Member Avatar for barnowl

anybody usin this new distro? good,bad,or ugly :rolleyes:

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Quick, practical advice for experimenting with Phalk without touching your main disk. Since this is for a required Unix/security class (), use an environment you can inspect, snapshot, and throw away. and brought up the right concerns about running vs installing — below is a simple, safe workflow that keeps the host clean and makes troubleshooting easier.

Use a virtual machine for everyday testing. Create a VM, attach the Phalk ISO as the optical drive and take a snapshot before you do anything that changes the system. Example VirtualBox commands (adjust names/paths to match your setup):

VBoxManage storageattach "PhalkVM" --storagectl "IDE" --port 0 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium /path/to/phalk.iso
VBoxManage snapshot "PhalkVM" take "clean"

If you prefer a live USB, write the image only after confirming the target device; a common pattern is:

sudo dd if=phalk.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress && sync

Careful: /dev/sdX is destructive.

Inspect the image before running it. Mount the ISO loopback, and if the image uses squashfs you can mount or extract the root filesystem to read init scripts, defaults and included tools:

sudo mount -o loop phalk.iso /mnt/iso
sudo mount -t squashfs -o loop /mnt/iso/live/filesystem.squashfs /mnt/rootfs
# or extract with: unsquashfs -d /tmp/squashfs-root /mnt/iso/live/filesystem.squashfs

Always verify the ISO checksum, isolate the VM’s network with NAT or host-only adapters when testing security tools, and keep a clean snapshot to revert to. If you want package-management or chroot editing workflows, follow up with a guide specific to the distro you choose — @gore offered a Slackware tutorial earlier that covers chroot workflows if you decide to install inside a VM.

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Member Avatar for )BIG"B"Affleck

Well what are you going to be using it for?
I dont think it has the apt -get feature and I heard about some problems with the booting. Thats why I ask what is the need of it? What are you using now and are you wanting to take that learning curve?

Member Avatar for barnowl

im takin a unix class and i wanted something to play with without doing an install. information systems security student.

Member Avatar for big_k105

i have never use or looked into phalk but if you jst want a cdrom distro that you dont have to install but jst run from the cd i would recommend knoppix its a great distro. or look into knoppixSTD if you want that hacker took kit type stuff that phalk has :) hope this helps

edit: http://www.knoppix-std.org/ this is the web site to knoppix std you should take a look at it

Member Avatar for )BIG"B"Affleck

Is this a required class for your school?
If your taking the class because need or want the knowledge, I would suggest slackware on your system.

PM for the tutorial on slakware written entirley by gore.

Member Avatar for barnowl

yeah the class is required. I will look into slackware and knoppix. thanks for the imput Big B and Big K. :cheesy:

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