MX Linux Forum

Thank you everybody for suggestions and testing, we have just finished uploading the MX-Workbench respin to our server: http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/Community_Respins/

Direct link: http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/Community_R ... 17.2-1.iso

This respin is meant to be a “Swiss Army” kind of tool for Sysadmins and also as a showcase for how easy is to customize and remaster MX Linux (here all the credit goes to BitJam and his wonderful Live tools). The idea is that a user would write this to a flashdrive and then customize it further by using Persistency and Remaster, and even create a new ISO for backup, distribution, or copy on another flashdrive.

GUI Tools (or tools available in the GUI Launcher):
-Disk Management: gparted, clonezilla, gsmartcontrol, baobab, disk-manager, qt4-fsarchiver, nwipe, testdisk
-GRUB Boot Functions: mx-bootrepair, grub-customizer
-File Management: mc, xfburn, freefilesync, grsync, file-roller, gftp, meld
-Antivirus: clamav
-File Recovery: photorec
-Hardware Info
-Network: ceni, wireshark, zenmap, linssid, mx-findshares
-Live USB Tools, mx-snapshot, mx-remastercc, live-usb-maker-gui
-Misc.: blockout2, geany, terminal
(categories and tools are listed alphabetically in the Launcher)

CLI Tools: chkrootkit, chntpw, clamav, dcfldd, dtrx, dvtm, fping, iputils-arping, iputils-ping, iputils-tracepath, lynx, nmap, rkhunter, screen, telnet, vim, w3m

And many other… And again, the main idea is that is very simple to edit the Custom Tool Launcher, if you want to add/remove stuff from it and then remaster or even create a new ISO. As it stand it’s around 1.2GB, we could have made it a bit smaller but we didn’t want to remove LibreOffice and other tools that might be useful -- we recommend to write it on a 4GB flash drive (2GB will also work) that should have enough space for future updates, remasters, and for your data.

Please give it a spin. Feedback is welcomed. Please suggest other tools to include, this is only a first iteration, we can include more useful tools.

Sounds like a keeper for trouble shooting and checking older and newer hardware out, a bit like kali is for ummm network tools.

Downloading now to give it a try on a kingston 2gig usb 2 older stick.

Greg

Well done, Adrian and support crew!

A+. A great tool to have, multiple tools that is. One needs to keep it handy on a USB to handle all sorts of issues.

A+ from me as well.

Just want to point out that even a 4GB stick is probably not big enough if user plans to remaster and use persistence since there is very little room available eg 1.2G original linuxfs, 1GB rootfs when remastering the new linuxfs will be at least 1.2GB probably larger and then user is prompted to create a new rootfs (which user should accept) all total to c4GB
8GB is better IMO.

Very cool. I like the separate Workbench toolbox and that it runs in root. Have not actually used any of the tools but the whole thing looks very useful with a logical selection of utilities and applications. I like all the file sync and compare tools.

I assume there are backports of newer kernels for 32 bit distros if needed, so a live Workbench stick can be used/run on newer machines ? Does the live kernel installer completely replace the original 3.16 kernel or simply add another boot option to the grub menu?

I used the kernels used by MX-16 32bit, I am sure you can use backported kernels, also BitJam live-kernel-update tool might come in handy.

Workbench Toolbox (the launcher) actually runs as normal user, but most of the items are run as root (they have a "root" flag in the workbench-tool.list file next to their names) I've actually went back and forth between running the entire launcher as root but then not everything needs to run as root and actually Wireshark was complaining about it. I set up sudo to run without password, that's appropriate for this kind of tool which is not really meant to be installed. But if you install and want to change the security setting you need to remove /etc/sudoers.d/workbench-sudoers file.

Thanks Adrian, Bitjam and the rest. It seems that when I have trouble getting a computer to boot from a USB stick, usually a Mac, I always go back the Mepis and now MX. And without fail, the computer recognizes and boots from these great OS'. They have been my go to boot disks/sticks and without fail have never let me down.

Now, with this collaboration, I know it has just moved to the front of the line. In my line of work, we seem to be always looking for tools like these. I never gave the beta's a test drive, but will start as soon as I can get it on a stick.

Do you want to put this up on a torrent?

Direct link seems to want to fail. Too many people downloading?

Thanks for that nice piece of work. Two comments:

1. If this were available in a 64-bit edition, I'd rather use this as a future install base than the full-blown MX-16 ISO. Is has some things I'd need to install anyway and it doesn't have many things I do not need. Once I know more about doing this sort of thing, I might be interested in helping to produce a 64-bit version.

2. I have looked into the various tools but not exhaustively so (so perhaps I am missing the obvious) and I seem to be unable to find a hex editor that can edit sectors on HDs, USB sticks etc.