Live GIS Disc FAQ

For the public good and for your own future reference please record any FAQs here, even if you can only supply the Q

Getting help

 * Q: How can I find the answer to a question which isn't here?
 * A: Use the search tool in the mailing list archives, or put it here and wait for someone else to fill in the A:.

See also Live GIS Disc/Errata/8.0

Getting started

 * Q: What's the live user's name and password?
 * A: user/user. See the passwords.txt file on the desktop for application specific database user/passwords.

Hardware Drivers

 * Q: How do I get my Wifi working?
 * A: Due to licensing issues a number of proprietary firmwares can not be included on the disc, you must download them yourself. We don't have the right to redistrubute them.


 * You will probably need a wired network connection to download the drivers.

Start button &rarr; Preferences &rarr; Aditional Drivers

It will search for available drivers ... this will take a little while.

Select the driver if you wish, and hit "Apply Changes". If you do not have a working network connection this will likely fail without telling you why.


 * After the drivers are installed you can look in /var/cache/apt/archives/ for the deb packages, copy them over to another USB drive, then upon a fresh boot copy them back there and use 'apt-get' to install them. If you mount the other USB drive and the OSGeoLive USB drive on another computer, you can even copy these files into a directory in the Live's USB. These will then be available in the (for example) /cdrom/extra_debs directory. You could even stash a little script in there to install it all automatically.

Customizing
IMAGE_NAME=OSGeoLive80 df -h umount /media/0FB5-AA29 mlabel -i /dev/sdd1 -s :: mlabel -i /dev/sdd1 ::"$IMAGE_NAME"
 * Q: How do I set the drive volume name on the live USB drive?
 * A: From a Linux computer, plug it in and mount it, then:
 * 1) limited to 11 single byte characters
 * 1) find devivce and mount name
 * 2) for me it is /dev/sdd1 and /media/0FB5-AA29
 * 1) unmount it
 * 1) check the label
 * 1) set the label

Administration

 * Q: What's the root password?
 * A: There isn't one. To run commands as root type `sudo ` in a terminal. To become root type `sudo - su`. Enter the user's password when prompted.


 * Q: How do I get my dual monitors to span instead of mirror with xUbuntu?
 * A: Go to the Applications &rarr; Settings menu and use the `arandr` program to drag them apart, then click the tick/check button to apply (once you start the program it's pretty obvious, the program name on the other hand is not so obvious :) For the OSGeo 5.5 Live DVD and earlier you'll have to install it yourself via Synaptic or the Ubuntu Software Center.
 * ARandR screenshot

sudo apt-get install openssh-server
 * Q: How do I ssh into the Live Disc?
 * A: You must first install the openssh-server package:

Because of a bug in Ubuntu 12.04 you may also need to run: sudo initctl reload-configuration sudo service ssh restart


 * Important: If enabling remote login access you really should change the user account's default password with the passwd command.

Building the disc

 * Q: How do I roll my own version of the disc?
 * A: See the Live GIS Build wiki page


 * Q: This app is great! How do I install it on my Ubuntu system without installing everything else?
 * A: All the install scripts can be found in the ~/gisvm/bin/ directory on the disc.