LNX-BBC

What is an LNX-BBC?

The LNX-BBC is a miniature Linux-based GNU distribution, small enough to fit on a CD-ROM that has been cut, pressed, or molded to the size and shape of a business card.

It provides a portable rescue system or temporary workstation OS for any system with a CD-ROM drive.

So it's just a small installer?

Not at all! The LNX-BBC runs as a "live filesystem" CD. Nothing is installed, and the system returns to its previous OS once you pop the LNX-BBC out.

What happens to my hard drives?

Only what you explicitly do to them! The LNX-BBC philosophy is "leave no trace". The LNX-BBC does not even mount your hard drives read-write.

To be a useful rescue system, it provides you with the tools to modify your hard drives. You must explicitly re-mount them read-write to take advantage of this.

What distribution do you use?

We develop our own distribution specifically to fit in the space constraints of the tiny CD-ROMs. We compile everything from source code with -Os, and use an elaborate system of compression and pivot_rooting to make a 50MB CD-ROM hold all of the programs we include.

Why not just use Knoppix?

Knoppix is an excellent live-CD distribution, but one with different goals. Knoppix is meant to be a fully-featured Debian system on a CD or DVD. The LNX-BBC is meant to be a portable card-sized distribution, designed to fit in your wallet or pocket. The form factor of a business card CD makes the LNX-BBC more readily transportable than a full-size CD-ROM.

Does it work with Red Hat?

The LNX-BBC is its own operating system. It works independently of what operating system is installed on the computer's hard drives. You could have OS/2 installed on your system and the LNX-BBC would still function in your machine.

Does it work with Windows?

See above question about Red Hat.

So how do I get one?

Your options

• Download an image, and then burn it to a CD-R.
• Meet one of us at any of the trade shows we attend.
• Join the FSF and get their membership card.
• Purchase one from the EFF Online Store
• Purchase one from Linux Central
• If you run a Free Software user group of some kind, you may request that some be sent on the lnx-bbc mailing list

What do I do with an ISO file?

ISO9660 is the standard that defines the CD-ROM format. The .iso file you download from us is a raw image of a CD-ROM. You need to burn it to your CD-R or CD-RW in some sort of raw mode, to avoid making a CD with a single large .iso file on it!

There is a decent rundown on using cdrecord under Unix to burn CDs at the command-line. You may also find X-CD-Roast a helpful GUI tool.

Some people have found that renaming the file extension from .iso to .raw helps convince Microsoft Windows what the appropriate burning technique should be. Most other operating systems in the world are Unix-based, and determine the file type by what's actually in it rather than what it claims to be.

So this is that Linuxcare thing, right?

Not anymore!

In 1999 Duncan MacKinnon, Tom Crimi, and Seth David Schoen started work on the project at Linuxcare. Linuxcare printed 10,000 copies of the "Linuxcare Bootable Business Card" to be distributed at the then-upcoming LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. The give-away mini CD-ROMs were a huge success and have generated steady praise and thanks for their rescue capabilities, attracting many other developers to the project.

The BBC went through seven versions, five of which were pressed into business-card sized CD-ROMs and handed out at trade shows or distributed by mail to Linux User Groups around the world.

Eventually, the original developers left Linuxcare, and Seth decided to officially announce a project fork in May 2001.

But Linuxcare still has a GNU/Linux business card CD. Is this the same project?

The LNX-BBC has no affiliation with Linuxcare, although Linuxcare have their own similar project. Unfortunately, it looks like Linuxcare have not updated their version of the BBC since August 2001. Both are descended from the original project, but all of the original developers are currently working on the LNX-BBC.

So what version should I get?

As of this writing (May 2003) the latest release version is 2.1.

Are there any images for larger CDs? (8cm, full CD-ROM etc)?

Not yet, but with GAR, we hope to be able to build using package profiles, so there may eventually be ISOs that are larger than the business card format.