Knoppix 3.3 Is Out

maedls.at writes "After 6 months of development, the latest version of Knoppix 3.3 is out - Kernel 2.4.22 with HIGHMEM (4GB) support, KDE 3.1.3, XFree86 4.3, OpenOffice 1.0.3 (German and English), KOffice 1.2.1, new boot options for RAM or hard-disk preload of the CD. Possibility to create a persistent homedir with personal data and desktop settings on a memory stick or similar, optional with AES encryption." The main Knoppix site is still down in protest of European software patent legislation (click on the link inside the English paragraph to get to the meat of the site), but the excellent knoppix.net has a detailed changelog.

Comments

You insensitive clod!

[dzym]

I click a link in the German portion of the protest main page!

swarm the torrents

[Squinky86]

Now to wait for the torrents... or would the RIAA consider that illegal file sharing?

Re:swarm the torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA is for the recording industry... anyway, I get what you mean, it is kinda silly--all these sue happy companies--something illegal is bound to happen.

Re:swarm the torrents

[millette]

Here's another torrent link...

BitTorrent

[alwsn]

What, no BitTorrent link? I'm disapointed. Anyone have a torrent for it?

Re:BitTorrent

[ejoe_mac]

Here is their BitTorrent link

Re:BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, it seems even the bittorrent links are hard to get to (55kb)! Just keep trying.

Re:BitTorrent

[Anonvmous Coward]

"What, no BitTorrent link? I'm disapointed. Anyone have a torrent for it?"

Great. Now every topic will have a +4 "where's BitTorren?" post. Thanks for getting that ball rolling!

DVD Knoppix?

[Comsn]

when will the dvd knoppix be released?

and start including mplayer on these cds ;\

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would be the point of including MPlayer on the DVD? Presumably you would use MPlyaer to paly the DVD, but since the drive is already in use by the OS that would be kind of pointless.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[AFuckingCookie]

luckily, i've got a pc that i can put more than one optical drive in.

good thing i didn't get a g5.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[EMH_Mark3]

AFAIK there are too many legal issues surrounding mplayer to included it in knoppix. Xine is bundled, though.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

and you post on slashdot?

the reason you'd run linux to play a dvd would be the reason you do everything else in linux, so that you don't let the bad guys, aka MSFT, win

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[jasonditz]

I asked Klaus about mplayer support a long time ago, and he basically said there was no point since most of the codecs are non-free.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[CableModemSniper]

Is this the kind of thing you're looking for?

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[mabhatter654]

The Knoppix DVD was a special one-time-only deal for LinuxTag in germany. There are places you can get it online [extra copies] and if someone is willing, you could download it.

Mostly, it's to hard for the One Guy [Klaus Knopper] and a couple friends to keep up more than 1 offical version. So for quality-sake, they don't do that, and try to keep one version they can test throughly and do a really GREAT JOB on! It's better that way.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Yottabyte84]

I got a copy (for free) at Linux World in San Fransisco. I let the guy selling copies borrow one of my spare badges to get a friend in. Reply with your munged email, and I'll arrange to get you a copy.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, my email is billg@NOSPAMmicrosoft.com.

Thanks!

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[pswnet]

I can burn and ship it for you. Send your E-Mail to s_herlam AT ira DOT uni DOT de

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[caluml]

I can burn and ship it for you. Send your E-Mail to s_herlam AT ira DOT uni DOT de

2 .....
3 Profit?

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Bios_Hakr]

Tha main problem with a DVD version is that it'd take too long to boot. They already use a lot of compression to get 2GB of stuff onto a 700MB CD. Going up to a DVD would slow down the load times and make it inconvenient.

On a side note, we use Knoppix in our Internet Boutique. We have one server booting off a CD and then the stations boot via PXE from the server. At the end of the day, the last one out flips the main circuit-breaker and all the machines go dark. In the morning, the server comes on automatically and the clients come up when we push the power buttons. No fsck, no worry about configurations. An added benifit is that if anyone tries to seize our machines for forensic analasys, we can point out that none of them have a hard drive to analyze.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Jaffa]

...since the drive is already in use by the OS that would be kind of pointless.

That's why on <plug>Salvare</plug> there's a "freecd" option to mount the cloop filesystem from tmpfs (ie. RAM) rather than the CD - allowing you to eject the CD and use the drive as a media player/whatever.

Obviously it helps that in 0.1.3 (released yesterday) the filesystem is only around 17MB (since the whole distribution is designed to fit on a 34MB credit-card sized CD and be usable for system recovery and general workstation use).

Best feature, IMNSHO, is that you can apt-get install into tmpfs if there's something (say, Mozilla ;-)) not included on the CD that you want.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[weave]

Fascinating. We PXE boot many different floppy images, including the redhat install floppy, but how does one PXE boot an ISO image? Or can you somehow pxe boot a dos floppy with net support, connect to a knoppix directory, then loadlin it's kernel?

Sounds fascinating and I see many uses for this type of a setup in the college I work for.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Knoppix Terminal Server" is a combination of DHCP-, TFTP- and NFS-server. The DHCP hands out IP-addresses and configuration data, the TFTP-server provides the linux kernel and an initial ramdisk image and the NFS serves the compressed Knoppix filesystem image. The scripts in the initial ramdisk load appropriate network drivers and mount the Knoppix image. From there the boot process continues just like it would with a CD. The Terminal server can be started from a running Knoppix system, but the performance is bound by the CD unless you use one of the new boot parameters "tohd=/dev/hdxx" or "toram". You can also configure your own DHCP server and copy the necessary files to an existing TFTP- and NFS-server.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Bios_Hakr]

Our NICs support PXE booting. The Knoppix CDROM has a ClusterKnoppix application. You launch it and it starts a DHCP server. The clients get an IP addy and then go to the server in order to boot.

If you need more help, reply and I'll give you a bunch of links.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

"when will the dvd knoppix be released?"

As if running hundreds of megs of programs off a CD drive isn't slow enough...

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tha main problem with a DVD version is that it'd take too long to boot. They already use a lot of compression to get 2GB of stuff onto a 700MB CD. Going up to a DVD would slow down the load times and make it inconvenient.

I thought DVD's held more than CD's, so they wouldn't need any compression to get 2GB on a 4.?GB disk. I know I'm missing something here.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Asgard]

Please post the additional information, this sounds interesting.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[myusername]

I have a question... I was thinking about doing this for some computers here in our library, but aren't you worried about someone using the available "tools" on the distro, such as ethereal, nmap, netcat, etc... to do some damage, or do you have a custom Knoppix with these and other network tools removed. I would just be worried about making some of the programs included on the CD available to the wrong people, and make it look like I'm providing a "hacking station" for whoever wants to use it.
This is a very cool way of using a knoppix disk, and quite some time back I started a thread on knoppix.net about creating a Kiosk Knoppix for just such a use, with all of the network tools removed. Kiosk Knoppix would just have the basics for an internet terminal: a browser, an office suite, and some type of instant messenger, etc..
Here is the link to the forum post (it should work once knoppix.net is done being /.'ed):
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2534

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[timeOday]

Tha main problem with a DVD version is that it'd take too long to boot.

I don't see why booting would take any longer. You're still just loading the kernel and some modules either way. All the extra crap that would fit on a DVD should only be loaded if/when you use it.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[CoolHnd30]

I tried it, and got another system to partially boot off pxe. However, I could only get knoppix to recognize one ethernet card at a time, and I don't want an extra dhcp server on our network. Got any ideas on how to setup a second network card ?

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Bios_Hakr]

Thanks for bringing that up. Maybe I can come up with some script on a floppy to chmod a lot of stuff in /bin and /usr/bin to root-only execute.

As it stands, the kiosk is being used by mostly incompetent people. We even silk-screened "click here for the interweb" onto the bottom of the monitor to help people out.

Maybe it'll just be easier to set up a firewall and block all incoming and outgoing and then allow port 80. If anyone complains about not getting service, we can open up more ports as needed. Well, that's the poor-mans way. I suppose I should run a sniffer for a week and see what ports are actually used, but I'm too lazy for that.

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Knoppix :: View topic - Announcement from Klaus - DVD Knoppix ...
Subject: Linuxtag DVD ...
Georg, Sorry, some
files on the DVD are broken because of an 4GB (32bit pointer) limit in cloop. ...
www.knoppix.net/forum/ viewtopic.php?t=2973&start=45

Re:DVD Knoppix?

[Bios_Hakr]

Look into clusterKnoppix.

All I can say is...

[Lecutis]

w00t!!!

Not to ruin the mood...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what is with the sites "protesting" software patents when all they do it have a link directly to their site in the index file? If you are protesting I think it would be more effective to shut the site down rather than to make an annoying index page.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Daengbo]

And, if everything passes, are they going to shut down permanently? What is the game plan if we fail?

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the point is mainly to draw attention to the issue.

One nice example is MPlayer's website which looks like a 404 error. When I first saw it I audibly exclaimed "WTF?" (I don't pronounce the letters, but the words that they stand for, in case you were wondering...) Then I saw that it was a patent protest page, clicked through, got my MPlayer, and promptly forgot about European software patents.

Oh, wait... what was your point again?

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[spectecjr]

But what is with the sites "protesting" software patents when all they do it have a link directly to their site in the index file? If you are protesting I think it would be more effective to shut the site down rather than to make an annoying index page

Agreed. Although the MPlayer site is rather amusing.

Not in the usual way - I mean, not because they're protesting patents and doing the same thing. But because they're protesting patents affecting their ability to produce software, yet at the same time they feel no problem in copying other people's intellectual property - that is, copyright infringement.

If you don't believe me, run a diff on the files in their win32 codec package on the files from a Windows or other distribution. They're the same. And that, folks, is illegal.

What's really amusing is that the thing that will eventually shut them down is not patent infringement - it's their own wholesale piracy of other peoples' code.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Kingsly]

If the bill passes a lot of these sites could be forced to shutdown due to some stupid patent or the other. Atleast future innovation would be greatly hampered. And the page being like it is .. makes sure anyone getting to the site actually reads the stuff.. people might ignore smaller links/notices like they ignore banner ads! The protests have been successful in that it has made the lawmakers do a rethink... now it only remains to see what happens tomorrow(wednesday).

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Kingsly]

The websites had an option of either closing down the whole site or having a protest page shown whenever someone visits the site for the first time.
(ie., http-referer is other than the site.)

Most projects have chosen to go with the latter as it would cause minimum disruption to their own users while providing maximum exposure to the anti-patent protest.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Daengbo]

I wasn't flaming or anything. I fully agree with what they are doing, but I wanted to know what the contingency plan is. I mean, I'm a little down in the dumps now that the open source juggernaut that was Thailand has signed a five year "Partner" agreement with MS. Last quarter there were more preload Linux sales here, and MS had only 40% market share. Next year will be a complete turnaround...
How do we react if they defeat us?

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[ahfoo]

Well, you know D. Buddy, it's not always necessary to look at these things as a zero sum game. That's the strict, unwavering market based thought process where competition is distorted into a kind of moral value. In a market scenario, it's kill or be killed, one man take all. Go ahead and hate your neighbor. Go ahead and cheat a friend. As long as you get that money, you are righteous and damn the means.
But a Debian distro like Knoppix isn't in the market. It's outside of that mundane game and on a higher plane. It's like Obi Wan: you may strike it down today, but it will return more powerful than you will ever know.
There is no need for contingency when you have faith that you're doing the right thing. You simply persist and in persistence there is joy, peace and maybe even euphoria.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Anonymous Coward]

""WTF?" (I don't pronounce the letters, but the words that they stand for, in case you were wondering...)

Ummm...usually acronyms are used to save typing...or something.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Cat_Byte]

I agree but only to a certain extent. I'm learning c++ on linux lately to expand my horizons and pass the time during my unemployment. While reading books and getting other code to reference as examples I noticed that...well....there's just a limited number of ways to make a computer do a specific task with a single programming language. If you want to stream data through a socket to the audio then you use pretty much the same code as everyone else and possibly change some of the variable names. That's about all you can do with it unless you want to reinvent the wheel & not use public libraries.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[spectecjr]

agree but only to a certain extent. I'm learning c++ on linux lately to expand my horizons and pass the time during my unemployment. While reading books and getting other code to reference as examples I noticed that...well....there's just a limited number of ways to make a computer do a specific task with a single programming language.

That may well sometimes be the case, but the wholesale copying of DLL files from other operating systems and applications is not a simple case of independent evolution of code.

If you don't believe me, crack open the Win32 Codec package, and look at those files. They're not just tiny segments that work the same way their original counterparts do - they're explicit copies. Do a binary diff.

Re:Not to ruin the mood...

[Cat_Byte]

yeah that's the part I agreed to and it stopped at that extent. If you'll notice I'm talking about libraries for linux and c++. There's tons of libraries that keep you from having to reinvent the wheel out there. When it comes to outright copies of DLL files stolen from other people then yes it's theft. However there are circumstances with shared DLL's as well. Almost everyone uses the winsock32.dll for network connectivity because it's already there, already working, and microsoft tells you how to tie into it right on their website.

Re:children don't click there!

[after]

um no, http://www.nan2D.com is, silly :)

They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right: no more Pentium and Pentium II chips ars supported because they "optimized" it using the restrictive --arch flag for gcc.

FCK YOU

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

The Anonymous Coward is right!

In the article Karl Knopper says "I will not compile for anything lower than a Pentium 1GHz, as we are concerned doing otherwise will hurt the reputation of Linux, which is still considered slow by first time users, so we try to make it as fast as possible"

Re:They dropped support for x586

[boudie]

Unless you've got a Pentium 1 with 128 mb of ram, it's going to run like shtinkwurst anyways. Open Office takes over a minute to start on a 300 Celeron. So why make it compatible with a P1 (none of them boot from cdrom anyways do they).

