6 ms·

When I was young I dreamed on having a USB stick (not yet invented) I could take with me to different kiosks and have a standard OS load my specific instances t

When I was young I dreamed on having a USB stick (not yet invented) I could take with me to different kiosks and have a standard OS load my specific instances thanks to my custom key. This approaches that functionality and I think it's pure brilliance that you've included such thorough a demo for us to enjoy that you spent so much time and enthusiastic effort into creating and making manifest. So, I applaud you there and thank you for making it open-source that's super cool, and might inspire someone to make a kiosk that, by default, loads your site.

DustinBrett 3y ago
Nearly 20 years ago when I was in IT, I had something like this using a tool called BartPE which allowed you to make a custom WinPE environment that could be booted from a USB drive. As someone who went on to make one of these "web desktops", maybe things like BartPE were a partial inspiration.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  About 30 years ago when I was a programmer and support guy all in one, I had an MS-DOS boot disk and a 300 Megabyte Backpack portable hard drive. It was awesome. I had all of the source code, backups of the customer sites data and my programming environment with me no matter where I went. Great stuff!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - peteradio 3y ago
    His name was Max Harddrive and he did kickflips on his keyboard. Nobody could beat his quarter mile downloads.
    - ldp01 3y ago
      Hahaha, I need to go watch Hackers right now!
      - pmarreck 3y ago
        I randomly watched a scene from it on YouTube based on this comment, and in the background was a poster I never saw before that said "Trust Your Technolust", and just like that, I have my new life motto LOL
        E39M5S62 3y ago
        https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/trust-your-technolust https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/trust-your-technolust Just need to get the right color for your paper stock!
        pmarreck 3y ago
        NICE!!
      - rnts08 3y ago
        I unironically watched Hackers last night.
  - raffraffraff 3y ago
    These two posts have awoken old memories for me, because I used BartPE and I had a "magic" bootable MSDOS diskette. I remember I also created a custom Windows NT build for a company I worked for around 1999. They had about 6 different models of Compaq workstation, and a dozen different departments. They had a disk imaging solution, rather than implement automated pxe builds. That's fine, except that nobody in the team had any "craft". Because NT isn't plug and play and each department had different software, we had about 20+ NT images, each with its own personality (ie major flaws, like hard-coded WINS servers, being already joined to a domain, old user profiles, broken software installations, old drivers). The day I joined the team, the phone rang constantly from 8am to closing time. If you walked around the building to do a desk visit, 20 people would shout at you, "hey IT guy, take a look at this PC, will you?". Coming from a hardware support background I had installed MS stuff thousands of times and got my MCSE, but Lotus Notes, Sunguard, Bloomberg and their awful VB6 apps (unpackaged collecting of dlls and instructions) had a short learning curve. After I figured that stuff out I created a single NT build with everything working perfectly. I cleaned up, defragged, ran sysprep. It used NT's hardware profiles to make the build work on any model of desktop (which just required imaging a new model, creating a profile for it and installing all the drivers. Rinse and repeat 6 times). Then I burned the highly compressed NT image along with ghost.exe onto a CD, and handed copies to the other 2 helpdesk guys. Anyone who called IT over the few weeks, regardless of their issue, got a rebuild. Result? Immediate reduction in workload. So we proactively worked through the whole company. Things were so tranquil afterwards, we could go around to department heads asking if there was any "real" IT work that needed to be done. That one disk, man.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    Not a cloth backpack like we used to carry books for school in.... one of these[1] from MicroSolutions. It plugged into the parallel printer port. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Solutions_Backpack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Solutions_Backpack
