Trying Out LiveCDs

I'm still looking for a Linux or FreeBSD LiveCD for my high school computer class. I've had some success, but there's more to do. The idea is to have an OS disk that we'd run off of during class with the tools we need all there, ready to go.

No Room, No Room!

The computers in our lab at school have very limited disk space. Windows XP is installed on them, along with programs needed for other classes. That doesn't leave much room for graphics programs and development systems that I'd like to use for my classes, both the middle school and high school classes. So I thought I could use LiveCDs to solve the problem. Only the student's data files would need to be stored on the hard disk.

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OpenSolaris

My OpenSolaris LiveCD arrived yesterday and I've had a chance to get a first brief look at it. I ordered it as part of my search for a LiveCD that I can use as a development environment for my high school computer class. I chose OpenSolaris in part because it's not already represented in the school's computer lab (I try to expose my students to as many different OSes as I can), I like Solaris in general (ever since it got over its teething pains after the change from SunOS), and I figured there'd be a high likelihood of the JDK being pre-installed on it.

It started up fine on my iMac (Core2Duo), and presented me with a very nice desktop. It's got some nice apps installed. The audio didn't work, even though it claimed to have a driver for it, and neither the ethernet or wireless networks had compatible drivers, which was disappointing.

No JDK? On a Sun OS? Really?

A bigger disappointment was the lack of a JDK. The JRE was there, but no JDK. In fact, I didn't find any development tools on the disk at all, except for python.

I realize that the space on a CD is pretty limited when delivering a modern OS, but it seems to me that if there's room for lots of media-related apps and sample media for them on a disk, there's room for some developer tools, too.

Certainly you'd think Sun would want to make the Java SE's JDK the 21st-century's equivalent to BASIC or K&R C? I guess python's got that role, it's just a shame that python doesn't address more of the system without having to use platform-specific APIs.

Keep Looking

Well, OpenSolaris isn't entirely out of the running for my class. This particular LiveCD is, but after some searching for a LiveCD that contains the JDK I turned up BeleniX. I downloaded the latest ISO last night, hopefully I'll have time to burn it and give it a spin soon. The list of packages claims that it has the JDK version 5 (presumably 1.5), which is good enough for a beginner's class, though I'd prefer 1.6. At least I'll have the Scanner class.

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