Update the whole site, it is very outdated.

[Icecube]

http://ultimatebootcd.com/index.html

• The link to UBCD5 beta 5 is gone. (It is listed on the download page however.)

http://ultimatebootcd.com/news.html

• You can mention that a beta version of UBCD5 is available.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/faq.html

Question: How do I create the Ultimate Boot CD from the ISO image file?

• Add the link for Free and non-free burning programs for burning UBCD.
  See: http://ultimatebootcd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1433

Question: I inserted Ultimate Boot CD into my CDROM drive and rebooted the computer. The reboot was as usual and no text-based menu was displayed. Have I done anything wrong?

• In newer BIOSes you can press F8 (maybe also another key, not completely sure) at boot time to select from which hard drive / cdrom drive you want to boot ,without altering the boot order in the BIOS menu itself (a sort of 'boot once' option).
  Add also some information for booting from USB (USB-HDD, ...).

Question: I have created the Ultimate Boot CD v.1.4 as per your instructions. When I run it, the selection screen appears as expected but I have no way of selecting the options. Neither my keyboard nor my mouse are operative on the screen. Can you advise me?

• Change the version number.
  For UBCD411, an update of isolinux/syslinux can help when you have an USB keyboard that doesn't work, but this won't be relevant for UBCD5 probably.

Question: My computer does not have the option of booting from CD in the BIOS. How can I use the Ultimate Boot CD?

• Add PLoP Bootmanager. I mentioned it already to include it in the next release.
  It has very interesting features:

  * CDROM boot without BIOS support
  * USB boot without BIOS support (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI)
  * Floppy boot
  * Different profiles for operating systems
  * Define up to 16 partitions
  * No extra partition for the boot manager
  * Hidden boot, maybe you have a rescue system installed and the user should not see that there is another system installed
  * Boot countdown
  * Hide partitions
  * Password protection for the computer and the boot manager setup
  * Backup of partition table data
  * Textmode user interface 80x50
  * Graphic user interface 640x480, 800x600, 1024x786, 1280x1024
  * Start of the boot manager from harddisk, floppy, USB, CDROM and network
  * MBR partition table edit
  * The boot manager is freeware

  See: http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

• So maybe you have to add the following question too:

Question: My computer does not have the option of booting from USB in the BIOS. How can I use the Ultimate Boot CD?

• Use PLoP.

Question: I have a new Opteron system and it seems to have problems with your Ultimate Boot CD. I can boot the Windows XP setup CD, and the UBCD CD I made boots in a Pentium box, but it won't boot in my new Opteron box. Is there any way to debug what is going wrong?

• Some PCs have a very buggy BIOS, which won't work correctly with isolinux. some BIOSes have only buggy USB support so that booting UBCD with syslinux from an USB thumb drive won't work, while UBCD from a CDROM works.
  Isolinux and syslinux have a lot of workarounds for buggy BIOSes (look at the source code ==> /core/isolinux.asm), so most PCs are able to boot isolinux based CDROMs now.

Question: Would it be possible to create a password or login script before the main menu appears? This would add a bit of security to the Ultimate Boot CD.

• I think the info for cdshell doesn't matter at this moment.
  For isolinux you can use the following in the config files (must be used in a config file that is loaded by menu.c32 or vesamenu.c32).

  MENU PASSWD passwd
  
  (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
  
  Sets a password on this menu entry. "passwd" can be either a
  cleartext password, a SHA-1 encrypted password (starting with
  $4$), or and MD5 encrypted password (starting with $1$).
  
  Use the included Perl scripts "sha1pass" or "md5pass" to
  encrypt passwords. MD5 passwords are compatible with most
  Unix password file utilities; SHA-1 passwords are probably
  unique to SYSLINUX. Obviously, if you don't encrypt your
  passwords they will not be very secure at all.
  
  If you are using passwords, you want to make sure you also use
  the settings "NOESCAPE 1", "PROMPT 0", and either set
  "ALLOWOPTIONS 0" or use a master password (see below.)
  
  If passwd is an empty string, this menu entry can only be
  unlocked with the master password.
  
  
  MENU MASTER PASSWD passwd
  
  Sets a master password. This password can be used to boot any
  menu entry, and is required for the [Tab] and [Esc] keys to
  work.

