[PLUG] cdrom business cards -- compression ?

[Darxus <darxus@op.net>]

A friend of mine had one of the linuxcare bootable cds at the geekfest.  I
tried it.  It was neat.

I still haven't heard back from linuxcare.

I have discovered that you can buy business card cdr's for... "As Low As
$1.20/each" from www.squarecd.com.  

So I think me & a couple friends are gonna buy some.  So now I have to
figure out what to put on it.

They hold 50mb.  My 1st thought was "how do I do a compressed root
filesystem?"  Then I found http://cvs.bofh.asn.au/e2compr/ - e2compr:
Transparent compression for ext2 filesystem, which has apparently been
usable since 1997, but is still not distributed with the kernel (you have
to patch it).  

Then I started talking to one of the guys here about it and he made the
comment that he didn't think you could put an ext2fs on a cd, and that you
had to use an iso9660 filesystem.  

And my brain is spinning.  

How the hell do I create a bootable cdrom under linux ?

$ ls mkfs*
mkfs  mkfs.ext2  mkfs.minix  mkfs.msdos

there's no mkfs.iso9660 there... ?

Okay, there's mkisofs, which takes a bunch of files & builds an iso9660
filesystem out of them.  

Is there any way to do a compressed filesystem on a CD ?

This may be the answer...

http://fb9nt-ln.uni-duisburg.de/mitarbeiter/gockel/software/dmsdos/dmsdos.html
7. You have managed to burn a compressed filesystem onto a CD (This is
quite easy - put the large file 'dblspace.001' into an iso9660 filesystem
and burn it. Be warned, dos can't mount it from CD. Uh...) 
mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /cdrom mount -t msdos -o loop
/cdrom/dblspace.001 /mnt 

"DMSDOS is a loadable module for the Linux kernel. It provides read and
write access to compressed FAT filesystems, such as Microsoft's
Doublespace/ Drivespace and Stac's Stacker."

Eww, wait, no, that would just give me a compressed fat filesystem.  It
does support umsdos, so it is an option.... any better ways ?
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            darxus@op.net / http://www.op.net/~darxus
        There is no fine line between genius and insanity.


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