INX Beta: Live CD based on Ubuntu 7.04, without X

[Peter Garrett]

===  INX Is Not X ===

I'm sending this in the hope that other Ubuntu people will try it, and
participate in testing/improving it... It's Ubuntu-based.

http://inx.maincontent.net

- Briefly, the idea is to make a live CD that acts as a safe "sandbox"
for learning and teaching the command line. The CD is Ubuntu 7.04
underneath, but without the desktop stuff (no GNOME, KDE, XFCE or any
window manager)

It boots to an automatic login on tty1-6, and has a collection of
menus that you can navigate by just choosing numbers and letters, or
you can dismiss the menus and use pure command line, of course.

A short list of what it has so far ( inx-beta.iso )

* Pretty colours and eight selectable themes ;-)
* Framebuffer graphics including picture viewing and pdf reading (fbi,
fbgs)
* Links2 running on the framebuffer, and elinks (tabbed text browsing)
* GNU Screen with tweaks to make it more user friendly, and a menu/intro
* sshfs for secure file browsing on remote systems, using ssh and fuse
* USB mounting with usbmount
* Midnight Commander file manager, and vifm, linm if you prefer
* Full vim with runtime, mcedit, and  nano editors
* music with a variety of apps, including the MOC player
* simple mail setup with Mutt using IMAPS ( just answer the questions)
* dialup and PPPOE setup - but if you use a router/dhcp you shouldn't need
  these
* lots of other stuff...
* It has 9 tutorials starting with basics and working up... 

There is no hard drive installer, for a variety of reasons... Perhaps a
later edition will add this.

Have a look at the "slideshow" linked below for an idea of how INX looks:

http://inx.maincontent.net/album/1.png.html

Please give INX Beta a workout, and email your
findings/criticisms/bugfixes ! Either to:

Peter Garrett <inx-one at optusnet.com.au>

... or if you feel like airing your views on Sounder, I hope this is
sufficiently on-topic, for an off-topic list :) I will be happy to answer
questions.

( There is now a large tarball of source code for all included Ubuntu
packages on the site  - I suggest this would be easier to obtain from
the Ubuntu repositories, though. 

The scripts from /usr/local/bin on the CD are also
available on the site in compressed form, if you want to read, bug-fix or
improve them.)

Acknowledgements and thanks so far:

* All the Ubuntu, Debian and other Free Software developers without whom
   this would not be possible.
* Special thanks to Karl Goetz and Melchior Mazzone, for organising and
   donating web space. Thanks to Karl for his suggestions and comments,
   too!
* Thanks to Shelagh Manton, Andre Mangan, Paul O'Malley and all who
   have made suggestions, tested and helped. 

-- 
"INX Is Not X" based on Ubuntu 7.04 Live CD: http://inx.maincontent.net
Screenshots slideshow: http://inx.maincontent.net/album/1.png.html