Re:They dropped support for x586

[phr4gmonk3y]

There's at least one good reason to keep support. Servers. I have an old (read: OLD.) hp pavillion I managed to get a hold of and I didn't want to use the hard drive because of some issues. So... wouldn't it be great to use knoppix with all of it's available tools to create say... a web server? Knoppix has apache btw.

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

"I will not compile for anything lower than a Pentium 1GHz, as we are concerned doing otherwise will hurt the reputation of Linux, which is still considered slow by first time users, so we try to make it as fast as possible"

Oh, it's those damn first time users. "Your first time in a Geo Metro may seem a little bit slow, if you're used to all those proprietary, closed source cars. But once you've driven a few, you'll realize that speed is just overrated."

Re:They dropped support for x586

[FyreFiend]

Err Pent II are 686 chips

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Hadlock]

so wait, this means knoppix will not run at all on say, a penitum 90, or will just run very, extremely slowly on a pentium 90?

Re:They dropped support for x586

[chizu]

It will not run at all. When you optimise for a 686 you add in instructions that work only on the 686 (or later).

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

So cross-compile it yourself fsckwit. That or upgrade. Why should the majority have to run slower (and lets face it, speed is a problem for knoppix) just so that a few randoms that don't have $400 for an upgrade can use it.

Re:They dropped support for x586

[frovingslosh]

none of them boot from cdrom anyways do they

Actually, yes, my Super-Micro Pentium that started as a P90 and is now a P166 will boot from CD in the BIOS, and the mb will not even support the dual voltage mmx pentiums. Knopix was actually acceptable on it too for Linux itself, but the GUI was a pig. Still, it would work and once you got something started (like a browser) it worked pretty well.

Not that I use the system much, but it still serves as a test bed when I want to check out new software or for running simple applications when I don't want to tie up my main system, such as an FTP server. I have even used it with Knoppix and Ethereal to do packet sniffing when I needed to watch my main system.

Actually, even if the BIOS doesn't support it, you can boot a PC from CD with "Smart Boot Manager". I use the version included with XOSL , which is great. Lets you boot multiple OS, boot from multiple hard drives (not just the first one), boot from A or B floppy, and even boot from any CDR on the system (again, not just the first one).

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Rob Simpson]

You'd probably have better luck with one of the less bloated Knoppix-based livecds... anything old enough to be unsupported by this change would probably run Knoppix very slowly, if at all. Damn Small Linux doesn't have Apache, but Freeduc does. Here's a list of livecd distros, the version number of apache will be listed if its in the distro.

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Hadlock]

ah, ok. i was under the impression that pentium 4/athlons were all still highly evolved 586 cores. just goes to show how little my understanding of processor design runs. thanks for the input

Re:They dropped support for x586

[gbjbaanb]

well, I certainyl wouldn't say 'fck you' for something that is free - if you don't like it, get a grown-up attitude, or make your own boot-cd linux.

The guys provide Knoppix for free, and if they chose to make it 686-only, then fine by them.
Personally, I think its a mistake, I doubt there's too much of a performance hit (prove me wrong someone :) and many people will be using Knoppix in crappy old servers where installing linux is too much trouble.

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no. My 400 MHz K6-III with 256 MB of RAM is not good anymore?

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, that is wrong. The Kernel on Knoppix 3.3 is a plain 386 kernel. Runs fine on a 468 DX100 with only 40 megs of RAM here (slow, but still useful for testing).

Re:They dropped support for x586

[TheCrazyFinn]

No, there are 3 processor families currently for x86

There's the i686/P6 family, which dates back to the Pentium Pro (Not the pentium) and includes the P-II, P-III and all Slot 1 and Socket 370 Celerons. There's the Athlon Family, AKA teh Athlon, Duron, Athlon MP and Athlon XP, these CPU's are fully i686 compatible, but are a unique design. And then there is the P4 Family, which includes the P4's and the Socket 478 Celerons. The Via/EPIA CPU's are also unique desins, but share a common i686-compatible core.

The Pentium M is unique, in being essentially a P-III Mobile, but using the P4 bus.

The last Generation of i586 CPU's was the K6-III+.

Re:They dropped support for x586

[LilMikey]

I drove my Geo Metro 115000 miles... it IS slow by any rating.

Re:They dropped support for x586

[Anonymous Coward]

It is based of Debian so the packages are all i386, it's the kernel which would be the problem.

Knoppix as a restore / recovery tool

[Mr. Ophidian Jones]

After installing any system it's an excellent idea to use Norton Ghost (free [as in beer] with Soyo and possibly other MBs) to image the system. Then, if anything bad happens or if you just want to move the OS to a new drive, you just blast it over and 30 minutes later or less you're up and running as though nothing changed.

My 2000 system was on an old 2GB drive that was about to fail and with ghost I was up and running much faster on a 13GB drive in less than an hour. I also have an image of my web-server's OS/app drive in case it ever fails.

Knoppix and what I do is basically what prebuilt system manufacturers have been doing for years. It's just that HP, et al, add a lot of crap to the image.

Re:Knoppix as a restore / recovery tool

[Aliencow]

I saw that post in another thread yesterday...gotta love copy pasting for Karma uh?

Re:Knoppix as a restore / recovery tool

[Anonymous Coward]

you use ghost with knoppix?

partimage is on the knoppix cd and does the same job.

Fix for nvidia chipset?

[I_am_Rambi]

I've looked but couldn't find if they have fixed a problem with the nvidia chipset for the AMD platform. I've tried to boot from the previous version of Knoppix, and it died. Does anyone know if this has been fixed? I think this is a major bug and needs to get fixed.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[millette]

Did you try any of the "no..." cheatcodes?

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[stefanlasiewski]

Interesting, I have an Nvidia GeForce 2 with an Intel chipset.

If I boot off Knoppix, as soon as Linux reaches the X-windows stage, my monitor goes into some power-saving mode and I cannot turn it back on (Yes, I know how to work around this, but it's annoying).

But I'm sure this is an X bug (It happens with the RedHat installer also, and I think it happens with the default Debian X setup). I have an old monitor (Decaview V385), so I never gave it much thought.

Is this what you experienced?

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[gordyf]

I'm pretty sure it's a different problem.

People with nForce2 chipsets (motherboard chipsets, not video) had problems running Knoppix 3.2. I haven't tried the new Knoppix yet.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[shellbeach]

FWIW, I had a similar problem with a TNT2 and a monitor that was made in 1996.

The problem was the XFree drivers: trying to use the open-source drivers - regardless of distro - did exactly the same thing; whereas nVidia's closed-source drivers worked perfectly.

A simple solution is to use xserver=fbdev (or whatever the option is, I can't recall and don't have access to a knoppix disc at present).

Of course, the best solution would be to include nVidia's closed source drivers, but this would have issues with Debian's open-source only policy ... There is at least one knoppix spin-off that does include the nVidia drivers: Morphix - which also has the advantage of providing "light" versions that don't use either KDE or GNOME. However, last time I tried (half a year ago), morphix had more hardware-compatibility issues.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[magnum3065]

I don't know about the main Knoppix distro, but a derivative Morphix has good nVidia support and it runs great on my AthlonXP (I'm running a HD install of it now). You can actually enable the nvidia accelerated driver by typing "morphix xmodule=nvidia" at the boot prompt. Morphix also offers modularization of the system so it's easier to make your own custom ISOs. They provide ISOs for Gnome, KDE, or XFCE plus a game ISO which comes with a bunch of cool Linux games including Enemy Territory.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[Anonymous Coward]

This bug has made me switch to my trust debian boot cd instead of knoppix.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[anduril1]

I've had this same issue, what do you do to "get around" it?

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[Anonymous Coward]

overclockix has support for nforce2

p3

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[Codger]

I didn't have this problem with NVidia or linux, but it was similar. When I installed OSX using my old monitor, it would turn itself off for the whole loading screen (the grey apple on white) and only upon switching to the color video would it come back on. I had the same problem with a Mac monitor cannibalized off of an old powermac. Then I found a newer KDS 19" monitor that worked fine for the loading screen.

Of course the only useful advice from this is look in dumpsters for a newer monitor.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[stefanlasiewski]

The problem was the XFree drivers: trying to use the open-source drivers - regardless of distro - did exactly the same thing; whereas nVidia's closed-source drivers worked perfectly.

Ah yes, that's precisely the same problem. The Nvidia drivers work just dandy, the OSS drivers don't work.

Thanks for the reminder, maybe I'll try to hunt down that bug tonight.

Re:Fix for nvidia chipset?

[stefanlasiewski]

You need to pass an option to the kernel like 'xserver=vesa' or something similar.

Look elsewhere in this thread for the words 'xserver' or 'cheat codes' to get you started.

how about a patched kernel

[the_2nd_coming]

with ACPI included for all those who have ACPI laptops but want to use Knoppix every now and again but can't get sound working because of the damn ACPI system.

Re:how about a patched kernel

[Repugnant_Shit]

I'm not sure what exactly your problem is, but I thought Knoppix had a noacpi option you could enter at boot time.

Re:how about a patched kernel

[the_2nd_coming]

I WANT acpi. so my sound WORKS!!!!

no aci and no sound...or in my case, fucked up sound that loops the first damn sound made by the system.

Re:how about a patched kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

you fuck nob. Linux runs fin on the damn system as long as I get an ACPI patched kernel. then I have sound!!

I havwe run debian on it before and patched my own damn kernel. mabye if you weren't such a dork busy butt fucking your dad after which you turn to your mom to have her suck your dick, then perhaps you would have time to read.

Dammit!

[Kethinov]

Dammit! I just burned a 3.2 CD on a nonrewritable disk! GRRR

Re:Dammit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you'll have to take a part-time job at McDonalds so that you can afford to burn another CD.

Re:Dammit!

[OS24Ever]

I'll paypal you the $0.10 that disc cost you if you'd like.

Re:Dammit!

[stefanlasiewski]

And I'll give you cash to pay for the $0.27 Paypal charge for your transaction.

But I don't want to use Paypal because I hate their fees. I don't have a quarter, but I will send you 4 nickels and 7 pennies via first class postal mail. Of course, it'll take 2-3 stamps to send it to you, but it's all worth it!

(PS: I'm exaggurating about the $0.25 Paypal charge)

Re:Dammit!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a pity, I guess you'll have to go suck like 15 more hobo cocks to make the 8 cents that CD cost. STUPID FUCK.

Re:Dammit!

[Anonymous Coward]

cool, but i don't use paypal

my address is....
bla street
bla city, bla-state bla-zip

i take money order only

Re:Dammit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the point isn't the cost of the disc... how much plastic do you think winds up in some landfill somewhere because of CD's? And how long do you think CD's will last buried in a pit? Readable, maybe not, but I'm sure they last a while...

Re:Dammit!

[JediTrainer]

You think that's bad? I just discovered Knoppix last week, and I burned 10 copies of 3.2 (20030905), the last just yesterday! Arrrgh!

KNOPPIX IS GREAT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive been using it since 3.2(beta). It was the only distro to properly load the appraoiate drivers for my Radeon 7500 64mb but after I did the HD-install the dri drivers were gone :-(

glxgears:
before: ~1700
After: ~250

Does anyone know how i can get dri to work on mdk9.1?????

Re:KNOPPIX IS GREAT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it would be a shame if you didn't have accelerated 3d under knoppix to play all those great 3d games it includes...

Re:KNOPPIX IS GREAT!

[Lispy]

Chromium needs GL to run.
And some people like to show off their GL-Savers too.

What you don't look at the page first?

[OS24Ever]

amazingly enough They have a torrent link on their download page

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Feztaa]

Hooray! This is exactly what Bram Cohen wanted. Up until now, the usual way to get linux ISOs on bittorrent was for somebody to get it off the FTP and then post a torrent link.

It looks like linux distros are 'getting it' and posting torrent links to help curb their bandwidth bills.

Now let's hope the next version of RedHat is available from an official RH bittorrent link... :)

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[berzerke]

amazingly enough They have a torrent link on their download page

Looks like they need it. I'm using that bit torrent link right now and my upload speed is about 3x that of my download speed. I hate to think of the pounding the mirrors are taking.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now let's hope the next version of RedHat is available from an official RH bittorrent link... :)"

Why? Just let Universities keep hosting it over their government funded OC-192's. When I downloaded Red Hat 9.1 it was hosted by over 25 different universities.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Feztaa]

Because my university doesn't have anything newer than redhat 7.3. And the other universities are too far away to be fast anyway.

I got RH9 off bittorrent and my download was 600kB/s, while my upload was 900 kB/s. That's why I want an official bittorrent link, instead of just the university links.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the other universities are too far away to be fast anyway."

What? Bandwidth is not reduced by distance, only latency. I am in Japan and downloaded my Mandrake ISO's from MIT, about as far away as you can get.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Drakonite]

What you don't look at the page first?

Amazingly enough, the story isn't an article to go see, it's an iso to download. So should everyone go hit knoppix's server to slashdot it for a while? Or should the smart ones of us realize there are torrents available, and click one of them so as to not slashdot the website?

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[WoTG]

Yeah, I never could get Knoppix 3.1 off of their servers. For whatever reason, they don't seem as bandwidth endowed as, say, Red Hat. Nothing wrong with that, I wouldn't want to pay to upload an ISO to every /.'er either!

Let's see how BT works for me today!

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[echeslack]

But won't the latency affect how long it takes to receive ACKs? So the server would end up waiting .2 s for an ACK instead of .02 s, and in that time it wouldn't be sending out any data. Wouldn't this slow your throughput?

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it would.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Knopper.net site is getting thrashed and will be even more tomorrow morning if this is still on the front page.

Here's a direct link to both .torrent(s) to save some of their bandwidth.

English

German

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Alien Being]

"Wouldn't this slow your throughput?"

