Quirky live-CD 6.2.1.91

This is not your usual live-CD. Especially if you have come from the Puppy-world.

I had deployed Quirky Unicorn 6.2 as an image file (example: 'unicorn-6.2.usfs.xz'), with scripts for writing to a HD partition or to a Flash drive ('install-quirky-to-drive.sh' and 'install-quirky-to-partition.sh').

However, testers voiced the opinion that it would be nice to have a live-CD, for quick evaluation of Quirky. There are also those who don't want to install to a USB stick or a SD card. In some cases, the install script is too much of a challenge, as they don't have adequate installations of Linux (don't support f2fs filesystem, etc.).

So, here we have an ISO file, that you can burn to a CD in the normal way. But, to run this live-CD does require a computer with at least 1.5GB RAM, I would recommend 2GB, so it is not for very old PCs.

Another huge difference from Puppy live-CDs is that this live-CD cannot save a session. It boots up "for the first time every time".

Internally, this live-CD has what we used to call a "humongous kernel": the 'vmlinuz' (kernel) has the initramfs built into it, as well as the entire Quirky filesystem.

That Quirky filesystem is a squashfs file, actually named 'q.sfs', and there is a small 'init' script that runs at startup and creates a zram device, /dev/zram0, and copies the contents of q.sfs into it, then does a switch_root into the zram.

Note that unlike Puppy, this live-CD does not use a aufs (or unionfs) layered filesystem. There is the initramfs, a zram is created, all of Quirky is copied into it, then a switch_root is made into the zram. The initramfs then ceases to exist.
So, there is only a zram with a complete, full, Linux in it, like you have a traditional full installation of Linux, except in this case it is totally in RAM.

What we have is a system that runs totally in RAM. It does not probe the drives of the computer, leaves them totally alone. The fact that vmlinuz is very big (230MB) means that bootup is a bit slow, but also the copying of q.sfs to the zram takes awhile.
End result, a rather slow bootup, but when you get there, everything is in the compressed zram in RAM, and speed is fantastic.

If you can't save a session, why would you use this live-CD?
Well, as I said above, to evaluate Quirky. Or when you specifically want an as-new bootup everytime, that runs only in RAM and doesn't touch the hard drives, or any drives.

But there is another reason. The aforementioned scripts, for installing the Quirky image file to hard drive partition or a Flash drive, may not work in other Linuxes (including many variants of Puppy). However, when you are running this live-CD, it is completely compatible with those scripts.

Coming soon (maybe)

This is just my "first go" at a Quirky live-CD. There are some interesting possibilities:
  1. My install scripts 'install-quirky-to-drive.sh' and 'install-quirky-to-partition.sh' need an image file, for example 'unicorn-6.2.usfs.xz'. However, everything needed is in the running live-CD, so the scripts could be modified to get everything they need from the CD itself, and install to HD partition or Flash drive (if you should want to do that).
  2. Earlier this year, just before going on a several-month hiatus of Quirky development, I tossed around the idea of implementing a save-file for the Quirky live-CD. Yes, there are various ways to do it.

Regards,
Barry Kauler
November 4, 2014