MCNLIVE intalled to HD has become my favourite distro. Currently I'm using it much more than my PCLOS and the intall Mandriva (i always have some 4 or 5 distros installed). MCN really is much faster and responsive than Mandriva (at least on my Athlon XP), and has better brazilian portuguese support, and more sofware options, than PCLOS.

so i wonder: why does chris say it's not recommended to install?

This answer to this question is very long

Technical reasons. No doc pages, no man pages, some (very few, and not in the substance) changed config files, the install program just copies the whole live system to HD (instead of a clean installation of rpm's and many options the user has for the installation), all settings are the default MCNLive settings (the services, the disabled firewall etc) which are optimized for a live system.

Almost philosohical reasons. MCNLive is not a Linux distribution in its own. It is Mandriva, a specific version for specific needs.
I like to advise people who want the full-featured Linux experience a clean installation of the official MDV DVD. The installer is very powerful, feature-rich, with many choices a live system can't offer.

Security and quality assurance. When you install a professional and community controlled Linux distribution you can be sure that you get a secure and tested system and software. Copying a live cd (that is actually what a live cd install does) to your hard disk, you basically trust the maker of the live cd. Trust is ok, but the development model of Linux gives you a better quality assurance when you use a normal installation medium. Though, it depends a bit on which Live cd you install. For example Fedora Live, Mandriva One and Ubuntu are built on an official built system/server. So, they should be safe.

More here:
http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?s=&...st&p=315161
http://www.mandrivaclub.nl/site/index.php?showtopic=8003

The snappiness of MCNLive on your system is just a question of some settings, KDE and system services mostly. MCNLive has no special kernel nor optimized packages or such.

btw I don't mind people installing MCNLive. I just want them to be aware of the nature of a live system.

Does this answer your question?

it does answer my question and clarifies things i just suspected and teaches me some new things indeed!

thanks a lot!!

Ok. I understand the reasons why you do not recommend installing from MCNlive cd.
But the advantage of being able to backup to CD or DVD making a Livecd is not included in the official or real distribution and this is extremely important for me.
If i install from Official CD? is there a way i can install your scripts to make livecd? as i do with MCNlive?

You did a great job. Thanks

Look here: http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=42429

I might be very wrong, but AFAIK MDV includes an easy to use backup program.

I had no choice - I had to install mcnlive on my laptop because mandrive one (kde version) would not boot. I tried the disc on a second computer and it seemed to have problems booting into x. So I verified the md5 sum; when I knew it was ok, I burned another disc (this time at 10x). I got a little further, but it still had problems booting into x. Thus, I installed and use mcnlive. It is one of the few distros that works well on my laptop and sets up my wireless card with ease. I only use the laptop for internet, koffice, printing documents, and playing games (mostly emulators - sega, commodore, etc). If I could install the "real deal" I would. The loss of man pages, manuals, and help files bothers me, but I guess I can use google. Anyway, mcnlive is a good choice for this old laptop.

john

P.S. I, too, wondered why so many people were anti-livecd only distros. chris:b helped me understand. In fact, some live only distros (wolvix) caution that installing a livecd can be unpredictable.

It is great to be able to instal in a standard installation the scripts to make a Livecd but it is only possible on Mandriva 2007.1 but i have mandriva 2007.
MDV has a backup program but as i see, what it call a system backup is only backing up the /etc directory.

MCNlivecd adapts the installation to the media you are going to install to. Let you partition and format the new media as you wish and install for you. Isn't that great?

Talking about backusp, i have a mandriva 2006 installation (not from MCNlive) on a server and would like to make a full backup of it. Is there a livecd that i could boot from with all the software needed to do the full backup (partition table, and evething) and that would let me restore it to a new hardisk partitioning it as the old one was?

I know where you guys are going, like you I kind of scratched my head at why all the discouragement against using MCNL as your "main install"

but I have come around to Chri's line of thought.

I have several projects going at once. The first is to convert my entire house to Linux.

And although that seems pretty simple, I figured that using the technology behind MCNL I could put MCNL on a small partition and then all my data elsewhere, and roll from there.

works great, until you want certain updates. Those I could never get to work. Even Chris admitted that it wasnt something that MCNL was meant to do.

So if you look at my other messages you will find, that I was indeed (after several head butts) able to make my own install of Mandriva Free and using Chris' scripts and knowledge, able to create my own"backup/live" dvd.

This allows me to do several things, 1st I can carry my desktop ANYWHERE with me and 2nd if my C drive smokes, I swap it out and replace it w./ my personal "live drive (I remaster almost everyday)


my CURRENT challenge, is something that MCNL has going for ity, that I could never get to work in MCNL, but after much MORE head beating, I finally got to work on my pc, and thats VirtualBox. So instead of VMWARE or XEN I'm using THAT with WIN2k.

However NOW, my live dvd is blowing up.

So back to the drawuing board.

I REALLY do understand what your trying to do, I even understand and am starting to agree w/ Vhris' attitude about NOT using MCNL as your base OS, but sometmes it does seem like it would be easder, but then again easy never taught us much....