TCPs "sliding windows" eliminates the need for the sender to wait for an ACK on each packet. If the ACKs come back in a reasonable amount of time, then the sender keeps sending.

It's like sending snailmail (or email) with return receipts. Just because you haven't received the receipt (ACK) for letter #1 doesn't mean you can't go ahead and send letter #2.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[bytesplit]

"amazingly enough" .... just what is it that you're trying to mumble?

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[ahfoo]

I haven't been connection to Knopper.net, but I've been using the forums at Knoppix.net for the last few days and have had a lot of trouble connecting since last week. Sourceforge and PostNuke sites all seemed to be slow lately.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Wolfrider]

Yeah, the forums were bozotic over the weekend and Monday, but seem to have stabilized now.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Amomynos Coward]

This must be one of the best excuses not to RTFA.

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[jred]

Granted, this is a day late, I suppose. And I'm new to bittorrent, having installed it specifically to d/l Knoppix. I'm just wondering why my d/l rate hasn't topped 6kB/s, and is sitting at 0kB right now. I can still upload at 6kB/s, though.

Why is that? Would I do better using a non-official bittorrent link?

Re:What you don't look at the page first?

[Cat_Byte]

which is exactly why my satellite isp is super fast for downloads but unusable for games. 1000+ms ping times are horrible.

Hurry up and make my download go faster!

[jdawg]

http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~koppen/knoppix-en.to rrent

That's for the English image. V3.3-2003-09-22.

worked for me today

[jab]

I installed Knoppix 3.2 this morning on an FIC E-Cube, in all its blue glowing glory. The biggest change to my eye is easier access to Knoppix-specific configuration; that now has its own root menu on the task bar. I also like the new desktop wallpaper which looks like an industrial cave painting. For some reason today's Knoppix didn't see hyperthreaded Pentium 4 as an SMP machine, which Knoppix 3.2 had no problem recognizing. Other than that, no real problems. I went ahead and used Knoppix as installer for Debian - this is definitely my preferred way to install Linux these days.

Re:worked for me today

[sewagemaster]

by default the hard installation results in a german system. i fixed the locales, and dist-upgrades, but some things are still german by default. and if i do a uname -a, it's in german too. kde-default is in germain as well. wonder how i can fix this.......

Re:worked for me today

[Malcontent]

The only problem with the knoppix installer is that it installs everything. I would like to choose the packages I want install.

Re:worked for me today

[kzadot]

set LANG=C in the relevant startup scripts, environment variable setting scripts, and shell configuration files. Or grep to find where the actual LANG=de is, and change that bit.

Re:worked for me today

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't "dpkg-reconfigure locales" do the trick too?

Re:worked for me today

[scratchor]

I went ahead and used Knoppix as installer for Debian - this is definitely my preferred way to install Linux these days.

Is that straightforward? Any howto on that?

Re:worked for me today

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the easiest of any linux installations I've ever done. There's plenty of howto and other docs on http://www.knoppix.net

Where to actually get the software

[Hal The Computer]

http://www.knoppix.net/get.php

There look to be quite a few mirrors so you might actually get to download the software.

Re:Why?

[Kurt Russell]

Tell me why I should use this shit instead of the reliable good old XP Home Edition.

To get all the hot CHICKS!!

Get it in Canada

[millette]

If you don't have access to a good pipe, you can always order it from Nattor the Little CD Vendor:
http://www.waglo.com/nattor/

P.S.: don't complain that my sig is redundant - someone probably has them turned off. Thanks :)

Re:Get it in Canada

[11223]

Odd; I don't think your page would render right in Konqueror - at least it doesn't in OmniWeb, which uses the WebCore engine, which is based on KHTML.

Re:Get it in Canada

[incom]

Maybe that's why I can't see how to order anything.

Re:Get it in Canada

[millette]

Hum, doesn't Safari use the same engine? A friend said it was ok - unless you mean the blue copyright bar at the bottom? That's a bug in the page, I'll get around to fixing it soon.

Otherwise, I'm curious: how is it displaying improperly?

Nobody with konqueror mentionned anything before either, which is either good or bad depending on how you want to see it :)

Re:Get it in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, it's fubared in MZ Firebird, too.

Re:Get it in Canada

[millette]

I'm still finishing the catalog, which should be online by tomorrow. In the meanwhile, there's a form you can complete to send in your order. That url defaults to the knoppix deal, but you can order anything from there.

If you want to see the work in progress, email me.

Re:Get it in Canada

[millette]

Can you be anymore specific?

Re:Get it in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you 99%.

Re:Get it in Canada

[Wolfrider]

Your site doesn't render properly in Opera under Linux, either... I see the Language at the top and the rest of the page is pretty much blank.

Re:Get it in Canada

[Repugnant_Shit]

Crap man, shellfront, now slashdot spam :) We just can't get away from you, can we? ;)

Re:Get it in Canada

[millette]

That's strange. I had a problem when I first did the layout, where the language/copyright blue bar would stretch to cover the whole page, but I fixed it with the correct doctype.

Out of curiosity, what version of Opera did you use? I tried 7.20 on Windows and it worked. I also have 6.05 laying around, and that one still shows the same problem.

One of the first thing on the page, when the blue bar covers it completely, is a "[hide]" or "[cacher]" link. If you click that, the rest of the page should show. I guess I really really have to correct that problem - didn't think it was so serious.

Thanks a lot for letting me know :)

Re:Get it in Canada

[millette]

I'm tailing you, better watch your back *hehe*

Re:Get it in Canada

[Wolfrider]

I'm on 6.12 in Linux. No plans to go up to 7.x because they disabled some usability features that I like.

Re:Get it in Canada

[millette]

Opera dropping features, he? I have to admit I'm not up to date on Opera anymore, but I like the little fellow so I'll make sure it works for it too. That footer has been causing me headaches since the beginning...

Re:Get it in Canada

[Wolfrider]

--Hmm... That was interesting. When I click on your link all I get is a blue page with the "hide" link at the top. When I hit the "Hide" link the regular page loads, and the cute little worm and CD appears, with the menu to the left.

Re:Get it in Canada

[UserGoogol]

Or Cheapbytes. That's a pretty good site. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck.

How to create a persistant homedir on USB memory

[digitalgimpus]

I have one of those USB memory keychain things (pretty cool stuff).

How can I create a persistant home directory on it?

I love Knoppix, and this was my big gripe.

Lucky me...

[Anonymous Freak]

I happened to be in need of downloading it last night (about 1AM Pacific,) and noticed 3.3, so I downloaded it. I didn't realize it was brand-spankin' new, though. I'll have it up on bittorrent soon. (Sorry, the ISO's only on my Windows machine, so I've got to download a bittorrent client.)

Hrm.... It'll be a little longer than I thought. Getting a bt server running on Windows appears to be more than I'm willing to tackle. I'll have it on my Mac soon. I'll reply to this post when I've got one set up.

Re:Lucky me...

[Feztaa]

Or just use the official bittorrent link and speed up everybody else's download.

Splitting off your own bittorrent link won't help anybody, it'll only fracture the group of downloaders, harming all of them.

Re:Lucky me...

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, but I've already got it on my system... Why redownload it?

Yeah, I see your point. I actually tried, and it failed to download for some reason.

Re:Lucky me...

[Feztaa]

Why redownload it?

Why would you?

Just connect to the already-provided torrent and save it overtop of your current one, you'll start seeding it right away and you won't have to download it again.

Re:Lucky me...

[kmarius]

If you click on the same link that you downloaded from and save the file over the old, it won't get overwritten (bittorrent will check the file). Then you will share your file with other downloaders automatically. There's no need to set up a server. Remember that Bittorrent goes both ways.

Re:Lucky me...

[Anonymous Freak]

Thanks, didn't know that! (I'm now doing my part to ease the load.)

Re:Why?

[Kethinov]

Uhh because Knoppix is better than WinXP will ever be. I'm a lab assistant at my college and I run Knoppix live CD to do my every day stuff at work. It's perfect for taking over Winblows computers without ever having created existence of it being there. When I'm done I just shut it off, reboot, and 2 minutes later the original WinXP OS is back and no one cares that I've been using a good OS.

Why no OpenOffice.org 1.1.0?

[The Revolutionary]

That's dissapointing. I had hoped to see OpenOffice.org 1.1.0. OpenOffice.org 1.1 is available in Debian unstable (contrib). Seeing as Knoppix is a modified Debian system, I can't imagine what the holdup might be. Does anyone have any insight into the situation?

Re:Why no OpenOffice.org 1.1.0?

[stefanlasiewski]

OOo 1.1.0 is still in the release candidate state.

Knopper is very limited by space. Perhaps he didn't want to include software that's still in the testing phase? There's alot of software available in Debian unstable (contrib) , but not all of it is production-ready.

RC4 only came out a few weeks ago, and it does take some time for the Knoppix folks to put out a release ("... After 6 months of development... ").

Re:Why no OpenOffice.org 1.1.0?

[Micah]

> OOo 1.1.0 is still in the release candidate state.

Yes, but the OOo folks have said that it is production-ready. I think they did at RC3.

OOo 1.1.x, even in its current RC form, is light years ahead of OOo 1.0.x, and very stable. No new distro release should ever ship 1.0.x again, period! :)

Re:Why no OpenOffice.org 1.1.0?

[Phoinix]

I agree

I have used OOo on Windows since 1.1 beta and the current RC4 is excellent. Using 1.0x was a pain in the neck!

If Star Office 7 is good enough to be released from one of the RC, so why not the Linux Distro's?

Re:Why no OpenOffice.org 1.1.0?

[stefanlasiewski]

Yes, but the OOo folks have said that it is production-ready. I think they did at RC3.

Perhaps I am confused, but if it was production-ready, then why is it called a Release Candidate?

ever hear of a firewire drive, assmunch?

[Anonymous Coward]

guess you haven't.

Re:ever hear of a firewire drive, assmunch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear god!!!
I'll need to disconnect the 1TB of firewire drives connected to my linux box. They seemed to work.

Thanks, I didn't know firewire and linux didn't mix.

Re:Unfortunately

[Kethinov]

Since Windows XP has been released already I don't see the point of this? Is there really a need for more operating systems? XP is all I use, and it does everything I need.

The sad thing is I know people who actually believe in that argument.

Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[proxima]

Though other bootable CDs like morphix look promising, I'm impressed with the rate at which Knoppix moves forward. Knoppix has consistently displayed nice polish visually and in terms of usability.

As it's debian-based, I'm hoping some more of the hardware-detection, auto-setup, and visual polish can make it to stock Debian (yes, I know you can "upgrade" to full Debian after booting knoppix). The boot process is cleaned up and functional for new users to Linux, and the speed is remarkable for loading a compressed image off a CD (so long as you have 128+ megs of RAM).

Kudos to those who work and contribute to Knoppix for producing such a quality assembly of open source software in such a useful form.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[quigonn]

Kudos to those who work and contribute to Knoppix for producing such a quality assembly of open source software in such a useful form.

That's Klaus Knopper. And AFAIK, only Klaus Knopper (except for the installer, which is contributed).

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[Hognoxious]

What impresses me is how well it detects graphics hardware. Twice I've not been able to get RedHat to set up X properly - so I've booted Knoppix and cribbed the XF86Config files.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[stevey]

I'm hoping some more of the hardware-detection, auto-setup, and visual polish can make it to stock Debian

Sadly that almost certainly won't happen, as Knoppix and it's installer just doesn't run on all the 11 arch's that Debian supports.

That might change in the future, but for the moment Knoppix only supports one platform: x86.

By the time it supports all 11 that would be necessary for integration with Debian the grand Debian installer re-write will probably have finished anyway.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[Wolfrider]

SuSE 8.2 Livecd's ' sax ' software generated an even better one for me. I used it to get all graphics modes working for VMware. ...and I'm a big Knoppix supporter, so that's just my $2.02.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

The debian desktop and debian installer projects are supposed to fix that. Expect results in sarge, which should be out before the end of the decade.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[ahfoo]

Well, oddly enough I just went and looked in the forums to verify what I'm about to say and found that the thread I was referring to seems to be gone.
But, there's a guy with a screen name of FabianX and I'm pretty sure it was he who wrote the script to load the whole distro into RAM, or at least he wrote an early version of it and posted in the forums.
Odd I can't find it now. I've gone back and looked for updates a few times in the past. It's not that important, but I'm fairly certain there are other people who are closely associated with the development. And if you give credit to the people in the forums answering questions and checking for bugs, which is seems fair, then it's a big team.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[m0smithslash]

Knoppix is absolutely fantastic. Add my thanks to the great people who are doing this.

THANKS!!!!

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[quigonn]

The last time I talked to Klaus Knopper, he said that basically he does all the development. I might well be that one or another component has been contributed, but the main work on the actual Knoppix CD is his work. Of course, a support crew is also very important for a project, but that's another story.

BTW: did you know that Klaus Knopper got several threats on his answering machine when Knoppix was enclosed to a computer magazine, and severel readers of this computer magazine who tried out Knoppix accused Knoppix of destroying their computers [sic!].

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[ahfoo]

I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised really. The politics of Open Source --and from my own experience its fair to say politics in general-- in Germany is quite serious.
I think it's fair to say the political implications of Open Source are also larger in Germany than in the US. Of course this may simply be an extension of the different attitudes towards politics.
As a youth in California in the eighties I hung out with a fairly wild and assorted bunch and I thought I could hang with anybody. In those same years I travelled to Berlin on my own and I walked by a group of skinheads. I thought, oh yeah these are just some hipster types like California skins. You know, looking all bad, but more often than not more harm to themselves than others. So, although I had a long pony tail I thought, yeah, I'll go up and ask these guys if there's any shows going down.
Holy cripes. I coudln't even get close to them. As soon as I started walking towards them they jumped all fiercesome like giving me the evil eye. Although I didn't know what they were muttering, it was apparent from their body language that I was no longer in Kansas.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[damiam]

Actually, most of Knoppix's hardware detection is already in Debian. Try apt-get install discover mdetect read-edid. The only difference is that Debian doesn't integrate them into the installer.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[quigonn]

What you experienced is that the whole skinhead culture in Germany has been infiltrated by Nazis.

