I bought a book, Knoppix Hacks. It is a collection of 100 things you can do with Knoppix, the Linux 'Live CD' distribution that simply boots from a CD. Knoppix always seemed to me like a technology demonstration: clever idea, nicely implemented but how much use is it? Boot linux from a CD, try out some apps, cannot save anything to hard disk, cannot do any real work.
Many of these hacks simply make me aware of the tools that are available. For example, the dd utility for cloning hard disks, including the ability to copy a disk through an ssh connection and dump the contents on a different pc. There are enough tips on linux system repair, data recovery, running temporary emergency servers etc here to really put me off using a windows based server system.
Speaking of Windows, it turns out that Knoppix is more useful for repairing windows boxes than the Microsoft recovery tools, which I have found to be pretty poor. Why fix a pc using a primitive command line prompt that takes about 15 minutes to boot up, when you could use a gui? The Windows hacks include how to reset the Windows passwords, hack the registry, run virus checkers, all from linux on a comatose windows installation.
Moral: don't let anyone into your data centre clutching a CD.
Peter's Moblog
