stuff (mono,mcs, mono tools , tutorials and guides).

    Thanks, That for the valuable feedback

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