Re:Knoppix still king of bootable CDs

[Joe Tie.]

I've done the same thing in the past with Mandrake. Except moving Knoppix's mouse settings over to Mandrake in my case. For some reason Mandrake hasn't been very good with detecting my mouse in years.

Re:How to create a persistant homedir on USB memor

[millette]

Something in here will surely help :)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

A JOKE fuck face.. Sheesh
lab assistant college boy.

Easy

[jab]

Push F2 when you boot Knoppix (when it says "push F2 for help") and it will tell you.

Re:How to create a persistant homedir on USB memor

[Kethinov]

Goto the KDE menu->KNOPPIX->Configure->Create persistant home directory

:P

(or something like that.. I know it's somewhere under the KDE menu->KNOPPIX menu)

Now your pen drive is your mobile home directory!

Re:Unfortunately

[phr4gmonk3y]

me too.
Sad, Sad world... :-(

Those protesting Europeans...

[vudufixit]

Yeah, they're really doing a lot of good by making Knoppix inaccessible, really hurting the bad guys and promoting Open Source. I also heard that hungerstrikes and peace rallies work wonders, too.

Re:Those protesting Europeans...

[be-fan]

I also heard that hungerstrikes
>>>>>>>>>
Worked for Ghandi...

Knoppix for USB Key?

[phr4gmonk3y]

Yeah, I could probably just use a floppy distro, but then I wouldn't get the cool on the fly decompression, etc. of knoppix. Anyone know of a project that put knoppix on a smaller capacity?

Re:Knoppix for USB Key?

[millette]

You mean like Damn Small Linux ? That's a debian derivatives, but only 50MiB.

http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/ will guide you into fitting it on your usb key.

Good luck!

Re:Knoppix for USB Key?

[faccenda]

Take a look at Kurumin (portuguese).
It's a Brazilian Knoppix based distro to fit on a 200MB CD (Mini-CD).
It's in portuguese... but in the website we see:

"Welcome english reader:

You can translate this entire page to English at http://www.freetranslation.com/web.htm. Enjoy your visit :-)

To get Enghish support on Kurumin you should:

apt-get install kde-i18n-engb

After the instalation you will be able to change the language settings on KDE Control Center. To get a new CD with English support already installed, use "remasterizar-kurumin" to remaster the CD."

Re:Knoppix for USB Key?

[bmsleight]

Try this

But I prefer morphix BMS

Sweet. brltty support

[gmhowell]

A bit unusual, but knoppix has included brltty support from their live CD. That, quite frankly, is cool as shit. Props to the coders, and the fanboys who keep 'em coding.

(brltty is a driver that allows text to be output to braille displays, typically used by the blind and the deaf-blind. Read my journal for a little bit more info.)

Yeah?

[Muttonhead]

I'm just giddy with excitement.

Virtual Knoppix

[bucky0]

Hey, I thought of a cool idea, I don't know how practical it would be though.

Include a virtualisation program(s) which would let you run knoppix in a virtual machine. Then, you don't have to reboot PC's, you just plug in the CD, have it autoplay(or manually run it) and nearly instantly, the linux system boots up.

Is there anything that would be difficult about that?

Re:Virtual Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than that it would be useless, no. You can do it now with VMWare. But if you already have a working Windows installation, running Knoppix would be kind of pointless so I don't know why they'd support this.

Re:Virtual Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not "useless". My older system only has a 7GB HD and, unfortunately, I use WindowsXP for most of my day to day computing. Thanks to VMWare, I can setup a swap partition for Knoppix to use and just run it from the CDROM. There are many things that I can do through Knoppix that I cannot with WindowsXP. And it is great to be able to run both at the same time, and on the same hardware. As much as I hate to admit it, WindowsXP allows me a "sandbox" to try all sorts of emulations and off the wall things. Yet retain what I need to interface with the real world (such as it is).

Re:Virtual Knoppix

[kevin_conaway]

you might be able to hack something up with UML

Re:Virtual Knoppix

[bill_mcgonigle]

Is there anything that would be difficult about that?

Finding free VM software for Windows?

Re:Virtual Knoppix

[bucky0]

Well, I havn't checked in a while, but I thought that bochs+plex86 were coming along well.

Re:Virtual Knoppix

[bill_mcgonigle]

My only experience with bochs has been macbochs, and the speed just wasn't there. <-- understatement Besides, you wouldn't want to emulate, you'd want to virtualize.

plex86 seems to only run linux on linux now.

What's needed is a free VMWare-like package, which the plex86 guys estimate as 10-100x more complex than their existing project.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

bug-laden hobbyist software

Read the post dumb ass, he's using Linux and not XP like you're insinuating!!!

Knearly Knice

[donnz]

Knoppix is a great marketing tool and bloody good at working out hardware and network configurations. It is surprising how often you stumble across it.

My main problem with Knoppix is the OpenOffice install not being able to get out of English US (changing the language for spell checking in OO is a major pain even in 1.1). This is an issue when doing a quick demo of how great the GNU/Linux office tools are.

Re:Knearly Knice

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd probably be easier to just teach English to your audience?

Re:Knearly Knice

[Anonymous Coward]

They DO read English you insensitive clod ! But it's UK English, not US English...

Re:Knearly Knice

[Hognoxious]

But it's UK English, not US English...

UK English is a tautology. You don't say French champagne, or Italian mozzarella. Do you?

Bloody colonials!

Re:Knearly Knice

[Bill_Mische]

You don't say French champagne, or Italian mozzarella.

They do you know...

Bloody colonials!

Indeed

Re:Knearly Knice

[Anonymous Coward]

Mainly because both can come from other places as well. We have plenty of American champagne and American mozzarella... They might suck - but they do exist, thus the differentiation.

It **IS** on there....

[imag0]

Just as soon as you put it on there. Here's a link for the remastering HOWTO:

http://www.stirnimann.com/mystuff/doc/knoppix.tx t

It's open source, man. Have at it. Be sure to send a link to Slashdot and let everyone know how much a l337 haX0r you are. ;)

Re:It **IS** on there....

[The Revolutionary]

Yes, yes, you are right of course. I've looked into the Knoppix remastering before.

But since Knoppix is the LiveCD with the name recognition, it's just that I had hoped it might bring wider exposure to the many improvements coming with OOo 1.1.

It will have to wait until next time.

Why thnakyou!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheers man, thats exactly what i needed.

mod parent down, unless hte shape of a gaping arsehole is what you would like to see right about now.

Re:Why?

[Kethinov]

Actually my supervisor finds it fascinating and the network sysadmin who one day realized there was a unix based os floating around the college at various times of the day approached me and found also found it fascinating as well as a little humorous.

And if you think Knoppix is a hacking tool, then you're misguided. It denies you root access and combined with other factors, i'd wager that Knoppix a hell of a lot more secure than those XP machines. And I couldn't imagine Knoppix being any more "bug-laden" than Windows. Your argument is flawed.

Wallpaper

[ebob]

God I hope they did something about the wallpaper.

Re:Wallpaper

[Anonymous Coward]

They did; it's very nice, a kind of closeup on a tan rockface with hieroglyphs on it.

Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just now coming out with HIGHMEM [sic] support? MSDOS had HIMEM.SYS like 15 years ago. Great, now I can load my Lunix mouse driver above 640k! Thanks a bunch!

Re:Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case you didn't know:
HIGHMEM in linux is memory above 4GB!
HIGHMEM in DOS is memory above 640kb.

Re:Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

...And: Thank You Mr Obvious. Here's your shiny price! Whee.

Re:Jesus

[hendrix69]

I'm still waiting for support for my Turbo button...

Re:Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

Support for the Turbo button is already available. Look here. oh wait, that's YALD (Yet Another Linux Distribution). Now all we need is RS232Linux, or HardDriveLinux, or CopperWireLinux, or RubberDollLinux...

But those bootup colors!

[Lobo_Louie]

As a year long Debian user, I'm all for Knoppixsized Debian and their easy to understand installation program, but the multicolored bootup screens are sickly.

Oops?

[Kethinov]

Looks like SOMEONE got slashdotted? Or hit with the new bugs in MySQL? (my server got hit by that too :()

Knoppix.net

SQL/DB Error -- [

1. Error establishing a database connection!Are you sure you have the correct user/password?
2. Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
3. Are you sure that the database server is running?

]

SQL/DB Error -- [

1. Error selecting database knoppix!Are you sure it exists?
2. Are you sure there is a valid database connection?

]

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /u/knoppix.net/html/inc/ez_sql.php on line 107

SQL/DB Error -- [Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (111)]

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /u/knoppix.net/html/inc/ez_sql.php on line 107

SQL/DB Error -- [Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (111)]

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /u/knoppix.net/html/inc/ez_sql.php on line 107

SQL/DB Error -- [Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (111)]

phpBB : Critical Error

Could not connect to the database

Polish?

[Feztaa]

My biggest gripe with 3.2 was very petty; it was simply a matter of polish. Version 3.2 was the first to incorporate X 4.3, and the knoppix guys had done no work with the mouse cursors, so what happens was that X was trying to use the whiteglass cursors, the fancy png-based ones with 16-bit alpha. Though, when you moused over certain widgets, the mouse would revert to the screwy 2-bit mouse cursors that the knoppix guys made for 3.1 (1 bit for alpha, 1 bit for color).

It was kind of annoying, but other than that knoppix itself was great (in fact, it came in handy when my HD fried and it took me a week to replace it, knoppix was the only distro I could use... otherwise, my PC would have been a paperweight).

Of course I can't get to the changelog, it's slashdotted. I'll have to wait for the download to finish so I can boot it.

Re:Polish?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it only supports English and German, no Polish.

Re:Polish?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, Poland invades GERMANY!

Re:Polish?

[Anonymous Coward]

My biggest gripe with 3.2 was very petty; it was simply a matter of polish.

You have to pass lang=pl to the kernal at bootime.

Re:Polish?

[Nadir]

I believe this is (was) a bug with Qt.

Re:Software patents in the US?

[zymano]

How can you call look and feel/gui,plugins and hyperlinks as inventions ?

I can't say I blame you..

[Large Green Mallard]

If I had to use windows lab systems administered by cretins who didn't know how to/remember to turn off booting from CD, I would want to run my own OS too.

Re:I can't say I blame you..

[Kethinov]

If I had to use windows lab systems administered by cretins who didn't know how to/remember to turn off booting from CD, I would want to run my own OS too.

That's a good point. Even if they turned it off by default, the bios isnt password protected *wink*

Re:I can't say I blame you..

[DarkSarin]

but it should be...not that it can't be fixed with a physical access to the CPU, but hey...

Re:I can't say I blame you..

[Large Green Mallard]

Amoung my many hats, I am a lab admin.. our PCs are set to boot off HDD only, bios password protected and cases locked closed. Works good ;)

Re:I can't say I blame you..

[RdsArts]

.... until someone comes in with a dremel. ;)

Re:I can't say I blame you..

[Anonymous Coward]

thats all fine and dandy but in most cases there are backdoor bios passwords built in by default from the manufacturer. they all do it to give frustrated sysadmin a way out when a disgruntled employee decide to quit and screw the companie.
the password are availible on the net freely if you google for them.

but of course this would require your students to be smart enough to know this

Re:I can't say I blame you..

[Anonymous Coward]

... and gets it shoved up their ass. ;)

Not just for upgrades.

[Murmer]

The thing that's sold me on Knoppix is the ease of getting rid of stuff I don't want. As much as I like being able to apt-get stuff (and check out Rick Moen's apt sources list, all you new knoppix users) the cleanliness of apt-get remove and deborphan are the best, especially on older systems.

Re:Software patents in the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can trivialize it as much as you like, but every programmer knows that a program is every bit as much a creative act as designing a machine, a new process, etc.

If you can patent the design of a machine, or a chemical formula, you should be able to patent a computer program, because it is the same kind of thing.

Re:Why?

[hdparm]

It denies you root access

Try Ctrl+Alt+F2. Replace F2 with F5 to get back to GUI screen.

Re:Why?

[neonprimetime]

why can't us linux users just all get along?

Re:Why?

[be-fan]

Heh. I'm sure our IT guys were glad that we were not running "bug-laden hobbyist software" when they had to remove msblaster from hundreds of machines on the network...

flaming debian-legal list=legal issues?

[Cid Highwind]

Mplayer has too many legal issues, but Xine is OK?
*rolling eyes*

If that's Xnoppix's reason, they've been reading debian-legal too much and comparing the code too little. If Mplayer has "legal issues", then so does Xine. Both players can decrypt DVDs, both can use borrowed win32 codecs, both use algorithms that are subject to patents (in the US). Where's the difference? The Mplayer devs got into a nasty flamewar with debian-legal people, and the Xine team didn't.

Re:flaming debian-legal list=legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

But, can they decode encrypted DVDs without the DMCA violating DeCSS code? Hrm, no?

Re:flaming debian-legal list=legal issues?

[Yottabyte84]

DeCSS is a proof of concept implementation, mplayer and xine use a faster one. It still breaks the DMCA, but I don't give a damn. I use it anyway.

Re:flaming debian-legal list=legal issues?

[mabhatter654]

I don't believe that Knoppix Xine has any "cracks" on it. As far as I know it's just vanilla...And that's the point. Klaus is only 1 person. He doesn't have the time to fight over trivial issues and kill his whole project! He's doing it for FUN not to make any kind of "point".