Question: How do I edit files with the .igz extension? How do I create my own .igz files?

• Add a way to do this in windows. You can use 7zip to make and unpack the .img.gz files.
  
  Also check if the other entries are relevant for UBCD5.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/tutorials.html

• The tutorial section is completely outdated. Update and add topics to the relevant forum posts.
  Add my link to the very large list of CD burning applications.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/customize.html

• Update.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/history.html

• UBCD411 isn't even listed.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/bugs.html

• Probably there are bugs in UBCD411 too (not sure).

http://ultimatebootcd.com/help.html

These are items that I hope some kind folks can contribute to:
* Tutorials for how to perform system rescue/recovery using any of the tools/utilities on the UBCD.
* Update Mersenne Prime Test boot disk to allow user to manually override the decision (based on automatic CPU detection) to run V23/V24.
* Update StressCPU to V2.0.

• I have done number 2 and 3 (and number 1 ).

http://ultimatebootcd.com/acknowledgements.html

• Add 2 more folks. You know who, I guess.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/resources.html

• Add the long list with CD burning tools: http://iso.snoekonline.com/iso.htm.
  Add ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver (usefull if you want to make a large hard disk image of the freedos image when you want to boot UBCD from PXE): http://ultimatebootcd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1410

If you add my answers to the website, you better clean them up and expand them. I only mentioned the essential things.

[Victor Chew]

@Icecube: I will work on it this week (plus get an updated list of apps and links).

[Magimog]

Where are the Perl scripts that are mentioned?

[Icecube]

Do you mean the perl scripts mentioned in the following part?

MENU PASSWD passwd

It is included in the syslinux archive.

See the official syslinux homepage: http://syslinux.zytor.com/
Direct download link: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/

[Victor Chew]

@IceCube:

I think I have fixed almost everything in the list, except for the customization page, which I will update when V5.0 comes out of beta.

http://ultimatebootcd.com/bugs.html

Probably there are bugs in UBCD411 too (not sure).

AFAIK, there are no obvious bugs in the V4.11. I am talking about coding errors (eg. wrong image name), not "XXX won't work on my machine".

http://ultimatebootcd.com/tutorials.html

The tutorial section is completely outdated. Update and add topics to the relevant forum posts.
Add my link to the very large list of CD burning applications.

The static pages are user-contributed, so unless the author (or someone else) updates them, I probably don't have time to take them on myself.

[Icecube]

Question: Would it be possible to create a password or login script before the main menu appears? This would add a bit of security to the Ultimate Boot CD.

[Contributed by IceCube] You can include the following in the relevent config files (must be a config file that is loaded by menu.c32 or vesamenu.c32).

MENU PASSWD passwd (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)

Sets a password on this menu entry. "passwd" can be either a cleartext password, a SHA-1 encrypted password (starting with $4$), or and MD5 encrypted password (starting with $1$).

Use the included Perl scripts "sha1pass" or "md5pass" to encrypt passwords. MD5 passwords are compatible with most Unix password file utilities; SHA-1 passwords are probably unique to SYSLINUX. Obviously, if you don't encrypt your passwords they will not be very secure at all.

If you are using passwords, you want to make sure you also use the settings "NOESCAPE 1", "PROMPT 0", and either set "ALLOWOPTIONS 0" or use a master password (see below.)

If passwd is an empty string, this menu entry can only be unlocked with the master password.

MENU MASTER PASSWD passwd

Sets a master password. This password can be used to boot any menu entry, and is required for the [Tab] and [Esc] keys to work.

Add the link to syslinux (see answer to Magimog) to this post for the perl script.

Add also a question about how to edit the menu. Add a link to http://syslinux.zytor.com/ so that everyone can find how to edit the menus.

Add this link also at the Usefull link page.

Question: How do I edit files with the .igz extension? How do I create my own .igz files?

The IGZ files are image (img) files compressed using GZip, so you can use any tool that supports GZip compression/decompression, such as the popular 7-Zip. The igz extension is simply an abbreviation of img.gz. This is necessary because syslinux/isolinux only supports 8.3 filenames, so it will be impractical to use the full img.gz extension without abbreviation

I think that syslinux has long filename support from version 3.70 (don't know if this is the case for isolinux).

