Knoppix 3.7 Released

twener writes "Version 3.7 of the bootable GNU/Linux Live CD Knoppix has been released and is available via Bittorrent or on the Knoppix Mirrors. Some of the new features are lots and lots of package updates including KDE 3.3.1, Kernel 2.4.27 + 2.6.9 (w/ ACPI), Java security update (1.4.2_06) and more supported graphics cards."

Comments

Link to "New Features"

[krymsin01]

Link to New Features isn't working, getting failed to change directory message

Re:Link to "New Features"

[Anonymous Coward]

FTP mirror overload?

The good thing about Knoppix updates

[Dancin_Santa]

If you need to roll back the latest distro because of some bug, you can just pop the old CD back in the drive.

I use Knoppix on several of my main database servers.

Re:The good thing about Knoppix updates

[nado]

Sounds interesting, I'd like to read more about your setup. Did you put up a web page on the subject?

for more features check out kanotix

[t482]

Here is a nice review.

"Developed by Joerg Schirottke, KANOTIX is a surprisingly powerful distribution that has managed to improve on its famous parent by including new features and adding several interesting tricks."

website

Re:for more features check out kanotix

[schotty]

Wow!

Nice tip! Thanks much. I will be downloading this tonight when I get off from class. I have an ancient Knoppix disc (3.1) that needs to be replaced soon. I figure this may cut the cake!

As for a GNOME fan, there is little that has met my tastes. I always am compelled to the very elegant KDE based ones. Oh well, perhaps I should just make my own :D

Re:for more features check out kanotix

[poofyhairguy82]

As for a GNOME fan, there is little that has met my tastes. I always am compelled to the very elegant KDE based ones. Oh well, perhaps I should just make my own

If you want a good Gnome distro (live CD and hard drive install), you have to try Ubuntu. It comes with plenty of software to do most activities, and any other software you need is easy to apt-get. There is a reason Gnoppix decided to adopt Ubuntu as its live CD.

changing

[Anonymous Coward]

* V3.7-2004-12-08
- Lots and lots of package updates
- Kernel 2.4.27 + 2.6.9 (w/ ACPI)
- KDE update: 3.3.1 from Debian/unstable
- FreeNX 0.2.5 (Fabian Franz)
- Java security update (1.4.2_06)
- added a few graphics cards entries
- added menu entry for SAMBA-browsing
- isdntool-knoppix for text+GUI based ISDN configuration (will replace isdn-config soon)
- removed some docs to keep iso image size down (this took awfully long)

ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/KNOPPIX-CH AN GELOG.txt

Can 3.7 boot from floppy? Install to hard drive?

[bzipitidoo]

3.7 already? I must've missed 3.5 and 3.6. In 3.4 they removed the boot floppy, so I kept 3.3 handy. But 3.3's installation to hard drive didn't work.

With boot from floppy and install to hard drive, can get some use out of those 10 year old Pentium PCs that have Windows 95 (infected, of course) on a 1G hard drive and can't boot CDs. I know, I know, who'd want to bother with such obsolete hardware when $100 buys a crappy new PC that is nevertheless far better.

Re:I find distributions like Knoppix stupid

[sevinkey]

12 minutes? I couldn't get Knoppix to boot as fast as XP, but it was more like 90 seconds on an Athlon 1800+

Re:I find distributions like Knoppix stupid

[�berhund]

Yeah, maybe a troll, but I can see how some might not see the benefits of a versatile boot disk. There are two main general uses: (1) rescue disk, (2) fully functional OS for PCs you don't want to modify (be it a damaged OS, the wrong OS, or something you just don't have a login for).

Handy uses for Knoppix:
-Burning CDs, perhaps as data recovery before wiping a system
-Want to check your webmail, but don't want your friend's/relative's spyware infested PC shoveling your passwords
-Scanning Windows for viruses (great irony)
-Reading and writing NTFS partitions
-Somebody's (your?) PC is just hosed, and you don't have the time to fix it right now.

And you can do crazy stuff with it. Once I set up a security webcam with it, downloaded and compiled "motion", to record only frames where motion was detected, and wrote the images out to an NFS share. All on a Windows PC I didn't have a login for.

All in all, it does pretty well as "the only bootable disk you'll ever need", rather than having separate boot CDs/floppies for Linux grub/lilo repair, virus scanning, etc. And it does lots of things that standard rescue disks can't.