Re:flaming debian-legal list=legal issues?

[glwtta]

I am pretty sure Xine doesn't decrypt DVDs "out of the box" - you have to install that "plugin" yourself (at least that was the case when I used it a while ago, might've changed).

Sure it's a trivial distiction, but logic isn't really part of the current digital copyright system.

Re:flaming debian-legal list=legal issues?

[Abcd1234]

Which is, incidentally, also the case with mplayer. Unless you have libdecss installed, and have compiled mplayer with said library, it will not decrypt DVDs.

Re:Why?

[fussman]

if you're using knoppix for a desktop, you're crazy.
if you're using winxp for hardcore networking, you're crazy.
if you make a troll like that, you're crazy.

Re:Why?

[Tommy Boomfiger]

I just happened to download 3.2 a couple of hours ago just out of curiosity, the mirror i got it from didnt have 3.3 yet. Until now i have been mostly a windows user with a little bit of mac osx under my belt, never really used any *nix before. I have to say, this is an awesome way to try out linux without having to actually install and configure it.
The reason I havent tried linux before is mostly because I didnt really have time for it, and when i did, i didnt want to spend it in front of a computer. I mean i bought that ps2 for more than collecting dust. So after just playing around with knoppix a little bit i love it and will be using it more and when i get more time ill move on to something more permanent.
so to answer you question, you should try it on your "reliable good old XP Home Edition" box to see that there is more than just windows out there. Plus when that windows install craps out on you, you can boot up a knoppix disc and be online in minutes.

I've got a Pentium II 233

[billstewart]

...you insensitive clod!

Seriously, I do have a PII-233 as my home desktop machine, with 384MB RAM, and I've been looking forward to a new Knoppix release that might do a better job with my lame Trident video card. Instead they drop CPU support! Yaarrrrgh!

Also, my lab has a bunch of doorstop Pentium-60 machines, which are a nice network monitoring server and simple web/ftp server if you don't need any horsepower, though they don't have a lot of RAM on them.

Re:I've got a Pentium II 233

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... a PII *IS* a 686-class CPU.

Re:I've got a Pentium II 233

[Zork the Almighty]

A Pentium II is a 686. They've dropped support Pentium 1 and lower. This makes a lot of sense for two reasons :
1) A Pentium 1 would run like dog crap anyway
2) On most modern hardware optimizing for 686 gives almost the same benefit as optimizing for a specific processor (ie: Athlon Thunderbird, etc)

Re:I've got a Pentium II 233

[Wolfrider]

--I've got you beat for low-end. My squid proxy server is a P-1, 233MMX with 256M RAM.

--I'm completely disappointed that they dropped processor support. The above machine is running Knoppix installed to HD.

Re:I've got a Pentium II 233

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't. The prior posting about "686 optimization" was simply wrong. Version 3.3 still runs fine on an 486.

3D games, no accel?

[Trogre]

Does anyone know why he still includes games which require openGL acceleration (eg Chromium), when Knoppix doesn't come with any hardware-accelerated drivers (that I know of)?

It seems to me that it will just result in thousands of introductions like this:
"Hey cool, a 3D game! (click)
(0.5 fps game menu displays)
Wait, this is crap, Linux sucks!"

Re:3D games, no accel?

[benjamindees]

knoppix xmodule=ati|fbdev|i810|mga|nv|radeon|savage|s3|rad eon|svga|i810 Use specified XFree4-Module

I haven't tried them, but aren't some of these accelerated?

Re:3D games, no accel?

[Micah]

No acceleration?

I had an Athlon 700 PC with a Matrox G400 video card.

The best glxgears score I could get under Red Hat or Gentoo was about 420fps. That was after some fiddling to make sure the proper DRI 3D drivers were being loaded. (It was 100fps without them.)

Under Knoppix ... with, of course, no configuration whatsoever, I got around 780fps!

Still haven't figure out how to duplicate that score in Gentoo. :/ (But, I don't use 3D enough to care much...)

Re:3D games, no accel?

[Trogre]

That's great!
I guess I was only thinking of nVidia and Radeon-based cards.
I hadn't considered Matrox before, I think I need to investigate the driver status further...

Re:3D games, no accel?

[o'reor]

I reckon you are alluding to NVIDIA-specific acceleration. Then you should try Morphix. It's a set of derivatives from Knoppix, and they even have a full ISO image dedicated to Linux games.

And of course, it automatically detects NVidia graphics cards and boots into accelerated mode. If it doesn't, go back to the boot prompt and type "morphix xmodule=nvidia". Not sure they have acceleration for recent ATI Radeon boards though.

Re:3D games, no accel?

[Micah]

Yeah... the G400 is far from high end, but it IS well supported with 100% open source drivers, and that means a lot to me! :D

Still no widely available DVD distro yet?

[OmniVector]

I've got a DVD burner.. I've had one for awhile now. Is there any compelling reason the Knoppix site isn't hosting the linuxtag dvd yet, or why it isn't being pushed more? The concept of being able to fit nearly anything you want on one disk, and being able to show anyone with a dvd drive the huge amount of free software available in linux would be nice..

Re:Still no widely available DVD distro yet?

[mabhatter654]

That was a special one-time deal. There are places to get it [it's Linux after all] but it's a huge download. Also, He doesn't have the resources to support multiple versions....Knoppix is mostly a One Man show. It's his baby, and that's the way it goes.

If you don't like that try one of about a dozen other "forks" of Knoppix: ClusterKnoppix, Morphix, Knoppix-STD, etc. There are lots of other people basing work off from Knoppix...You could even make one yourself! That's the beauty of it!

Re:Why?

[Feztaa]

It denies you root access

ROFL.

There's a root shell right in the KDE menu, and from there you can run 'passwd' to change the password. Bam, now you have total root access to the entire knoppix box.

Congratulations, you just rooted your own box.

Re:After you get it, Help Advertise Knoppix.

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to give free linux disks to a bunch of morons that call you because they don't know how to save a file. Then they call you the next day, because they don't know how to open it.

You might want to think this plan through again.

Typical

[SnowWolf2003]

Murphys Law - I have been meaning to take a look at it for a while, and am on capped bandwidth, so finally decided to bite the bullet and download all 700MB of it yesterday! Guess I am going to have to try order the cd now, or wait till next month. Surely they knew they were close to releasing the next version, and could of put a notice up yesterday or a couple of days ago saying that the new version was just days/hours away.

Re:Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

They do: in the changelog.
Just go to one of the ftp servers where you can download Knoppix, there's a changelog.txt file in there. Open it and read the changes.
For about two weeks there was a notice which said "changes for upcoming 3.3 release".

Dear Edmund Enterprises

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurry, hurry,
Please, please,
I get down on
My hand and knees.

Knoppix 3.3
Is out,
I will buy it
Do not doubt.

I'll watch your site
I'm on my guard,
I can charge it
To my card.

Print the disk
This is not funny,
I will give you
All my money.

I must have it
In my home,
Or else you get
More shitty poems.

The best trial version of Linux available

[Compact Dick]

Two of my friends have already grabbed a copy of the 2003-07-26 ISO image off me. One wanted the games, the other loves GIMP.

Show Knoppix around to your friends and associates, you never know who will be intrigued enough to try it out. Watch the smile on their faces as you inform them it's free. Thanks a lot, Knopper!

Downloading the 2003-09-22 image over 56K dialup as I speak :-)

Re:The best trial version of Linux available

[UglyMike]

For your Games-loving friend, the Morphix game .ISO might be a better choice....

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm a lab assistant at my college"

And you still get trolled on slashdot?

YHBT, HAND.

My problems with Knoppix

[yerma]

I decided, after hearing so much about Knoppix and how it could get me into using Linux without all the fuss (partitions? what? geez) I thought I'd give it a go.
I was not impressed to say the least.
I booted the operating system and then started work on an essay on the ontological beliefs of Heraclitus of Ephesos. First of all starting OpenOffice.org ('.org' at the end of an application name? What's with that?) took incredibly long. I could have installed my copy (yes, it's legit and paid for) of Windows Millenium Edition in the time it took to boot Knoppix and start OpenOffice.org. Anyway it was to my surprise that even though I saved this file to my 'Desktop', the next time I booted Knoppix it was nowhere to be found. So now my philosophy 521 paper was missing -- needless to say I booted into Windows Millenium Edition (where files don't just god damned disappear) and rewrote the paper, printed it (couldn't get that working in Knoppix either) and haven't looked back.
I really like the idea of cooperation and open source software, the community idea seems really neat, and I hope these guys get their stuff together so regular guys like me can use this software at the efficiency and reliability that professional software offers.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me a lot of my experience with Knoppix. I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Knoppix box (a PIII 800 w/512 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Knoppix box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that. In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Knoppix machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Knoppix box that has run faster than its Windows counterpart, despite the Knoppix machines faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Knoppix is a "superior" machine.

Knoppix addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Knoppix over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

try saving to your automagically mounted windows share..

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[anggarda]

Maybe its because Knoppix runs of a ram disk.

You would have known this if you took the time to read the opening page when X boots.

The reason that the apps are taking too long to load is becase they have to be first uncompressed from the disk prior to being run.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

funny. i hope this is sarcasm

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Yottabyte84]

You need to turn on DMA.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Ultra-DMA hard drive and I checked to use DMA mode by default in the BIOS, so I don't think thats the problem.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[LX.onesizebigger]

knx-hdinstall. That'll rid you of all your problems, including Windows ME.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

I decided, after hearing so much about Knoppix and how it could get me into using Linux without all the fuss (partitions? what? geez) I thought I'd give it a go.
Translation: I'm a die-hard Microsoft yuppie. After hearing so much about Knoppix I figured it'd be a great way for me to shoot myself in the foot with minimal fuss so I could go on Slashdot and bitch about my bad Linux experience.

I was not impressed to say the least.
Translation: I was not disappointed.

I booted the operating system and then started work on an essay on the ontological beliefs of Heraclitus of Ephesos.
Translation: I booted this strange operating system with its strange Office package and went right to work doing something important during my experimental learning session with Knoppix.

First of all starting OpenOffice.org ('.org' at the end of an application name? What's with that?) took incredibly long.
Translation: Since I'm already in a fightin' mood I'll go ahead and take a senseless poke at the '.org' bit. So, it took a long time to load OpenOffice.org. Never mind the fact that I didn't have to install the OS or the application.

I could have installed my copy (yes, it's legit and paid for) of Windows Millenium Edition in the time it took to boot Knoppix and start OpenOffice.org.
Translation: To further my cause I'm going to make a totally bullshit statement about the speed of a WinME install and a Knoppix bootup. I've also got to make sure I point out I bought my Windows just in case the Software Cops are reading.

Anyway it was to my surprise that even though I saved this file to my 'Desktop', the next time I booted Knoppix it was nowhere to be found. So now my philosophy 521 paper was missing -- needless to say I booted into Windows Millenium Edition (where files don't just god damned disappear) and rewrote the paper, printed it (couldn't get that working in Knoppix either) and haven't looked back.
Translation: I made a stupid mistake brought about by my failure to understand exactly what it was I was using, so I got pissed of, re-did my work the way I know how and then came to Slashdot to whine to make myself feel better.

I really like the idea of cooperation and open source software, the community idea seems really neat, and I hope these guys get their stuff together so regular guys like me can use this software at the efficiency and reliability that professional software offers.

Seriously look at what you're bitching about. You complain that the software was slow, despite the fact that it was running off of a CD ROM instead of a hard drive. CD ROM drives are slower than hard drives by a couple orders of magnitude. You're a college boy, right, so you know what an order of magnitude is, right? You recognize the ability to run a completely different OS and a completely different word processor without having to put your hard drive in any danger at all, then wonder why the software didn't automagically know to put your document on the hard drive. Hmm!

You obviously didn't have any problem actually using the word processor to write your doc, so obviously these Open Source folks are doing something right. Glad you approve.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

erm. you have to use hdparm. knoppix probably doesn't do that for you because they don't want the 1 in a million complaint about their default settings frying somebody's hard drive.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Hognoxious]

Hey, don't hold back, tell us what you really feel!

You're a college boy, right, so you know what an order of magnitude is, right?

He's doing philosophy. So probably not.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[dalutong]

Just to make things a little clearer... (so you don't have to read any manuals...)

Tell me to slow down. Some of this stuff doesn't make sense to non-tech people (aka "geeks.")

Knoppix is a "live-cd." Meaning, it doesn't have to be installed on your computer. When you run it, you run it straight from the CD. This slows things down considerably, but makes it so you don't have to mess with the hassle of installation (and don't have to worry about going "cold turkey" to a new computer operating system.)

Using a live-cd also means that you can not save to your harddrive. The CDs are, indeed, writeable. They are not, however, always re-writeable. Even if they were, there are no live-CDs, of any operating system, that allow the CD to be rewritten while in use. It would be an interesting feature, however. It could possibly be created so when you shut down it asks whether you would like to save your data. If you say "yes," then it could copy what it needed to the RAM disk (a virtual disk is made from your memory. Unfortunately memory losses its data when the computer is turned off or rebooted) and rewrite the portions of the disk that were needed. This wouldn't be too simple to implement, however. You would need to have sufficient memory to store all the necessary data, programs, etc as well as enough running memory to use the programs. If the Knoppix people happen to read this, though, I hope they ponder over it for longer than the 30 seconds that I have.

This release of Knoppix is supposed to make saving a little easier. You can enable an external device (such as a USB harddrive) or internal partition for writing. I have not used Knoppix for a while. It was do-able when I used it, though not too "intuitively." Maybe they have worked on that.

This would explain why you had your experience. You can install Knoppix on your harddrive, which would allow you to save data. It would also speed up Openoffice. Once Openoffice 1.1 is released, however, I'd suggest upgrading to it (if you install this to your hard drive) -- it is considerably faster.