[as702]

I think that syslinux has long filename support from version 3.70 (don't know if this is also the case for isolinux).

Isolinux still only supports 8.3 filenames.

)-:

[Icecube]

Can you make subtitles in the usefull links page? Now it looks like a mess.
e.g.

a section about floppies and how to make floppy images
a section about emulators
a section about drivers
....

Add also a section in the usefull links about emulators to test a custom UBCD iso.
VirtualBox (Free: Linux, Intel Mac, (Open)Solaris and Windows version):
http://www.virtualbox.org/

Sep 12, 2008
VirtualBox 2.0.2 released

Qemu (Free: Linux, Mac, (Open)Solaris and Windows version):
http://bellard.org/qemu/
There are also GUI interfaces for Qemu (don't know the names of them).

VMware Server (Free, but you have to register first: Linux and Windows version):
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

VirtualPC (Free: Windows only):
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/produc ... fault.mspx
Not so great, especially in combination with Linux iso's which is logical (Microsoft product) (Disclaimer: based on findings on the web, I never used it myself).

There are others around also, but I never used them, so I don't know if they are good or not.

Question: My computer does not have the option of booting from USB in the BIOS. How can I use the Ultimate Boot CD?

[Contributed by IceCube] Try using PLoP Bootmanager, which supports USB boot without BIOS support (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI).

Change the second part ot the question to: Can I boot Ultimate Boot CD from a USB stick?
Answer: Not directly. You can make a floppy disk or bootable CDROM which contains the PLoP Bootmanager. After PLoP Bootmanager is booted from a floppy disk or a CDROM, it is able to boot the USB stick for you when your BIOS doesn't support booting from USB (no UHCI, no OHCI and no EHCI support).

Add a question about how to unpack an remaster the iso.
Use 7zip (freeware), WinRAR (shareware), ... to unpack the iso.
You can also use "Daemon Tools" (freeware) to mount the iso and copy the files to a directory.

@as702 do you know about more utilities (freeware if possible)which can do that?

Isolinux still only supports 8.3 filenames.

I was already afraid for this. It realy sucks.

Good job, Victor. Maybe I will contribute to some customisation pages the folowing months, if I have time.

[as702]

I know of many utilities, Icecube (it's merely a question of prioritising tasks atm). For instance, I really need to write up an instruction manaul for NwDsk to allow users to refer to customisation options available etc. A section on emulators is definitely a good idea (maybe include a list of commercial emulators alongside the freely available distributions).

If Victor would be willing, I can help update the website to help speed things up (I have some spare time approaching).

[Icecube]

@as702
I didn't know that there are so much utilities
I am no fan of commercial emulators myself (no money to buy them ).

Everyone is welcome to contribute usefull applications.

The instruction manual for NwDsk is of more importance now of course.

[Icecube]

Spotted an error on the usefull link page:

Guides to using various freeware for burning an ISO image to CD or DVD

Change to:

Guides to using various freeware and not-freeware applications for burning an ISO image to CD or DVD

[Victor Chew]

@IceCube: I have an updated list of apps and links here.

[Icecube]

Thanks.

It would be nice if you can add a short description after each program, to tell what it does (maybe a little bit longer than in the isolinux config files).

StressCPU v2.0 is also freeware. I think that it is meant as GLP, because the source code is included, but it doesn't list GLP anywhere in the source code or readme file.

CPUinfo is GLP. It is very simple script that I wrote.

Parted Magic 3.1
List more programs that are included in Parted Magic 3.1
G4L: Ghost for Linux (similar to G4U): http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l.

UDPcast with GUI:

UDPcast is a file transfer tool that can send data simultaneously to many destinations on a LAN. This can for instance be used to install entire classrooms of PC's at once. The advantage of UDPcast over using other methods (nfs, ftp, whatever) is that UDPcast uses Ethernet's multicast abilities: it won't take longer to install 15 machines than it would to install just 2.

http://udpcast.linux.lu/

Firefox with FireFTP plugin
http://www.firefox.com
http://fireftp.mozdev.org

GParted is at version 0.3.9 now.