- anthk 3y ago
  20 years ago knoppix did far more.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    20 years ago mounting NTFS read/write on Linux was a risky proposition.
    - anthk 3y ago
      You could use ntfs.sys with some wrapper, can't remember. It was almost safe.
  - airspresso 3y ago
    fond memories of Knoppix! Was so useful to boot into that to debug, investigate, fix.
    - cylinder714 3y ago
      GRML is a successor of sorts to Knoppix: https://grml.org/ https://grml.org/ It's an Austrian LiveCD based on Debian; version 2024.02 was just released. It's not as slick as Knoppix, but it does come with lots of utilities and can start an X Windows desktop.
- pdntspa 3y ago
  BartPE was my god as a computer repair tech. I had a custom build with everything I ever needed on there! Data recovery... virus removal... diagnostic tools... the works.
- cipehr 3y ago
  Oh man I remember BartPE and customizing the apps bundled with it… thanks for the memories.
- cuSetanta 3y ago
  For me it was Hirens BootCD. Seems like a slightly different implementation but we swore by it to fix the most awkward of issues.
petesergeant 3y ago
For some reason I'd assumed this was the kind of thing that the original Mac Mini would morph into, but of course I was wrong. Searching for "PC Stick" shows up some interesting options. I would dearly love to find a use-case for this[0], which with a USB-HDMI might work almost as well 0: https://store.planetcom.co.uk/collections/gemini-pda/products/gemini-pda-wifi-only https://store.planetcom.co.uk/collections/gemini-pda/product...
vel0city 3y ago
What I'd really love is a net boot image and remote storage that can be mounted on the fly on any computer. All I'd need is my yubikey or whatever secure identifier to connect all the pieces.l and plenty of internet. I'm partially there with VDI tools like Parsec, but being able to leverage local hardware would also be neat.
- orev 3y ago
  Bootable USB that loads iPXE, with a custom boot config that downloads the kernel and initrd from your own cloud server?
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    This might do what you are thinking, and does use iPXE under the hood. https://netboot.xyz/ https://netboot.xyz/ https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  I replied to a reply to you in a subthread with this same info, but since you’re both sorta asking the same thing, I’ll post it here for you also. https://netboot.xyz/ https://netboot.xyz/ https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz
fennecbutt 3y ago
Samsung DeX.
- digdugdirk 3y ago
  Is Samsung Dex able to boot/load to a standard Linux environment? Initial look at it seems interesting, but I've never really heard/seen much about it.
  - peterleiser 3y ago
    I've used Dex on my Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the apps are Android apps. If you want linux on Android you can try this suggestion (termux + ubuntu-on-android + vnc server): https://www.reddit.com/r/SamsungDex/comments/opyj6o/linux_on_dex_is_still_available_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SamsungDex/comments/opyj6o/linux_on...
  - danlugo92 3y ago
    You can also ssh into a linux vps fwiw
  - arendtio 3y ago
    It depends on what a standard Linux environment is and what you will need it for. I mean Android is some kind of Linux and with Termux you can get it a bit more Debian-like from a terminal perspective. But I haven't seen anybody start a KDE or Gnome with it. My biggest issue with Dex is that it can manage only one large display. So if you have two, they are just being cloned. Otherwise, I like to use it sometimes when I don't want to start my PC.
whalesalad 3y ago
Slax
binarysneaker 3y ago
Tried Tails? https://tails.net/ https://tails.net/