Oh yeah -- and I wouldn't consider windows mellenium edition "intuitive," it's easy of use is simply the product of many years of windows dominance and the associated familiarity. You must admit, Knoppix couldn't have been too bad if you managed to type a document during your first go. (also, another note, a good rule for technology, open or closed, take baby steps. write a small document before you do your thesis... make sure you're not missing anything (like the fact that you're writing a paper on a live-CD without any reasonable way of saving it.)

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

well taking so long to load is most likley your computer being slow. i have about 25 seconnd longer boot time with knoppix than i do for windows xp or windows 98. (actually winxp is longer than knoppix but thats for another reason)

now if you disable all the officew start up crap in windows, the microsoft office and open office.org take about the same amount of time to load.

i also find it humorous that your file "god damed disapeared" when you saved it to the desktop of an operating system the runs from a cd. did you think the burner would kick in and burn it to the cd when you shut it down or what?

it is obvious that you don't deserve to run anything not made buy microsoft. i would close out with saying when you build an os that idiots can use soon only idiots will use it. but i guess that would be a little too much if this is your first time and this isn't some made up story because your a bill gates lover or something. after all you said it took forever and you werent impressed and even after all that you decided to do your philosophy 521 paper without saving it to a backed up source? i find that bordering a load of crap but that just my observation

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[$hecky]

As Heraclitus would have said, "you can't boot into the same Knoppix twice."

*ducks*

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

> Translation: I'm a die-hard Microsoft yuppie

Hardly. This is an intelligent joke, of the kind slashdot is popular for. It a simily (parallelism) of the possible trouble a totally ignorant user can have with knoppix put forward in the typical abstract literature style.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Ultra-DMA hard drive

so you were using the 'live hard-disk' version of Knoppix? and all of the other poor monkeys bitching about their knoppix cd being slow ...

I checked to use DMA mode by default in the BIOS

good for you - can you tell the rest of the world what bios that is? afaik if the os doesn't know about your ultraDMA wish bios settings can go fish. then again, maybe you meant the windows setting ... oh well ...

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[rarkm]

This is an obvious and sophomoric flamebait troll.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[novakane007]

Windows Millenium is the bastard step child of the windows family. Have some self respect and use WIN2K or XP.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[yerma]

Dude, that was good ;)

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[bninja_penguin]

First of all starting OpenOffice.org ('.org' at the end of an application name? What's with that?)

The parent post has to be a joke! The above comment is obivously NOT from a Microsoft lover, or they would have commented on how great it was to have the 'dot org', as it would be following in the fine tradition of Microsoft, what with the Visual Studio.net, .net Server, and the rest of the Microsoft .net family!

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[Yottabyte84]

you need to add 'dma' to the knoppix boot parmamters. It's not on by default because it sometimes (rarly) breaks.

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[kevmit]

"This is an obvious and sophomoric flamebait troll."

This was clearly NOT an obvious and sophomoric flamebait troll.
This was a subtle and post-grad-level flamebait troll. (props to the OP, btw)
If watching all you super-villain-steve types 'correcting' this guy is not +5 Fuckin' Hysterical, I don't know what is...
Oh man, I'm STILL lmao!

Re:My problems with Knoppix

[rarkm]

[metaflame mode on]

[angry, sarcastic reply]

[citation of dubious rebuttal evidence]

[sardonic, but opaque critique of poster's intelligence]

[non-witty flourish]

---
[boring and obvious sig]

[metaflame mode off]

== ironic disclosure ==
This metaflame was composed on a Dell Inspiron 8200 running under Knoppix 3.3 via KDE Konqueror
== ironic disclosure end ==

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Since Windows XP has been released already I don't see the point of this? Is there really a need for more operating systems? XP is all I use, and it does everything I need."

Knoppix is like a spare tire for Windows XP.

Fix found!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys make a whole slew of OSes that run fine on the AMD/nVidia platform! Whod-a-thunk it!

www.microsoft.com

Re:Fix found!!!

[madhippy]

acutally windows xp used to lock my machine solid after a few hours use - same machine with Redhat or Mandrake works fine, machine is rarely rebooted and turned on permanently ...

Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you think it was going to save the data to? It runs off of the cd. Would you rather have it randomly write to your hard drive? How about deleting /mnt/windows/windows and plopping your doc in there? It runs off of the cd, so things run slowly. Install it to the drive, and then see what you can do with it. Otherwise, we don't want you playing with the adults anyway, as you'll probably just pee in the pool.

p.s. Did you have to look up big words? "work on an essay on the ontological beliefs of Heraclitus of Ephesos"? You could have just said "working on a documents"....

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[yerma]

Uh.. If I'm not mistaken cd-writers exist. In fact one is in my machine, so why the hell didn't it write my data?

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you can't burn to an already-burned CD, you horrific cuntsore.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a CD burner that can read your mind and just know you want to burn something without having to use CD burning software I would love to know where you got it.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, two posts that qualify you as clueless are enough - you should take a break now.

1. as previously explained, Knoppix runs off the cd - thus the on-the-fly decompression + slow cd speed (cds are SLOW compared to hdds) will make openoffice crawl to start - since that one is really lazy starting off a hard drive as well. same goes for any large program in knoppix - and if you happen to have too little ram it's going to get worse.

2. ALL THE WRITEABLE DORECTORIES ARE IN RAM - hence volatile. the stuff that's on the cd is read-only and the automatically-mounted windows partitions are read-only by default (and if they are ntfs write is probably out of the question). so if you are the happy owner of a fat32 win partition you can right-click on it on hte desktop and choose remount as writeable. otherwise use a damn floppy.

3. the CD is FINALIZED - meaning you can't add data on it at all (not even using writing software). so you can either save on a remounted win partition, on a floppy, email or transfer on the net the file.

4. printing is damn easy - all you really have to do is set the printer up from the kde control center. but then it requires having a clue (which you can get from reading some docs/manpages/plain kde help)

next time try looking around before you go jumping head-on. there are docs that pretty much explain how knoppix works and what's its purpose. and, being linux, you actually have to use your head a little as opposed to windows. (btw - free advice: ditch winME, it's the worst piece of crap microsoft produces in the last ~7-8 years. win2k is A LOT better).

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[magores]

Go ahead and shoot me, but I have to admit that "horrific cuntsore" is a good one.

Anyone mind if I use that to refer to my horrific boss, Darl McCuntsore, and/or President Bush?

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[yerma]

Dude, whatever. If I wanted to read a couple hundred pages I'd spend my time on some great piece of literature, not manuals which require hours of pouring over and result in my learning to do something I could have done in Windows Millenium Edition simply by intuition.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps someone needs to google for CD-RW

That it doesn't work like every other rewritable media format (other than tape) since the 1980s is not really the fault of a user, and a there are userspace windows drivers that can treat CD-RW disks like floppies.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

heh-heh ... intuition he says. try 'learned pattern' instead. you know how to use some windows system - and it so happens that you probably fit the intended target for it (point and click). you certainly don't fit the intended target for knoppix - since it requires the user to actually understand some things 'under the hood'. otherwise you can play around with it and that's about all. if you're willing to learn, fine - read, ask around, you'll find plenty of people more than happy to help. and you'll end up with some linux knowledge that you can later label as useless or useful (*). if not, stick to what you know and be happy. there's no problem with winME being all you need - heck, for some people cp/m is all they need, so what? but bragging about how you don't understand something and how you are actually not interested in changing that situation only makes you sound stupid.

(*) afaict knowledge is usually useful - at least from the point of view stating that a better understanding of a tool helps one make a more efficient use of it. but that varies from person to person.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you have to format them first - so Knoppix would need 2 versions: a CDRW and CDR version (since formatting a CDR as a CDRW would undoubtedly cause problems).

I don't think Klaus has time for that.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, sir. This is comedy gold.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[kevmit]

Because you can't burn to an already-burned CD, you horrific cuntsore.

Horrific Cuntsore.
You know sometimes...all too rarely...words can transcend simple meaning and become truly poetic.
You, Sir, have been touched by Clio.

Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?

[grolschie]

Welcome to slashdot. :-)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you think Knoppix is a hacking tool, then you're misguided

and

It denies you root access

Check out Knoppix-STD. STD stands for Security Tools Distribution. Also, when using this distro, root aaccess is achieved by typing 'rootme' at the command line.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Maybe if they'd done their jobs right in the first place, hundreds of machines wouldn't have been infected.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Having Knoppix with Windows XP is like having a spare bicycle tire for your car.

Hardware Support

[MalleusEBHC]

I couldn't find this on the site, but how wide of a range of hardware does Knoppix support? I work as a network technician at my university, which entails a good number of calls where I must go out and troubleshoot a resident's network connection. Many a time I will run into a spot where I can nail it down to either being a problem with the OS or a problem with the NIC. For the Macs, I just use my iBook as a Firewire boot drive, however the Windows boxes prove to be somewhat of a pain. It would be a dream if I could just boot from Knoppix and be able to remove the potentially problematic OS from the equation. However, given the wide range of hardware I see out there, I wonder if a standard Knoppix setup would be able to support all the hardware I run into.

Re:Hardware Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it can only predictably be made to work on 286s or slower. You should make sure your system supports double-density floppy disks. Also, EGA doesn't work out of the box yet so you will want to have a hercules or CGA display. There is an experimental port to the Apple II but I don't recommend using it. Also, if you have a PDP/11 there is a similar operating system called BSD which you can use, which has much the same functionality.

Re:Hardware Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if a standard Knoppix setup would be able to support all the hardware I run into.

Personally, if I was in your case, I wouldn't wait for any supported HW list... I would go directly and try it myself in every computer available for a field test. There are a lot of additional factors in every case.

This "do it and find out" approach has given me a proffesional advantage and recently pumped my career into the IT Manager position of an international company.

This tests shall mean no significant alteration or damage on your users' HW.

LE+

Re:After you get it, Help Advertise Knoppix.

[mabhatter654]

Great idea, but you have to help the newbies out! Knoppix is GREAT for new users. Most modern [not bleeding edge] hardware works right away. You can even setup Web, email, samba, etc. all from the disk.

It's great to show Bosses, because you don't have to wreck a computer to use it! But an AOL style mass mailing would be a really, really bad idea. It still requires somebody to SHOW how to use it, otherwise people will hate it rather than like it!

FCK YOU

[EdlinUser]

AC flamebait gets moderated +3 Informative. *sigh*
This is informative:
1. PII = P6
2. Your 3.2 Knoppix will continue to boot.

Re:FCK YOU

[KillerHamster]

Pentium Pro also will work.

Kurumin Re:Knoppix for USB Key?

[xybe]

I downloaded but I found OOo to be missing, so it is not exactly as useful as Knoppix, even for Portuguese-speaking folk.

Re:Why?

[Peaceful_Patriot]

Why not use Knoppix as a desktop system? I have a persistant directory which stores my files and configs. I can really stretch the space on my little toshiba laptop with a great os and software which takes no hd space.

yet another way to get root on knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

It denies you root access

sudo is setup to let the knoppix user execute anything as root. So "sudo su" gets you a root shell

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Having Knoppix with Windows XP is like having a spare bicycle tire for your car."

Can't say I agree with that. If XP is infected with a worm or something, and you can't risk getting on line with it, then you can boot into Knoppix. and find the patch/fix you need. Then, when you go to reboot, unplug the network cable and run the patch. Problem fixed.

I had my computer lose power in the middle of a shutdown process once. Win2k was busy updating the registry and hadn't closed the file when the power went. Doh. If I had Knoppix then, I could have gotten online long enough to find out if there was a fix. Or, better yet, I could have done some disk cleanup in order to reinstall Windows. Oh well.

Spare bicycle tire? I think not. Linux is not my favorite OS, but Knoppix would have saved my butt a couple of times.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

here's one example tiger: say you were a happy winME user (upgrading to xp from win2k is kind of silly) and you get the 'upgrade to winXP' cd - insert, reboot, upgrade ... and you discover that the stupid microsoft forgot to put a driver for your weirdo network card - which btw was older than winxp so you don't have a driver - no net, no download new driver, nada. what do you do? either you go begging to someone who has a working net connection to find you the right driver, or you pop in the knoppix cd and go get it yourself.

second example: say you are in need of a quick and dirty web server (this one is a kicker since all the interesting directories are read-only so rooting the apache is not very helpful if it happens). in windows, unless you have the server version (no XP server, remember?) you're stranded ... oh well, unless you're really willing to go out and install apache for win32 on your own. ftp server? again, tough luck in xp. knoppix will do just fine though.

finally - here's a hope that your precious xp will never go belly-up leaving you wondering how to get to whatever data you still have on the harddrive. using the xp install disk for recovery is a lottery game often enough - but if you don't have a spare knoppix cd it's your only choice.

it's about the tool for the job. stick to your xp and pay big if you need to add any extra functionality to it, or look around for something that does the job better. knoppix is by no means a panacea - it has its very own (and quite narrow) use. but a decent sysadmin on x86 will not be without it.

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[mabhatter654]

Don't ever trust something important to a program you've never used before. That's just stupid computer usage!

Frankly, you didnt' give this nearly a fair trial. I read other posts, and you didn't take the time to even learn what Knoppix was, or how to work it before you trusted you life's work to it. Had you read up a little before jumping in, you would have learned how to do everything you wanted in about an hour. Been running from start to configured in 10 minutes, and not lost a thing! Even been able to save that file so you could open it in windows!!! Knoppix is meant to "Do no harm!' that means it doesn't write to ANYTHING without you giving it express permission...on NT boxes writing to a drive is lethal--It couldn't assume that you wanted anything saved.

Read up at Knoppix.net! Check out the FAQs, and browse the forums for an evening before trying it out again. You might find that you'll like it!

