Dapper LIVE as a portable Ubuntu installation: answers and some questions.

[Chanchao]

Dapper is GREAT!! I love it!  And it opens up new possibilities for the
Live CD other than just as a preview / safe trial run.

Basic scenario:  Carry Ubuntu around wherever you go, boot the Live CD
in a public computer.   Why: So you have your own files & envoronment,
your web favorites, browser history, etc, etc.  Also it's a great
protection against keyloggers or general malware that tends to
accumulate on public computers. 

I've tried DSL and Puppy Linux for this before, but found them too
limited (Especially DSL).  The advantage of these is that you can
install the lot on a USB thumb drive.  The downside is that booting from
a thumbdrive rarely works the same on any two computers, if it works at
all.  Booting from CD-ROM is of course much more common and supported by
all PC's out threre that have a CD ROM drive. 

What I do:

I boot the Dapper live CD, which is MUCH faster and smoother than
previous Ubuntu versions.  The 'logout' function now works without being
catapulted straight back into Gnome, so you can logout, change the
session to 'Failsafe xterm' and log back in so you can put your files &
settings back from a USB thumbdrive. 

In that terminal I run a script that essentially puts the backed up home
folder back. So I run:  /media/mythumbdrive/restore.sh   Then exit the
terminal and log back into Gnome and voila, all my settings and files
back.

If I make changes to the environment then I may do another backup to be
put back on the USB thumb drive, for restoration the next time. 

That backup script looks like this:
---------
cd /home
sudo rm /media/THUMBDRIVE/ubuntu.bak
sudo mv /media/THUMBDRIVE/ubuntu.tar.gz /media/THUMBDRIVE/ubuntu.bak
sudo tar -czf ubuntu.tar.gz ubuntu
sudo mv ubuntu.tar.gz /media/THUMBDRIVE/
--------

So basically it backs up the old installation on the thumbdrive, then
makes a compressed archive of the current home folder (that includes all
settings & preferences) and copies it to the USB drive.

To restore:
--------
cd /home
sudo rm -r ubuntu/*
sudo rm -r ubuntu/.*
sudo tar -xzf /media/THUMBDRIVE/ubuntu.tar.gz
sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/cdrom

sudo cp /home/ubuntu/bin/printers/*.ppd /etc/cups/ppd
sudo chown cupsys /etc/cups/ppd/*
sudo chgrp lpadmin /etc/cups/ppd/*
sudo cp /home/ubuntu/bin/printers/printers.conf /etc/cups
sudo chown cupsys /etc/cups/printers.conf
sudo chgrp lpadmin /etc/cups/printers.conf
sudo killall cupsd
sudo cupsd
---------

Note that some settings are system wide, such as the printer definitions
that I use at the office, so that's what all the printers and cups stuff
is for.  

Now for a question: I don't know how to put back two other settings
which apparently are system-wide:

1. The network settings at my office, which involves setting the IP
address, DNS and so on

2. The timezone is apparently system-wide!!!  I think this shouldn't be
so, (as users may be in different timezones) but it is. 

These two things I currently do manually, but could I add this to the
script also?  

Cheers,
Chanchao