DustinBrett 3y ago

Nearly 20 years ago when I was in IT, I had something like this using a tool called BartPE which allowed you to make a custom WinPE environment that could be booted from a USB drive. As someone who went on to make one of these "web desktops", maybe things like BartPE were a partial inspiration.

mikewarot 3y ago
About 30 years ago when I was a programmer and support guy all in one, I had an MS-DOS boot disk and a 300 Megabyte Backpack portable hard drive. It was awesome. I had all of the source code, backups of the customer sites data and my programming environment with me no matter where I went. Great stuff!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- peteradio 3y ago
  His name was Max Harddrive and he did kickflips on his keyboard. Nobody could beat his quarter mile downloads.
  - ldp01 3y ago
    Hahaha, I need to go watch Hackers right now!
    - pmarreck 3y ago
      I randomly watched a scene from it on YouTube based on this comment, and in the background was a poster I never saw before that said "Trust Your Technolust", and just like that, I have my new life motto LOL
      - E39M5S62 3y ago
        https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/trust-your-technolust https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/trust-your-technolust Just need to get the right color for your paper stock!
        pmarreck 3y ago
        NICE!!
    - rnts08 3y ago
      I unironically watched Hackers last night.
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  These two posts have awoken old memories for me, because I used BartPE and I had a "magic" bootable MSDOS diskette. I remember I also created a custom Windows NT build for a company I worked for around 1999. They had about 6 different models of Compaq workstation, and a dozen different departments. They had a disk imaging solution, rather than implement automated pxe builds. That's fine, except that nobody in the team had any "craft". Because NT isn't plug and play and each department had different software, we had about 20+ NT images, each with its own personality (ie major flaws, like hard-coded WINS servers, being already joined to a domain, old user profiles, broken software installations, old drivers). The day I joined the team, the phone rang constantly from 8am to closing time. If you walked around the building to do a desk visit, 20 people would shout at you, "hey IT guy, take a look at this PC, will you?". Coming from a hardware support background I had installed MS stuff thousands of times and got my MCSE, but Lotus Notes, Sunguard, Bloomberg and their awful VB6 apps (unpackaged collecting of dlls and instructions) had a short learning curve. After I figured that stuff out I created a single NT build with everything working perfectly. I cleaned up, defragged, ran sysprep. It used NT's hardware profiles to make the build work on any model of desktop (which just required imaging a new model, creating a profile for it and installing all the drivers. Rinse and repeat 6 times). Then I burned the highly compressed NT image along with ghost.exe onto a CD, and handed copies to the other 2 helpdesk guys. Anyone who called IT over the few weeks, regardless of their issue, got a rebuild. Result? Immediate reduction in workload. So we proactively worked through the whole company. Things were so tranquil afterwards, we could go around to department heads asking if there was any "real" IT work that needed to be done. That one disk, man.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  Not a cloth backpack like we used to carry books for school in.... one of these[1] from MicroSolutions. It plugged into the parallel printer port. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Solutions_Backpack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Solutions_Backpack
anthk 3y ago
20 years ago knoppix did far more.
- int_19h 3y ago
  20 years ago mounting NTFS read/write on Linux was a risky proposition.
  - anthk 3y ago
    You could use ntfs.sys with some wrapper, can't remember. It was almost safe.
- airspresso 3y ago
  fond memories of Knoppix! Was so useful to boot into that to debug, investigate, fix.
  - cylinder714 3y ago
    GRML is a successor of sorts to Knoppix: https://grml.org/ https://grml.org/ It's an Austrian LiveCD based on Debian; version 2024.02 was just released. It's not as slick as Knoppix, but it does come with lots of utilities and can start an X Windows desktop.
pdntspa 3y ago
BartPE was my god as a computer repair tech. I had a custom build with everything I ever needed on there! Data recovery... virus removal... diagnostic tools... the works.
cipehr 3y ago
Oh man I remember BartPE and customizing the apps bundled with it… thanks for the memories.
cuSetanta 3y ago
For me it was Hirens BootCD. Seems like a slightly different implementation but we swore by it to fix the most awkward of issues.

petesergeant 3y ago

For some reason I'd assumed this was the kind of thing that the original Mac Mini would morph into, but of course I was wrong. Searching for "PC Stick" shows up some interesting options. I would dearly love to find a use-case for this[0], which with a USB-HDMI might work almost as well 0: https://store.planetcom.co.uk/collections/gemini-pda/products/gemini-pda-wifi-only https://store.planetcom.co.uk/collections/gemini-pda/product...

vel0city 3y ago

What I'd really love is a net boot image and remote storage that can be mounted on the fly on any computer. All I'd need is my yubikey or whatever secure identifier to connect all the pieces.l and plenty of internet. I'm partially there with VDI tools like Parsec, but being able to leverage local hardware would also be neat.

orev 3y ago
Bootable USB that loads iPXE, with a custom boot config that downloads the kernel and initrd from your own cloud server?
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  This might do what you are thinking, and does use iPXE under the hood. https://netboot.xyz/ https://netboot.xyz/ https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz
aspenmayer 3y ago
I replied to a reply to you in a subthread with this same info, but since you’re both sorta asking the same thing, I’ll post it here for you also. https://netboot.xyz/ https://netboot.xyz/ https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz

fennecbutt 3y ago

Samsung DeX.

digdugdirk 3y ago
Is Samsung Dex able to boot/load to a standard Linux environment? Initial look at it seems interesting, but I've never really heard/seen much about it.
- peterleiser 3y ago
  I've used Dex on my Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the apps are Android apps. If you want linux on Android you can try this suggestion (termux + ubuntu-on-android + vnc server): https://www.reddit.com/r/SamsungDex/comments/opyj6o/linux_on_dex_is_still_available_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SamsungDex/comments/opyj6o/linux_on...
- danlugo92 3y ago
  You can also ssh into a linux vps fwiw
- arendtio 3y ago
  It depends on what a standard Linux environment is and what you will need it for. I mean Android is some kind of Linux and with Termux you can get it a bit more Debian-like from a terminal perspective. But I haven't seen anybody start a KDE or Gnome with it. My biggest issue with Dex is that it can manage only one large display. So if you have two, they are just being cloned. Otherwise, I like to use it sometimes when I don't want to start my PC.

whalesalad 3y ago

Slax

binarysneaker 3y ago

Tried Tails? https://tails.net/ https://tails.net/