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Your first example is rather silly. If you have a net card that is obscure enough that Windows XP, which has a huge driver library supporting every piece of common PC hardware, won't detect it, its unlikely that Linux will have support for it either. So Knoppix is useless.

In the second case, there is Personal Web Server for 98/ME, which is free, as well as apache. And there are lots of freeware ftp servers for Windows, that just shows your ignorance of the windows software scene. Of course, if you need a professional grade web server you are running 2k Server or 2k3 server already.

Finally, every time I ever needed to recover my system the XP recovery disk worked for me, and it was easy too. I doubt the average Windows user would be able to make heads or tails of Linux, even on the off chance Knoppix detected their hardware correctly, so it wouldn't be all that useful. Much better to hire a professional technician to sort the problem out.

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[yerma]

"on NT boxes writing to a drive is lethal" What? So does Knoppix act like a virus or a worm or something on Windows NT? Dude, frankly that's scary, I have enough to worry about viruses through my email.. now I need to worry about Linux too? Sorry man, I'm just going to stick with what I'm comfortable with, and what's safe!

Re:Pack it next time you go!

[mabhatter654]

Give it a try. It doesn't always work 100%, but it works most of the time. Also, read up on the Cheatcodes...They let you modify it right from the boot screen to cope with difficult hardware.

Most PCs that can boot from a CDROM should be able to run knoppix. The only way you'll know for sure is to try it out [no harm in trying!] or to read up on specifics on the forum if there's a particular piece of hardware you know you need to support.

Please, try it...You can't really HURT any PCs with it so it's always worth a try!

If that person loves The GIMP....

[Anonymous Coward]

...they'll go apeshit when they use Paint Shop Pro! Photoshop would probably bring them to orgasm.

Re:Hardware Support...networking

[mabhatter654]

as a network tech...

I happen to know for fact that Knoppix [3.2] works with the 3Com USB/ethernet networking dongle! That is an absolute lifesaver when you have PCs with no/broken nics. The ability to at least capture work from a borked HDD is worth it's weight in gold [ok it's a CD..that's not very much]

Ghost vs partimage

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I tried to image a large Linux partition Ghost crashed. Besides, last time I checked Ghost did not support Reiser fs, only ext2.

Partimage is THE TOOL for Linux.

Along the same lines...

[yukster]

Dynebolic is at 1.0beta... It's pretty nice, though it wouldn't boot on one of my boxes. Still, once they work out the kinks, it'll be a nice little linux-on-a-cd.

old version was fine, the new not at all

[frovingslosh]

The old version would run fine. Sure, starting something bloated like Open Office could take a long time, and if you were running the GUI then other things could take time to load as well. But a lot would run very well if running command line only, and even with the GUI a lot of stuff was fine after it started slowly.

I too think it's a mistake to have decided it will not run at all on a P1. At the very least they could have compiled a normal P1 flavor kernel and set up a boot option to let the user boot into that, which would have given them the best of both worlds. This option certainly wouldn't have taken a lot of space, and I would gladly give up one of the excessive number of spreadsheets or word processors that Knoppix has to get it if it required that.

Re:old version was fine, the new not at all

[Hadlock]

haiving a hard time browsing the site with safari (which is odd, seing as how safari is based off of one of the browsers included in knoppix) for an install image for an old pentium 90 of mine to give to a friend; can't seem to find a copy of 3.2 anywhere.... any ideas on where to download 3.2 or earlier? site seems to only have links to 3.3 currently.

Re:old version was fine, the new not at all

[fanatic]

Many of the mirrrors have 3.2 (and lack 3.3). Linuxiso.org stilll has 3.2

Re:old version was fine, the new not at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Knoppix 3.3 still runs fine on a plain 486 (the posting about "686 optimization" was apparently a wild/wrong guess), you should maybe try this one first.

Free?

[frovingslosh]

use Norton Ghost (free [as in beer]

Norton Ghost is Free? Please advise me where I can get a legal free copy.

Re:Free?

[Deslack]

(free [as in beer] with Soyo and possibly other MBs)

He got it free with his motherboard. There are some motherboards that bundles Ghost and Antivirus software with it.

Re:Free?

[Zzootnik]

Exactly...However...You can also use Partimage---which is actually on the knoppix cd and is also on the Gentoo boot cds and probably a few other ones too... It won't burn to a cd, but you can send your data to a local file (compressed) on a drive, or to a remote ftp location... It's actually pretty slick, and runs in an ncurses type screen.

It has saved me more than a few headaches at work when the users botch up the pub stations..

The point of GIMP

[Compact Dick]

is that it's free and available on a free platform, as opposed to the alternatives you mentioned. He is skilled in PSP and Photoshop, but feels a bit guilty about "pirating" them.

Knoppix and Laks Watch Sav ed Me

[rossz]

Actually, it saved my wife. The hard drive in her laptop died. Normally, there's a 3 year warranty on them, but Hewlett-Packard being the cheap fucktards that they are OEMed the drive and reduced the warranty to 1 year. So my 15 month old drive is useless. Oops, I digress.

Money is rather tight, so I wasn't able to get a replacement drive immediately. However, my wife needed internet access at the minimum. Knoppix to the rescue. She was able to get full blown internet access and email. With the addition of my Laks watch with its 128Meg of memory, she had a persistent home directory so her settings (e.g. bookmarks) weren't lost.

I definately feel Knoppix was worth the money I spent on it. Oh wait! It was free! Damn. Such a deal! Seriously. Keep a Knoppix CD handy at all times. Its a life saver.

Re:Knoppix and Laks Watch Sav ed Me

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the writing going on to the flash memory in the laks watch, it'll probably be broken by the time you do get a HD. Remember, you can't write to a flash disk more than a few thousand times.

Having said that, I own a laks watch too, it rules.

Re:Knoppix and Laks Watch Sav ed Me

[rossz]

The drive has now been replaced so the lifespan of my Laks watch has been sparred. I wonder if the makers of the watch made it possible to replace the flash memory when it dies? Probably not. :(

YHBT YHL HAND

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha

Just tested it

[forgoil]

And just a random little tidbit I found. Open Office is DOG slow to start, with KWord isn't.

And this is a good idea, gives people something to try out without having to install and mukk about.

Re:How to create a persistant homedir on USB memor

[nautical9]

From that link:

Q: Is it possible -- beside a modified CD -- to use Persistent Home on a USB-stick, when the PC has no floppy-drive?

A: Not easily at the moment, but it can be done with some magic...

Ah crap, and I left my magic wand at the office... any idea if the German version actually has an answer to that question?

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[nateb]

Don't feed the trolls. Retard.

Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[grolschie]

I have been fixing a computer that shows all the signs of a stuffed motherboard. Tested RAM and PSU, cpu seems fine. The machine running XP has started to lockup when left for more than 2 minutes. Nothing dodgy installed. Drivers and stuff all sweet. Everything looks peachy on the XP install. The system only started locking up a months ago, and lockups are increasingly more frequent. Temps are fine also. No viruses. Patches, bios and drivers all up-to-date.

I was so damn sure it was a crook motherboard until I threw in a Knoppix 3.2 cd. I opened nearly every app I could at once, and left Pingus and other things runnng over night. No freezes! I could not get Knoppix to crash this system no matter what I played with.

Solution: format c:

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn man, I got the same problem with my XP. Running on a fesh install now. Nothing wierd installed. Bastard locks up on a fairly regular basis.

Got a new mobo, CPU and RAM on the way. Hope the lockups don't persist after I drop the new goodies into the mix.

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[Wolfrider]

Client of mine had problems with XP due to low system RAM. NTFS swap/thrash eventually wore a groove in the HD. Fixed by repartitioning and converting from NTFS to Fat32, but they still need to buy more Ram.

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[DoctorPepper]

Several months ago, we had the IT support folks trying to get a Windows 98 machine (yeah, I know. Unfortunately, we need to run Windows 98 on some of the machines) running for our testing, but they were having trouble with the built-in NIC. The system was a Dell, I don't remember the designation. Anyway, the IT support people thought the built-in NIC had croaked, so I grabbed my trusty KNOPPIX CD out of my desk drawer, stuck it in the CD-ROM drive and rebooted. When it came up, the system saw the network with no problems. I even showed the techs how to ping another computer on the network.

I had really liked KNOPPIX before then (that's why it was in my drawer!), but after that, I really loved it. I now give away copies of the latest KNOPPIX CD at my Linux user's group meetings.

Way to go Klaus!

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the board for capacitors with bulgy ends...

Then google on "taiwan faulty capacitors"

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[bundaegi]

Check this one out: memtest86 (don't be fooled by the .com it's gnu software). Make sure it's not a memory problem. Cut yourself a CD which you boot from to run the tests.

I couldn't even run knoppix (let alone XP) on that computer (a SN41G2 shuttle) until I had the one stick swapped for another one.

If you get any errors on memtest86 (say after running it for 8 hours continuous) then you probably won't be able to install any OS (and/or experience random crashes).

Also, make sure you plug in a shitty pci videocard if you have a system which uses main memory for as display memory (like the nforce chipset). That segment of memory wouldn't get tested by memtest86. Setting that memory to 0 in the bios wouldn't help either. Hello? who turned off the lights ;-)

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[Anonymous Coward]

"(don't be fooled by the .com it's gnu software)

It's GNU software, or it would be on GNU's website. And GPLed software can be sold, so that's an ignorant warning.

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[Anonymous Coward]

If the system works with one OS but not another OS, it's probably not the motherboard.

Google on "good troubleshooting technique".

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[bundaegi]

You are right, of course!

From the website: Memtest86 is released under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL).

That's what I meant!

I guess there's no incompatibility between commercial and GPL. it's just that GPL projects are usually on .org and not .com appart maybe from that one ^_^

Re:Knoppix as a diagnostic tool

[grolschie]

Memtest86 has been a permanent part of my toolkit for a long time. The bootable cd .iso is a wonderful idea. GPL software rocks!

Up on eDonkey too

[hughk]

There is a torrent link on the site but for anyone else, it (well the EN version of 3.3) is being shared on eDonkey. Sorry, no link though.

Re:Up on eDonkey too

[cykix]

Here's the ed2k link:
ed2k://|file|KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-09-22-EN.iso |733700 569|0F9ECE885162C03A59982D25E780DB2A|/

Easiest way to Install GNU / Linux Debian :

[pswnet]

1. put the Knoppix cd, booting.... 2. open a shell 3. knx-hdinstall 4. apt-get update, apt-get upgrade 5. Bamn...You get a Debian in your Box can no be more easier. *Internet Connection is requiered.*

Re:How to create a persistant homedir on USB memor

[millette]

From the knoppix homepage:

Possibility to create a persistent homedir with personal data and desktop settings on a memory stick or similar, optional with AES encryption.

Also these options:

• knoppix home=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img Mount loopback file as /home/knoppix
• knoppix home=scan Automatic search for knoppix homedir
• knoppix myconf=/dev/sda1 Load knoppix.sh from /dev/sda1

If you want to bring in the big guns, there's knoppix-std too, with encryption support, etc.

FYI

[orv]

From that changelog:

"Please don't use knx-hdinstall any more!
I won't support it any longer and its just there as uhm, its not my project, but those of Christian Perle.
knoppix-installer should now work in both modes (see below) and give a fairly stable system. "

Does anyone know Klaus' favourite drink?

[Hanno]

Knoppix has been a great tool for me quite a few times and I thought about giving him a free round of beer every now and then. Does anyone know the favourite beverage of Mr. Knopper?

Re:Does anyone know Klaus' favourite drink?

[Anonymous Coward]

Knoffee.

Re:Does anyone know Klaus' favourite drink?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drink Dr. Knopper!

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[Anonymous Coward]

So does Knoppix act like a virus or a worm or something on Windows NT?

Yes, it is a big scary monster. It is even scarier then the shadows on your walls. It has worms that can eat you alive. Avoid at all cost because it could easely destroy your intire life and those of your relatives. Avoid it like the plague. Soon you will see millions and millions of people fade away as they are all non safe users, all totaly clueless, unlike you.

But you are wise, I removed knoppix and Gentoo and got right back into winME serenity after being introduced to your pearls of wisdom. Thanks for your insights, looking forward to reading more of your material. Hordes of slashdotters value your insights as well, thanks.

Your improvements in the 521 papers of philosophy are now gone, let it be a warning, their enlightment upon mankind is now lost - this an omen for mankind.

Re:fp

[Hognoxious]

bash: fp: command not found

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[mh101]

I don't completely know all the details, but I believe Linux has trouble safely writing to an NTFS formatted partition. But FAT or FAT32 partitions (which you likely have, if you use WinME) are fine.

Already slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a mirror.

Yeah!

[zonix]

Yeah, now all we need is MEMMAKER! Ugh!

z

Time to switch to Apple, buddy!

[zonix]

Anyway it was to my surprise that even though I saved this file to my 'Desktop', the next time I booted Knoppix it was nowhere to be found.

So, it was like ... it devoured your paper? :-)

z

Re:Time to switch to Apple, buddy!

[Wolfrider]

Feh, Ellen Feiss did a better job of it all around - and she's cuter. ;b

KBabel in or out?

[sthingp]

I need KBabel to translate .po-files. Does anyone know if KBabel is included in Knoppix 3.3 ? It's in 3.1 but was left out in 3.2...

Re:KBabel in or out?

[Hognoxious]

I need KBabel to translate .po-files.

It only does .tinkywinky and .lala, I think.

Microsoft bashing is almost pro-Microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing about Microsoft bashing is that it's all true.

The sad thing about Microsoft bashing is that it vastly understates Microsoft's adversarial relationship with the world. Microsoft bashing doesn't document everything.

Re:Software patents in the US?

[Hognoxious]

every programmer knows that a program is every bit as much a creative act

A hyperlink is a program, is it?
A GUI (as in the general concept) is a program, is it?
Clicking something to buy is a program, is it?

