Slashdot Mirror
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.
when will the dvd knoppix be released?
;\
and start including mplayer on these cds
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.
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.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Dammit! I just burned a 3.2 CD on a nonrewritable disk! GRRR
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
amazingly enough They have a torrent link on their download page
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~koppen/knoppix-en.to rrent
That's for the English image. V3.3-2003-09-22.
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.
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 :)
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.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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?
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Something in here will surely help :)
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!
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Here's another torrent link...
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.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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?
-Bucky
bug-laden hobbyist software
Read the post dumb ass, he's using Linux and not XP like you're insinuating!!!
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.
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.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
Just as soon as you put it on there. Here's a link for the remastering HOWTO:
x t
;)
http://www.stirnimann.com/mystuff/doc/knoppix.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.
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!
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.
Try Ctrl+Alt+F2. Replace F2 with F5 to get back to GUI screen.
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!
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...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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.
0 1 - just my two bits
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.
~Tommy Boomfiger http://www.gotapex.com/forums
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!"
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
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.
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.
It will not run at all. When you optimise for a 686 you add in instructions that work only on the 686 (or later).
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.
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!
AC flamebait gets moderated +3 Informative. *sigh*
This is informative:
1. PII = P6
2. Your 3.2 Knoppix will continue to boot.
1000 SlashDot sigs
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)
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
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).
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.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
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?
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.
"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.
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.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
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!
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 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).
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]
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.
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).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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.
-- Will program for bandwidth
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:
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.*
From the knoppix homepage:
Also these options:
If you want to bring in the big guns, there's knoppix-std too, with encryption support, etc.
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. "
Yeah, now all we need is MEMMAKER! Ugh!
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
So, it was like ... it devoured your paper? :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
--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. :)
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
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$$.
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).
That's what the knx-hdinstall command does.
You can get it from me on this link.
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.