Custom Live CD

[Liam Proven]

On 9 July 2010 06:58, Mark Widdicombe <mwiddicombe at shoprite.co.za> wrote:
> Good day all,
>
> I work in an office which is exclusively MS.  I have no internet access and am not permitted (or able) to install software on the PC my employers provide.  I have a problem in that the ugliness of the Windows interface and the dottiness of its design offend my sensibilities to the extent that I am getting close to resigning my position which I otherwise enjoy.  I have come upon a partial solution: I can run Ubuntu from a live CD and do almost everything I need to do with the PC gestapo none the wiser.  Unfortunately, the live CD does not come with audio and video codecs that would allow me to listen to music while I work, or some other software like latex that I use to prepare assignments for a course I'm doing.
>
> So my question is how do I 'roll my own' custom live CD that will include all the software I need?  Actually, I would like to make a clone of my home PC, including all configuration options, and put it on a live CD that I could use at work and have it identical to my home PC.  Once I've done that I'll pick your enormous brains again to figure out how to connect to Sharepoint with it, but that's for another thread.
>
> Thanking you in advance,

You could try Linux Mint, which comes with the codecs pre-installed.
This won't help if you need to install graphics drivers and so on,
though. I think the bootable-USB-key route would be much more pleasant
for that.

But more generally, speaking as a former IT Manager, this kind of
behaviour could we be against company computer-usage policies. I was
always very open to FOSS software and so on but some less enlightened
companies are not.

You could well be risking dismissal by this. You could try arguing
sophistry - "I wasn't installing anything, I just rebooted" - but
without the b*llsh*t, you are talking about replacing the company's
mandated software with a new, completely different stack. This is
blatantly taking the mickey and many companies would fire you for
this, and frankly, even if I didn't agree with their policies, I would
not blame them for enforcing them.

If you are doing this just because you don't like how Windows *looks*
then you are being outrageously petty.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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