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Post by rustleg on Feb 14, 2012 4:29:46 GMT -5
Because of the risks to USB's containing KNOS being infected with KNOS vulnerability exploits after surfing the internet (albeit a very small risk) I would prefer to use a CD to access my banking sites. However there are a number of customisations I need/want before such a CD is usable - primarily for me the keyboard needs to be changed to UK. Others include a set of bookmarks for the financial institutions I deal with - to avoid using a search engine and coming up with a bogus link.
I am thinking here more about my wife using it - rather not try to train her in customising and also making sure any links are good. Of course she could type in urls but that is fraught with the dangers of typos going to a dodgy site.
So I wondered if it would be possible to put an option in the system to write another iso from a running KNOS system, this time with the customisations inherent in the running system? In other words instead of writing them to a stick.
I'm certainly not complaining - having the facility to put them on a stick is a great step forward from KNOS8 and makes it so much more practical for me to use in this situation. But if there were the facility to burn another iso that would be perfect.
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Post by Kevin McAleavey on Feb 15, 2012 5:25:57 GMT -5
Because of the risks to USB's containing KNOS being infected with KNOS vulnerability exploits after surfing the internet (albeit a very small risk) I would prefer to use a CD to access my banking sites. However there are a number of customisations I need/want before such a CD is usable - primarily for me the keyboard needs to be changed to UK. Others include a set of bookmarks for the financial institutions I deal with - to avoid using a search engine and coming up with a bogus link. I am thinking here more about my wife using it - rather not try to train her in customising and also making sure any links are good. Of course she could type in urls but that is fraught with the dangers of typos going to a dodgy site. So I wondered if it would be possible to put an option in the system to write another iso from a running KNOS system, this time with the customisations inherent in the running system? In other words instead of writing them to a stick. I'm certainly not complaining - having the facility to put them on a stick is a great step forward from KNOS8 and makes it so much more practical for me to use in this situation. But if there were the facility to burn another iso that would be perfect. Sorry to say, mate ... "unfortunately" the answer to that one is no. CD's and DVD's need to be created as an ISO file, and requires a proper boot path for CD/DVD. The sticks made within KNOS are specially formatted for that purpose (as are hard drive installs) to contain boot paths appropriate to those devices and the formats are not compatible with each other. In other words, what we lay down for bootup on sticks and drives is not at all the same as the one burned directly to the DVD that KNOS is delivered on. While folks are enjoying their KNOS', the KNOS Project itself is actually our special toolkits which can spit out *any* form of customisation, delivered as an ISO file like what you downloaded, and our "manufacturing" capability here permits us to build a highly customised KNOS for end customers precisely as they wish their unique version to be, and consisting of the specific applications they wish on the final product delivered. To that end, if we were to make a special version, we would have you configure as you wish and then pack up and send us a configuration file and from that we can build that custom. It's a highly involved process on our end. Once things are along and we've completed this, I'd be happy to throw together such a custom version as a courtesy to you for all the help you've been so far and upload that for you to enjoy ... but the "mass release" version currently out there is simply incapable of doing that. The "public KNOS 9" is merely one possible "build" that our project can provide amongst literally millions of other possibilities. The whole point though of the KNOS Project for "industrial use" is to generate specific custom versions where the cost of putting together a custom build would be justified by the number of copies that could be distributed by an operation for their specific purposes, and that's why many of the things you're seeing as features exist in the first place.
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Post by Kevin McAleavey on Feb 15, 2012 5:34:24 GMT -5
I should add since what you're wanting is actually easily accomplished "as is" and is quite safe as a solution for everyone who's concerned. Make a new stick. Customise it as required and then save those settings to the stick so KNOS can find it when it boots. If you're concerned about anything untoward happening to it in the future, all you need to do is just not write anything else to it once it's configured. They even make USB sticks these days with a little switch on the side that makes it "read only" if you're especially paranoid. By design, a stick or a hard drive CANNOT be written to in the KNOS partition as it's always mounted "read only" as well as the applications and settings being stored in an impenetrable "lockbox" structure. The "swap space" is wiped at shutdown and only that "personal space" at the end can be written to at all (and only by KNOS, not anything else). If you never write to that portion again, then it's just as secure as a "puck" would be! This was all part of our design. You can have all that right now.
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Post by rustleg on Feb 15, 2012 15:08:27 GMT -5
Thanks for the response and explanation. I only asked thinking it might be a simple tweak from what you already do to create a stick. I think one's personal customisation on a stick is a very good solution so let's stick with this I'd rather not have a custom build, but thanks anyway for the generous offer.
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Post by Kevin McAleavey on Feb 15, 2012 20:36:08 GMT -5
Thanks for the response and explanation. I only asked thinking it might be a simple tweak from what you already do to create a stick. I think one's personal customisation on a stick is a very good solution so let's stick with this I'd rather not have a custom build, but thanks anyway for the generous offer. No prob, mate! Having that out here where folks can see it will save me a lot of keystrokes in the future! And you're MOST welcome.
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