OmniBoot allows to set two default boot options, either for local boot or for network- (PXE-)boot.

To set a default local boot option edit the file

/boot/fixboot.cfg

and uncomment the desired option.

Also uncomment the last line which sets up a timeout in 1/10 of 1 second. So the value of 120 which you find as a suggestion corresponds to 12 seconds. This timeout is essential for a complete unattended boot of your chosen default boot option, otherwise the boot stops at the OmniBoot menu.

For systems that boot OmniBoot over the network (PXE) there is a second fixboot.cfg located in

/boot/make/gpxe_root/fixboot.cfg.

%DL ... driveletter of your USB or HDD drive
Now format your drive:
format %DL: /fs:fat32 /v:OMNIBOOT /x /q
Copy CD/DVD-root to drive-root.
Move or copy %DL:\boot\make\bin\ldlinux.sys to %DL:boot\syslinux\ldlinux.sys.
Now make the drive bootable with syslinux:
%DL:\boot\make\bin_win\syslinux -f -ma -d boot\syslinux %DL:

Partition of your drive (USB or HDD) is formated FAT32.
Label is OMNIBOOT (only relevant for OmniBoot PXE Server).
You need the files mbr.bin, ldlinux.sys and syslinux from /boot/make/bin.
Now transfer the mbr to the drive:
dd if=mbr.bin of=/dev/sdX
Copy /boot/make/bin/ldlinux.sys to /boot/syslinux/ldlinux.sys.
Now hardcode the position of ldlinux.sys in mbr:
./syslinux -s -d /boot/syslinux /dev/sdX1

Finally copy CD/DVD-root to drive-root.

The base version and all modules yet contained in the CD version can be booted via PXE. Also FreeNAS and RIP-Linux (DVD version only). Debian, Knoppix and System Rescue CD boot via PXE if the OmniBoot PXE-server (see below) is used as source.

View for the selection of the CD version and their induvidual version in .

OmniBoot as PXE-Server

OmniBoot contains yet a simple PXE-server in the netboot-submenu, based on the matchless distro-module Slitaz. This server offers the boot-files of OmniBoot to other (possibly disk-less) LAN-clients that boot with the help of a pxe-enabled network device. There is also a local pxe boot kernel in the netboot-submenu and in all keyboard supporting modules' standalone iso. Why boot OmniBoot over the network from a locally booted OmniBoot? If you have no pxe-enabled network device you could use an old base, cd or stand-alone module to boot a current OmniBoot version from a central source in the LAN.
The OmniBoot server starts with the following defaults:

Server IP 192.168.0.6
Server Netmask 255.255.255.0
DHCP start IP 192.168.0.20
DHCP end IP 192.168.0.84
DNS Server IP 192.168.0.1
Router IP 192.168.0.1

No customizations as described below (running your own PXE-server) are necessary. However if you like to change the network settings you can edit the file

/images/slitaz/srv_start.

Beware that changing the server-IP breaks PXE-booting of Debian, Knoppix and System Rescue CD since this IP is part of their kernel-boot-commandline. However you can press [TAB] and edit that command-line during boot.

The OmniBoot server provides a web-server, connect by entering the Server IP (see above) into a browser of another client in the local network. The OmniBoot boot medium of the system where you start the OmniBoot server will be mounted and linked to a folder in the OmniBoot web-root named media, all locally found NTFS and ext partitions to a folder named mnt. These links will only work if you view this site when it is served by OmniBoot server and viewed from a client in the local network, could be a http-client (webbrowser) or nfs-client.

In order to PXE-boot Debian, Knoppix and System Rescue CD the OmniBoot PXE-server also runs a simple nfs-server. Again the name of the shares are "media" and "mnt", offering read-only access for every peer in the local network.

Running your own PXE-Server

If you are yet running a PXE-server, copy OmniBoot to your tftp-root, move the content of

/boot/make/gpxe_root

to tftp-root and configure your PXE-server to serve the file gpxelinux.0 as bootfile.

If you want to setup your own PXE-server, you might benefit from the following links:

Setting up a server for PXE network booting (Linux)
TFTP as a service HOWTO (Windows)
Set up DHCP/BOOTP (Windows)

You can set a default keyboard for OmniBoot by editing the file

/boot/lang.cfg

. Uncomment one single line setting the default language. If you uncomment more than one language default option, the last one will be effective.

First this will affect your keyboard at boot time, so you can edit kernel parameters comfortably if you wish. Not every booted distro or tool will offer the same languages as OmniBoot in its default options (as listed in the file lang.cfg). Check the to view the supported languages.

If a pre-selected language isn't supported by a subsequently booted distro, this distro will start booting with its default language, usually English. However you can get back to the distro's language selection and select another supported keyboard/desktop-language.

Many distributions within OmniBoot offer a nice GUI with great GUI-Tools for many purposes.

However one day you may arrive @ the shell.

First hint: type mc. This is the midnight commander which is contained in most distros. It will make your file and folder transactions much easier.

Second: Browse the cheatsheet to the left. I've collected all kinds of useful commands and their appropriate syntax over the years, and I guess a lot of it will be useful for you too.

Third: Look up Linux manpages (manual pages) online to get all information about specific Linux commmands right here:

All Web Look up manpages

Show kernel version and system architecture
uname -a

Show name and version of distribution
head -n1 /etc/issue

Show all partitions registered on the system
cat /proc/partitions

Show RAM total seen by the system
grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo

Show CPU(s) info
grep "model name" /proc/cpuinfo

Show PCI info
lspci -tv

Show USB info
lsusb -tv

List mounted filesystems on the system (and align output)
mount | column -t

Show state of cells in laptop battery
grep -F capacity: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info

Display SMBIOS/DMI informatio
dmidecode -q | less

Copy preserving all attributes, verbose
cp -av /foldera /folderb

List filenames including relative foldername
find . -print

List all subdirs, relative foldername
find . -type d -print

List only subdirectories containing certain files
find . -type f -name '*.html' -printf '%h' | uniq

List all of only one file type, with relative path to current folder
find . -type f -name '*.html' -print

Delete everything at local path
rm -r .

force remove file
rm -f file

Change the permissions of file to octal; 4 read, 2 write, 1 execute
All files in current dir: read, write, execute for all
chmod 777 -R .
All files in current dir: rwx for owner, rx for group and world
chmod 755 -R .

Change Owner:Group for everything in folder
chown -R user:users ./folder

Show files by size, biggest last
ls -lSr

Show top disk users in current dir.
du -s * | sort -k1,1rn | head

Sort paths by easy to interpret disk usage
du -hs /home/* | sort -k1,1h

Show free space on mounted filesystems
df -h

Show disks partitions sizes and types (run as root)
fdisk -l

List all packages by installed size (Bytes) on rpm distros
rpm -q -a --qf '%10{SIZE}\t%{NAME}\n' | sort -k1,1n

Check file system (e2fsck)
-f force; -p automatic; -y yes for all; -v verbose
fsck.ext3 -vy /dev/sdX8

Tell superblocks (mke2fs, mkfs.ext2)
mkfs.ext3 -n /dev/sdX8

Check file system with specific superblock
fsck.ext3 -by xxspbxx /dev/sdX8

How long has this disk (system) been powered on in total
smartctl -A /dev/sda | grep Power_On_Hours

Show info about disk sda
hdparm -i /dev/sda

Test for unreadable blocks on disk sda
badblocks -s /dev/sda

convert from ext2 to ext3 (then edit fstab!)
tune2fs -j /dev/sdX2

Clone HDD
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY

Compress HDD to Imagefile
dd if=/dev/sdX bs=1M | gzip > /folder/filename.gz

Expand Imagefile to HDD
gunzip -c /folder/filename.gz | dd of=/dev/hdX bs=1M

Create compressed partition image with partimage
partimage -z1 -f3 -codb save /dev/sdX2 /folder/filename

Mount iso
mount -t iso9660 -o loop filename.iso /folder

Show status of ethernet interface eth0
ethtool eth0

Manually set ethernet interface speed
ethtool --change eth0 autoneg off speed 100 duplex full

Show status of wireless interface eth1
iwconfig eth1

Manually set wireless interface speed
iwconfig eth1 rate 1Mb/s fixed

List wireless networks in range
iwlist scan

List network interfaces
ip link show

Rename interface eth0 to wan
ip link set dev eth0 name wan

Bring interface eth0 up (or down)
ip link set dev eth0 up

List addresses for interfaces
ip addr show

List routing table
ip route show

Set default gateway to 1.2.3.254
ip route add default via 1.2.3.254

Lookup DNS ip address for name or vice versa
host pixelbeat.org

Lookup whois info for hostname or ip address
whois pixelbeat.org

Find windows machines. See also findsmb
smbtree

List shares on windows machine or samba server
smbclient -L windows_box

Mount a windows share
mount -t smbfs -o fmask=666,guest //windows_box/share /mnt/share

Mount a windows share
mount -t cifs -o user=username,password=xxx //windows_box/share /mnt/share

Compresses file and renames it to file.gz with max compression
gzip -9 file

Create a gzipped tar archive of a directory
tar zcf directory.tar.gz directory/

Make compressed archive of dir/ using bzip2
tar -c dir/ | bzip2 > dir.tar.bz2

Extract one file from a .tar.gz file
gzip -dc file.tar.gz | tar xf - pathname/filename

Extract archive using bzip2
bzip2 -dc dir.tar.bz2 | tar -x

Transfer a directory to another server
tar zcf - directory/ | ssh 192.168.0.1 "cd /destination; tar zpxvf -"

Unpack initrd to its folder
gzip -dc ./initrd.gz | cpio -id

or
lzma -dc -S .lz ./initrd.lz | cpio -id

Repack initrd to file
find . | cpio --quiet --dereference -o -H newc | gzip -9 > ~/new-initrd.gz

or
find . | cpio --quiet --dereference -o -H newc | lzma -7 > ~/new-initrd.lz

Sync dir local with del at target
rsync -vv -r -u --delete ./foldersource/ ./folderdest

Copy dirtree only
rsync -av --include "*/" --exclude "*" ./foldera/ ./folderb

Copy only jpg and png (case-insensitive) with foldertree
rsync -r --exclude="folder1excluded/" --exclude="folder2excluded/" --include="*/" --exclude="*" --include="*.[Jj][Pp][Gg]" --include="*.[Pp][Nn][Gg]" ./foldersource/ ./folderdest

Sync dir ftp with del at target
rsync -vv -r -u --ignore-errors --size-only --delete --copy-links --stats rsync://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/folder/ /localfolder/ >> ./log/rsylogo.txt

Dump a MySQL database to an SQL file:
mysqldump -l --opt databasename > filename.sql -u theusername --password=thepassword

Import a MySQL database dump:
mysql databasename < filename.sql -u theusername --password=thepassword

Create floppy image, label HDT034, filename hdt034.img, size 2880
mkfs.msdos -v -n HDT034 -C hdt034.img 2880

Create syslinux mbr
./syslinux hdt034.img

Mount the image to the folder /tmp/hdt
mount -o loop hdt034.img /tmp/hdt

Unmount the image
umount /tmp/hdt

Note: sed uses stdin and stdout. Newer versions support inplace editing with the -i option!

Replace string1 with string2
sed 's/string1/string2/g'< file1 > file2

Modify anystring1 to anystring2
sed 's/\(.*\)1/\12/g'

Remove comments and blank lines
sed '/ *#/d; /^ *$/d'

Concatenate lines with trailing \
sed ':a; /\\$/N; s/\\\n//; ta'

Remove trailing spaces from lines
sed 's/[ \t]*$//'

Escape shell metacharacters active within double quotes
sed 's/\([`"$\]\)/\\\1/g'

Right align numbers
seq 10 | sed "s/^/      /; s/ *\(.\{7,\}\)/\1/"

Print 1000th line
sed -n '1000{p;q}'

Print lines 10 to 20
sed -n '10,20p;20q'

Extract title from HTML web page
sed -n 's/.*<title>\(.*\)<\/title>.*/\1/ip;T;q'

Delete a particular line
sed -i 42d ~/.ssh/known_hosts

2012-04-15 update from v.0.3

BASE

update:
Astra
Slitaz
Super Grub 2 Disk
new:
Tor Router in Mainmenu/Toolbox/Others
OmniBoot default boot option /boot/fixboot.cfg
OmniBoot PXE-server (dhcp, tftp, http, nfs)

MODULES

bug fixed:
Mint desktop language support
update:
AVG
Debian
Parted Magic
System Rescue CD
new:
CDlinux
Monowall
Porteus
RIP-Linux (Recovery Is Possible)
moved:
FreeNAS and DiskCopy from CD-Version to DVD-Version only
general news:
The so called "keyboard supporting modules" (all modules except avg, diskcopy, freenas and monowall and except PCLInuxOS, which offers keyboard support only at runtime) now also share a netboot kernel for local PXE-boot in their standalone version.

2012-03-03 update from v.0.2

BASE

update:
/boot/docu/OmniBoot.html
/images/plbt
new:
Slitaz
Memtest86 4.0b Server
removed:
Tiny Core Linux (more or less useless, need space for Slitaz in base)
modified:
20 keyboard layouts pre-selectable in base. This affects all more than 70 items which are integrated within the ubcd. All other stand-alone items of base are not influenced by that selection. Slitaz is integrated in base as a module and has it's own language selection.
Via uncommenting a single line in a single file all of OmniBoot can be set to one of those languages as default.
Just have a look at /boot/lang.cfg

MODULES

update:
AVG
System Rescue CD
Parted Magic
new:
3 parted magic modules
Debian
Geexbox
PCLinuxOS
removed:
Fedora (hybrid boot-problems)
openSUSE (hybrid boot-problems)
Thinstation (hardcoded to one language)
note: removed modules will further be supported in v.0.3, that is show up in menu and boot. Other than that no further support is planed.
general news:
Most modules (except avg, diskcopy and freenas) now offer keyboard support already during boot.
These keyboard supporting modules also share memtest, hardware detection tool and plop bootmanager in their standalone version.
And as the base every standalone module can have a preselectable keyboard layout too - according to the specific abilities of that module, which may differ from the base.
Most modules (execpt debian, knoppix, mint, pclinuxos and system rescue cd = current CD Version) are now bootable via PXE also.
All modules boot from USB now without exceptions.
All modules are now each contained in a single folder, so they can be completely added/removed by this single folder which you find below /images.