[Fsfe-ie] Live CD

[David Cathcart]

I said I'd look into re-mastering one the the current live cd's at the 
meeting last night. 
I think the idea was to have a cd that could be handed out for people to 
try free software without any fear of damaging their pc. To this end it 
was preferential to remove or hide the install to hard disk option on 
many of the current live cds . Some points on this

* Has anyone done this already?  i have seen the ilug's version[1] and 
will try to include their dial-up scripts.

* In re-mastering i was planning on using our logo and out gnu and harp, 
if Malcolm could supply the full resolution version of the image as 
discussed last night it would be helpful. 

* Which live cd to base it off? Ciaran mentioned morphix because it
could use gnome and was completely free[2], I'm working of the Gnome
version of morphix which seems to be free apart from mplayer and it's
codes. I have also seen comment that knoppix 3.3 removed non-free and
now should also be completely free software. I downloaded the latest
morphix and gave it a test, it failed to cope with dual-monitors, and
have some confusing errors on a second pc i tried it with. Also it's
application menu structure was very confusing with no sign of open
office in the "office" section (it had a taskbar icon and an entry in
the debian menu) apart from that it seemed to work well hand have a fair
amount of space free on the cd, it also seemed to be easy to re-master.
I'm currently downloading knoppix 3.3 to test it. Any comments welcome.

*There's space free on both the knoppix and morphix cd's, these could be 
used to store some informational material on the ifso and free software 
in general. Ciaran mentioned some stallman lectures, or possibly a copy 
of lessig's free culture (shoot me down on that if that's a bad idea). 
Any other suggestions?

*OT: Orbit discussion from meeting. Yes geosynchronous[3] orbits are in
a belt around the equator at a height of 35,790km ... though there does
not appear to be an "ideal" geostationary orbit, thrusters must be used.
There are also things called elliptical geosynchronous orbits where the 
satellite does not orbit above the equator, in these cases the satellite 
does not stay completely fixed in the sky. 
Escape velocity[4] only applies to objects without propulsion.. so if
you had enough fuel to keep slowly pushing you away from earth you would
escape orbit. Escape velocity seems to be used in the popular media in
two contexts, on correctly an one incorrectly. Incorrect usage is the
velocity an object must be launched at to go into orbit and not simply
crash back to earth. Correct usage is the the "initial speed (not a
vector quantity) required to go from an initial point in a gravitational
potential field to infinity with a residual velocity of zero, relative
to the field."[4]. 

-David

[1] http://www.linux.ie/download/ilug_knoppix/
[2] http://www.morphix.org/modules/xoopsfaq/index.php?cat_id=1#q27
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity