John's idea is similar to what I was going to suggest. Webserver on a
Stick. I have used it (to have Wordpress on a stick :-) and it really
works. While not Tomcat, you might be able to get Lucene running on
this. You ought to be able to burn this onto a CD. I don't have it
anymore but my USB drive was unlocked so I don't know if there are any
write issues.

http://www.chsoftware.net/en/useware/wos/wos.htm

The technical blurb says:
    * Apache 2.2.0
    * MySQL 5.0.18
    * PHP 4.4.2/PHP 5.1.2.2
    * PhpMyAdmin 2.8.0.3

You need about 200 MB space for the normal version! If you think this
is too much you can use the small version (~20 MB).

Tom

On 10/19/06, John Millard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Eric et al,
>
> You could get around the writability by using a usb drive.   You
> could even use QEMU on it and not have to reboot.   This might be
> helpful:  http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/usb-qemu.html
> I haven't tried this, but it looks interesting.   It sound like your
> solution can be complex as long as the complexity is suitably hidden
> from the end-user, right?  If so, building a complete environment
> shouldn't be too much of an issue.
>
> -John
> ________________________________________________________
> John Millard
> Head of Digital Initiatives and Associate Librarian
> Miami University Libraries
> Oxford, OH 45056
> (513) 529-6789
> More info: http://staff.lib.muohio.edu/~millarj/
>
>
> On Oct 19, 2006, at 9:17 AM, Iglesias, Edward G. (Library) wrote:
>
> > The only problem I see with using knoppix is the write issue.  Knoppix
> > is read only by default though you can change that. Still, this is
> > now a
> > complete environment, not an application.
> >
> > My $ .02
> >
> > Edward Iglesias
> > Systems Librarian
> > Central Connecticut State University
> > 860.832.2082
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> >> Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
> >> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 7:38 AM
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] java application on a cd
> >>
> >> On Oct 17, 2006, at 12:41 PM, Susan Teague Rector wrote:
> >>
> >>> I was thinking last night - you mentioned not being able to do an
> >>> applet b/c of access to the file directory. You could do a signed
> >>> applet that would allow your users to connect to the java
> >> app. I think
> >>> Tomcat, etc. is overkill for a CD...
> >>
> >>
> >> Maybe I could go the Knoppix route.
> >>
> >> If I'm go to all the trouble of indexing my data, writing a
> >> servlet/ applet, and installing a Web server (say Jetty),
> >> then I might as well a TEI/XML editor, some way to annotate
> >> texts, tools to build additional TEI/XML texts, etc. The best
> >> way to package all of this up might be with Knoppix, and if I
> >> use such a tool, then I could write my things in different
> >> languages, not necessarily Java.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Eric "Just Musing" Morgan
> >>
>


--
Tom