Can't boot from CD? This floppy will let you!

[KWTm]

With boot from floppy and install to hard drive, can get some use out of those 10 year old Pentium PCs that have Windows 95 (infected, of course) on a 1G hard drive and can't boot CDs. I know, I know, who'd want to bother with such obsolete hardware when $100 buys a crappy new PC that is nevertheless far better.

Smart Boot Manager lets you boot itself from floppy (as well as CD-ROM, hard disk, etc.). It then lets you continue the boot process from whatever media you wish. It's perfect for those computers that can't boot from their own CD drive: you boot SmartBtMgr from a floppy, then transfer the boot process to your Knoppix CD. With it, you would no longer need to carry a separate boot floppy for each Knoppix or other bootable CD.

If I recall, the download is a program that generates the correct boot image on your specified medium, whether floppy, CD-R, etc. SmartBtMgr can be set to autoboot (eg. if you know you want to boot from the CD each time) and can protect any boot choices with a password. You could boot from your CD drive (let's say) and then choose which of your 23 bazillion SCSI/USB/SATA drives you want to boot from.

Note that Smart Boot Manager is not a replacement for Linux loaders such as LILO, since it is merely a boot program and not a kernel loader. To combine them, presumably you would install SmartBtMgr on the Master Boot Record of your hard drive, then install LILO on that particular partition that contains Linux, but I haven't tried this before.

You can find Smart Boot Manager here:
http://btmgr.webframe.org/index.php3?body=about.ht ml

Knoppix as a desktop

[Earlybird]

Is there an easy way to make Knoppix -- or some other live CD distribution -- spill the install over into a hard drive?

I would like to have a persistent home directory. I want the configuration to be persistent. I want to be able to install packages, because Knoppix does not cover all I need, but I want the packages managed by APT.

The persistent stuff could easily sit on a network share, although local hard drive would be preferable for latency reasons.

And I don't want to accomplish this using someone's alpha-quality "well, I made these, they seem to work for me" scripts.

Any pointers?

Re:Knoppix as a desktop

[t482]

You can use a hard drive (not ntfs) or usb stick. Check out klik for an easy way to install apps into your user directory(katonix has the client preinstalled). APT-GET doesn't necessarily install into your persistent user dir.

Re:I find distributions like Knoppix stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I find stupid ppl, really stupid :)
nobody force u to use it, stick to XP and dont complain

Bittorrent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another perfect example. First I try the torrent. It sits there for like 90 minutes and transferred nothing during that time. Nice design guys, too many people break it? (I thought BT was suppose to be good when more people use it)

So I pop to one of the mirrors. Downloading at 500 Kbyte/sec. Screw you hippy Bittorrent lovers.

Old pcs

[cbr2702]

10 year old Pentium PCs that have Windows 95 (infected, of course) on a 1G hard drive and can't boot CDs.

For these, Knoppix is not the best tool. Debian would work well though. Knoppix is designed as a demonstration tool and is unbelievably slow on old machines. Debian allows you to cut out the parts of the install you don't need, something completely nessicary when dealing with limited memory and hard-drive space.

Couldn't access the changelog

[samrolken]

Seems like they should make a .torrent out of that while they are at it.

This is a very important distribution

[ShatteredDream]

If anyone I know wants to try out Linux I can just give them the Knoppix CD and tell them that while they can't install this demo, they can install something almost identical to it. Then if they like it you can give them Mandrake, SuSE or God-forbid, Fedora. It's great and Microsoft has nothing on it right now.

why not firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

just read the subject!

Re:I find distributions like Knoppix stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I use knoppix because my wife laptop has windows and I can't change anything in her harddisk.

Installing Knoppix - from CD onto Hard Drive

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided that you have 2 partitions available - an ext3 for / partition at 5 gig or more and a linux-swap partition at 300 - 600 megs. You can run a script from the terminal that will install knoppix/debian linux to the hard drive. This script can partition as well, but you are probably better off duing so manually. To run the script type:

sudo knoppix-installer

There are 3 install options. the beginner option is the best choice IMHO for complete functionality. I just installed knoppix 3.7 onto an old 600 celeron laptop, wihtouth a hitch. It automatically uses my external firewire hard drive and 802.11b networking works with ndiswrapper. good job klaus

Re:Installing Knoppix - from CD onto Hard Drive

[Earlybird]

Thanks, but that would be just like installing, say, Debian. No gains, really.