If you can patent [...] or a chemical formula,

Patenting chemical formulas is ludicrous, unless you invented the chemical itself.
But as it happens, I own the patents to H20 and C2H5OH.

All of your Bass are belong to us!

OT: Your sig (was Re:Unfortunately)

[kosmonaut pirx]

Just if you like to have the sig correct, if not, feel free to ignore this:

wrong:
ihr mutter ist dumm

correct:
Ihre Mutter ist dumm.

The capitals are not really the problem, but the 'e' after 'ihr' makes it grammatically correct.

Old german saying:
Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache (German language, difficult language)

There are many germans who are not really able to use their native language, this is the root of this saying.

Greetings from germoney ;-),

Kosmo

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[Hognoxious]

That's about the long & short of it (AFAIK, it can read NTFS OK).

Is there a reason for the NTFS incompatability. Is it obfuM$cation, or just that nobody got round to it yet?

Flat screen support?

[thallgren]

I downloaded Knoppix 3.3 and booted it. The gfx "textmode" worked just fine, and the audio also. However, the graphics looked scrambled on my flat screen. I connect it via DVI to my GForce 4 Ti4200.

I'd like a cure for this problem. :)

I recall I had the same problem with Red Hat 8, but that was quite some time ago.

Re:Flat screen support?

[proberts]

Hit F2, and look at the boot options, the frame buffer stuff normally works for older laptops, and may solve your problem as well. For laptops, I usually end up forcing the 1280x1024 mode as well.

your boot line should look something like

knoppix lang=us xmodule=fbdev screen=1280x1024

HTH,

Paul

Re:Flat screen support?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this would still use 1024x768 framebuffer mode. If you want 1280x1024 framebuffer mode instead, just type

fb1280x1024 lang=us

at the boot prompt, as described in the F2 help or in knoppix-cheatcodes.txt.

HD warranty

[ishmaelflood]

Depending on your local laws it may be that your 3 year warranty has not been extinguished by HP. The original warranty on the HD may still be valid, if you can get the manufacturer to listen to you. I have definitely read of this working in the UK, at least.

Re:HD warranty

[rossz]

I can't get anyone to listen, neither those scum sucking thieves at HP or Hitachi (which now owns the IBM division that originally made the drive). I've already replaced the drive. The store had a choice between the IBM/Hitachi Travelstar just like the original or a Toshiba. I went with the Toshiba drive.

the site is NOT DOWN !

[Anonymous Coward]

just click on the very first link already.

who posted this news? are you guys blind or what?

its just a pre page cos of protests against software patents. the site is still alive and great.

shlashdot is getting worse every day.

*cough*

[sjwt]

That is largest in the _Artic_
not 'The Largest.'

Rembere the world has two ice
caps..

Re:*cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

Rembere the world has two ice
caps.. ...for now it does.

Re:*cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Arctic"...

Re:Hardware Support...networking

[Wolfrider]

--It also works with the Farallon USB>100M Ether version (loads the pegasus driver.) Came in quite handy when working with a client box that had USB but no network card. :)

I'll never download it now.

[dmaxwell]

You just haaaad to spray it all over Slashdot didn't you.............

Good bye, sense ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ups ? Basically a livecd with support for +4GB ? But then again, MS Advanced Server has a browser build in, too.

Is nforce2 supported out of the box?

[Raghu_P]

Anyone know if nforce2 chipset (including the IDE and network interface) is supported out of the box in this release?

Re:Why?

[omnirealm]

>> It denies you root access

> Try Ctrl+Alt+F2. Replace F2 with F5 to get back to GUI screen.

Or just sudo bash.

Knoppix is a lifesaver/NTFS recovery

[Lerxst Pratt]

Two days ago, I performed disaster recovery on a friend's Windows 2000 box. Suffice it to say that his computer would not boot into the recovery console nor would the hard drive allow me to reinstall Windows 2000 on it. Fortunately, I had a Debian Jr. Knoppix CD.

I popped it in, booted up, and was ready to amaze my friend. Both his NTFS hard drive and his USB FAT32 hard drive appeared on the desktop automagically after boot. I set the USB drive to read/write by right-clicking and selecting the read/write mode. I opened both drives in two separate windows of Konqueror and performed the data recovery right before his eyes by dragging files from one drive to another.

When the backup was complete, I showed him a few other things like the games and that he was completely internet capable. His jaw dropped in awe. He asked if I would make him a copy of the CD so that he could be internet functional on his computer until he could get a new hard drive. I told him to keep the CD. It was his very first experience with Linux... and a very positive one.

I will reiterate one thing I have already read under this topic. No one should be without a Knoppix CD. Go find yourself a torrent or a mirror and get Knoppix now!!! You never know when it will save your a$$.

I'm gning of the trolls!

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in : "Gnoppix 3.3.1 is out"!

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[Anonymous Coward]

short word - permissions. the file gets security descriptors pointing to no-one (to be expected, since the security tokens in NT are opaque handlers).

everything else is ok.

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[Asgard]

I believe the problem is incomplete documentation on NTFS internals making it rather difficult to build a 'safe' r/w driver.

3.3Beta?

[kzadot]

I just downloaded the torrent and the startup screen still says 3.3BETA. And all the changelogs I can find online refer to 3.3pre.

The ISO i have is KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-09-22-DE.iso

Is this the newest one an actual release? Still beta? Or did I get the wrong one?

Can anyone help me out?

Also is there anyway to find the version from a running knoppix? And is the changelog stored on the cd anywhere?

And which of the 2 hard drive installation methods is best? knoppix-installer or knx-hdinstall?

Cheers.

Re:3.3Beta?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Is this the newest one an actual release? Still beta? Or did I get the wrong one?

No, that's the right one. Check out the 'readme' file at the top of the directory (if it's a complete mirror). Sept 22 is the release 3.3!

> And which of the 2 hard drive installation methods is best? knoppix-installer or knx-hdinstall?

I used knx-hdinstall just last night, and it did fine, but I've read that Klaus would rather folks use knoppix-installer.

You seem knowledgeable...

[StarKruzr]

So I figure I'll ask you this.

If everyone seems to be able to agree that Knoppix is what everyone wants in a distribution - stable, fast, feature-rich, basically Debian with a really good installer, hardware detection and all - why the HELL is it not an official, supported feature of the distro to INSTALL TO A HARD DRIVE? Would it REALLY be that difficult to code for these guys?

Re:You seem knowledgeable...

[Anonymous Coward]

sudo knoppix-installer

Re:You seem knowledgeable...

[!the!bad!fish!]

Type knx-hdinstall into a root console and Knoppix will install its bleeding edge debian distro onto your hard drive. See here, here, or here.

What are you wearing?

[Anonymous Coward]

d00d.

Re:Why?

[be-fan]

Eh? You expect them to go around to each of the thousands of personal machines on the campus network and install patches?

Use their torrent link

[b0bby]

They have an official Bittorrent link on their site.

C3 support?

[Linknoid]

VIA's C3 processor is i486 (or at least that's what the linux kernel compiled as when I selected C3), so I guess I can forget about downloading knoppix to run on my EIPA 5000 machine.

Re:C3 support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most C3's you should compile with i586 and it works. Compiling with i686 works most of the time, except for the CMOV instruction. The CMOV instruction is an i686 optional instruction, but gcc and others don't check and just assume it's there, causing the C3 to die.

All the software on my C3 is compiled as i586 and works fine. i686 might cause problems in cases of high optimizations and buggy compilers.

knx-hdinstall

[mbrubeck]

"Why the HELL is it not an official, supported feature of the distro to INSTALL TO A HARD DRIVE?"

That's what the knx-hdinstall command does.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

> Can't say I agree with that. If XP is infected with a worm or something, and you can't risk getting on line with it, then you can boot into Knoppix. and find the patch/fix you need. Then, when you go to reboot, unplug the network cable and run the patch. Problem fixed.

Only if you have a FAT/FAT32 partition available, or you have a Windows extension to allow it to read a Linux filesystem. Writing to NTFS drives is still considered dangerous and unsupported.

mirror in sweden

[fredan]

You can get it from me on this link.

Re:mirror in sweden

[polyp2000]

Thats a direct link to a download!,
dont there if you are looking for info!
(like I did!)

Re:mirror in sweden

[Darth RadaR]

Cheers! I really needed this for a demonstration tommorow.

Re:Why?

[deinol]

>It denies you root access

>>Try Ctrl+Alt+F2. Replace F2 with F5 to get back to GUI screen.

Even better, open xterm: sudo bash

Re:After you get it, Help Advertise Knoppix.

[HanzoSan]

And who showed the masses how to use aol and windows? include a tutorial program such as video professor for linux.

Mirrors?

[thempstead]

Well this is typical ... for the first time ever a slashdot discussion linked to a site with a list of download mirrors on it and no ones posted the mirror list to the discussion despite the page now just returning MySQL errors ... what ever happened to people wanting karma, (i why cant i remember the &*%$ UK mirror site address from 6hrs ago!

Re:Mirrors?

[thempstead]

hate to reply to myself but, for mirrors see...

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.ht ml

(not making the link clickable in the hope it wont get slashdoted to!) ... don't forget to remove the slashdot added space ...

Tim

2.6.0

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I'm lame and should upgrade and remaster it myself but in case anybody does upgrade Knoppix 3.3 to a testing 2.6.0 kernel I hope you'll share it with somebody who'll put up a Bittorrent link and the genie would be out of the bottle!

What HP laptop? By any chance, a ze4145?

[zealotasd]

HP has been making some verry bad decisions on every aspect of their laptops...right down to the extra 10 cents for a better connector to the laptop's teflon ribbon of the keyboard. I know this one lady whose HP Laptop (ze4145) started repeating the keystroke "H" ad infinitum. We obviously thought it was a bad keyboard or a stuck "H" key, and we had success by pressing a combination of other keys and it would stop repeating the "H" key indefinitly. The letter "H" still would come back. I installed an external keyboard and it would bypass the problematic built-in keyboard...and while using the external keyboard the error would return only when you pressed a key on the interated keyboard or sometimes not. I just told her to send it back to Circuit City for the 6 month warranty of repairs, but she didn't... 6 months goes by and I ask her what became of her HP ze4145 and like I said; she let the warranty expire... I troubleshooted the HP ze4145 laptop again and found that disconnecting the laptop's integrated keyboard would stop it from indefinitly producting the letter "H." I suggested that it was a bad keyboard and all was needed was a replacment. On another desktop computer, we launched Microsoft IE and went to order the replacment keyboard from HP for $60 including shipping. Microsoft's IE webbrowser didn't have 128bit SSL to securely order ther part through HP's website (it was an early version 5 of IE, and I don't fancy restarting the whole computer to upgrade it), so I happily downloaded webdog's Slim Mozilla (a version of Mozilla with all the bloat removed, browser-only, quick download BTW) and we continued the order without restarting the computer.

Four days later, she receives the replacment keyboard... I examine and affirm that it is the correct keyboard and with the same type of shitty Teflon pressure-point ribbon cable. I first turn-on the ze4145 laptop without any keyboard again and now the scenario has changed...it's repeating the letter "H" now without any keyboard installed. She didn't need a new keyboard, she needed A NEW LAPTOP. What are the chances of the laptop's keyboard controller going bad? Before, it didn't give us hint of the repeating "H" error with the integrated keyboard dis-connected and now it did! Troubleshooting only hinted the keyboard was causing the error, but come time to install the new keyboard and after doing a pre-test we found that the keyboard's controller had been the problem.

Well, at-least Circuit City was nagging at her to renew her warranty. What is the chance they will not cover her on this damaged hardware she let sit for 6 months to do anthing about it? All I know is if someone pays $1500.00 for a laptop, it breaks in some way and lets it set for 3 months, must probably not be enthusiastic with using a laptop? Laptops are over-priced for what little they benefit. The same can be accomplished on a desktop-type computer whose motherboard is crammed into a laptop-sized pizza-box shell and a flatpanel on the opposing shell. Not to mention, the HP ze4145 is using a Athlon XP 1800+ and hot air is belching out the upper left corner. I don't remember Pentium 200MHz laptops being that hot.

What is realy needed is a more portable desktop computer: the hardware is easier to replace, as when something goes bad it is as easy as a Heated IC extractor or replacing the entire motherboard. If that's what today's laptop's are meant to achieve, then let me say they surely failed.

WHOOOSH!

[jagripino]

You hear that? It's the sound of the joke flying over your head...

It's funny. Laugh.

Re:Learn before you Graduate...again

[mabhatter654]

He's complaining it didn't save stuff right away to his hard drive. I was explaining that there is a very good reason Knoppix doesn't "automatically" do anything with your HDD!

Just dumb...

[LWATCDR]

>> I hope your supervisors don't know that you're running unlicensed hacking tools on school computers.
Actually it would be best if he did know that he was using knoppix. It is licensed under the GPL. And they are not hacking tools in the way you mean it. They are tools and it seems like they are very good ones.
>>Especially at a university, there are many sensitive records that I'm sure they would not want compromised by bug-laden hobbyist software.

Good grief that is almost funny I could start with so they could be compromised by bug-laden profesional software? Anyone that thinks the Windows is bug free is an idiot or just clueless why such a person with no technical knowlege would hang out on slashdot is beyond me. If just booting Linux on a workstation on your network comprises data stored on server elsewhere on your network you have some big security issues that have nothing to do with Linux. It would seem that you know nothing about security, Linux, or Windows.
BTW a responsible admin would not fire him or her on the spot. He would take alook at the tool being used and see if it has value or not and then decide. The exception would be if the techs where told to use only certain tools and no others. In some mission critical or secure situations that would be a valid consideration but a good admin would have a way to ok new tools and would be open to suggestions.