Linux on DVD-RAM

[rex27]

I was wondering if I could install a version of Linux on DVD-RAM instead of on a second hard disk, as DVD-RAM seemed to have a fairly large capacity. Is this possible, if I change BIOS settings to boot from the optical drive? And how would I do it?

[darkrose0510]

Try just using one of the available live CD's (or DVD's), as these will run from your CD/DVD drive. The only thing you won't be able to do is save your work to the disk, so get a usb flash drive to save to.
Try,
Knoppix
Kubuntu (DVD)
Ubuntu
Suse (live DVD)
Damn Small Linux
Feather Linux
And others no doubt.

[rex27]

Thanks - I already had a live CD at hand, and using it is fine, but the thing is you can't save settings or anything on it (it's just a disk!). Is there anyway i could change this so that i can use ubuntu without changing my hard drive, using a usb flash drive as memory and have ubuntu remember the personalised settings when it loads the next time?

[Al-x]

I am on a mission to achieve the above. wikipedia documentation seems to suggest that a DVD-RAM disk can be partitioned using the same file systems as a hard-drive. I believe and would hope that the OS can boot and run from one partition on the disk and files and settings can be saved in another.

A 4.7GB DVD-RAM would be much better than the majority of USB FLASH drives and many systems will not boot from a flash drive.

I am looking to achieve a portable desktop/OS that can easily be updated. Not even sure about writing a bootable DVD-RAM image yet. Maybe an installation direct to the DVD-RAM media would work?

If anyone has any further info or esperiences or would be interested in sharing in this quest please reply.

Thanks,
Alx