Add also photorec to the list (same author as testdisk): http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec.
Testdisk and photorec is at version 6.11.

There is a list of included programs at: http://partedmagic.com/wiki/PartedMagic ... c.Programs, but it isn't complete.

Parted Magic 3.1 RC is out.

[Victor Chew]

- Add the link to syslinux (see answer to Magimog) to this post for the perl script.

- Add also a question about how to edit the menu. Add a link to http://syslinux.zytor.com/ so that everyone can find how to edit the menus.

- Spotted an error on the usefull link page

- StressCPU v2.0 is also freeware. I think that it is meant as GLP, because the source code is included, but it doesn't list GLP anywhere in the source code or readme file.

- CPUinfo is GLP. It is very simple script that I wrote.

- Change the second part ot the question to: Can I boot Ultimate Boot CD from a USB stick?

Done!

Add this link also at the Usefull link page.

I didn't add it, because I think it belongs better in the FAQ page.

- Can you make subtitles in the usefull links page? Now it looks like a mess.
- Add also a section in the usefull links about emulators to test a custom UBCD iso.

Will do it as soon as I have time.

Add a question about how to unpack an remaster the iso.

I think this info best belongs on the customization page (and it is already there).

It would be nice if you can add a short description after each program, to tell what it does (maybe a little bit longer than in the isolinux config files).

Tried it, but it makes the list looks too crowded or cluttered due to the limited space available.

Add also photorec to the list (same author as testdisk)

I only added this one to the list (as well as to the menu). Don't want to clutter the list too much by adding too many Parted Magic related entries, just those that I would have aded to UBCD myself if Parted Magic is not present. But I have added a link to the Parted Magic entry that points to the included app list.

Parted Magic 3.1 RC is out.

Tried RC1 under both VMWare and VPC without success. VMWare boots to the command prompt, and typing "menu" has no effect. VPC boots with an error about problems with libpciaccess.so. Have you tried it yourself?

[Icecube]

Good job.

Testdisk and photorc is at verson 6.11-WIP.

Parted Magic 3.1 RC is out.

Tried RC1 under both VMWare and VPC without success. VMWare boots to the command prompt, and typing "menu" has no effect. VPC boots with an error about problems with libpciaccess.so. Have you tried it yourself?

Yes, I tried it, but not in an emulator. It works great when you boot it normally (grub, grub4dos, syslinux, isolinux).
For a tutorial of grub4dos, see: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm.

[Victor Chew]

- Can you make subtitles in the usefull links page? Now it looks like a mess.
- Add also a section in the usefull links about emulators to test a custom UBCD iso.

I have cleanup up the useful links page, and added subtitles. Lots of dead links!

[Icecube]

Update the site link in the faq page (remove the contribution of Adrian Stanciu.

Question: Do you have a step-by-step guide on how I can create the Ultimate Boot CD?

[Contributed by Gert Hulsemans] Here are the steps to create a CD:

1. Open your web browser.
2. Go to the Ultimate Boot CD homepage: [bhttp://www.ultimatebootcd.com/[/b].
3. From the "Table of Content" at the left, choose "Download UBCD".
4. If you're using Windows, download "Self-extracting EXE". And after it's finished, run it.
5. If you use Linux and if you have 7z installed, you can unpack the self-extracting exe with the following command:
7za e <name_of_exe_file>
else download "Plain old ZIP" and extract the .zip archive.
6. You'll now have a .ISO file. Burn the .ISO file as a CD image. If you don't know how, see the question "How do I create the Ultimate Boot CD from the ISO image file?" at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/faq.html.
7. If this still didn't work for you, maybe you should try and buy a physical CD already made for you. Select "Getting a Physical Copy" from the "Table of Content" on the website.

Separate the torrent download on the download page from the other mirror. Now it is difficult to find.
Add that the "Self-extracting EXE" is an self-extracting 7zip archive.

[Victor Chew]

Update the site link in the faq page (remove the contribution of Adrian Stanciu.

Separate the torrent download on the download page from the other mirror. Now it is difficult to find.

Add that the "Self-extracting EXE" is an self-extracting 7zip archive.

All done now.