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Grokking Knoppix
chronicon writes "Knowing Knoppix is a beginner-friendly, 134 page freely downloadable book (released under the GNU Free Documentation License in PDF format) designed to familiarize new users with the Knoppix LiveCD distribution, GNU/Linux in general, and (as listed first on the description) Windows disaster recovery using Knoppix."
It seems quite complete, and it's released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Those are great. But even if it's a "complete beginner's guide", I wish the author had touched a bit on remastering, and the possibility of customizing Knoppix. I know it's not for beginners, but still, if it's explained well, I believe it's accessible to most.
And that is exactly the kind of attitude that drives away users. If this book exists, it might be usefull to someone. If a friend of mine comes to me asking the best way to see linux, I will show them this book, and hopefully turn them away of fedora and into debian (or gentoo) before it is too late. And they do come and ask.
Why would you call this material 'shit'? That's a very closed minded attitude. That says a lot about someone who would narrow down the use of anything to the realm of only TWO possibilities.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
And all the people who know said nerd, or have seen said nerd's screen and been curious; and people on various forums who've heard about linux but don't want to do risky partitioning and such. 90%+ of people who I know who've used knoppix could be considered noobs who'd be interested in this. Your statement reeks of your parent's basement :P
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
You should assume, when posting to a public forum, things are read the way they are written. If you didn't mean to call the book shit, then call it something else. That simple.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
*rewind 10-20 years*
You know, the only people plugging in a [computer] are nerds who #1: already have a considerable working knowledge of [computers] & 2: don't read shit like this.
Now, you might argue whether it was bad or good to let AOL-monkeys out on the net, but books like "Computers for dummies" certainly made it accessible for more people. Introductionary material like this isn't made to supply the market, it is made to create the market.
Let's for arguments sake say your claims are true. Is it then possible that the reason is because there are no books such as these? That this is in fact what is needed in order to change it? Now I know there are other hurdles for a newbie than just that, but it is certainly part of the problem. This is part of the solution.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Insightful? What a joke.
I've never used Linux. After my old desktop stopped functioning (due to RPCSS crashing on startup), I decided that I might switch it over to Linux. It's an NTFS partition and my friend, a Linux zealot, told me that Linux can only read from NTFS, not write. I didn't want to back any of my stuff up or lose any of it, but I had remembered seeing him use Knoppix at school before, so I asked him about it. He didn't have too much info on it, so I checked out the site.
The Knoppix website taught me nothing. The English site's wiki was down when I wanted to learn about it. Had I had this book then, I probably would be using Knoppix right now.
By the way, you're wrong on both counts, troll. I know squat about Linux and I started learning to program by reading VB6, Perl and C++ for Dummies.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
GFDL as this particularity , you whant to add something you do it ...
If you know how to write just make the text addition and send it to the autor with a letter of thanks for his book and a note why you think your text is a good addition to his work.
If you dont but have seen the remastering text somewhere explained in a fantastic simple way , ask the author for a copy and send it to the author of the book.
I think you have a great idea and I encourage you to see this tru.
I am a REAL American from Canada , not a wanna-be from the country , self called "last remaining superpower" "of America
Unlike most people who spout off at this site, I have the certificates to prove this ...
You can't possibly have statistics about Slashdot posters and what certifications they hold.
It's in your head, dude. You fabricated your own pseudo-facts, based on your opinions.
I don't mind if you promote Windows and insult linux. I make my living on Windows, and I don't use linux -- it's all the same to me.
But you'll only get a reputation for bone-headed idiocy, if you keep fabricating "most people" statements.
-kgj
-kgj
Completely false. I happen to be exactly the kind of person this book will be perfect for. I am a scientist, a veteran computer user and programmer, but a complete novice system administrator. That makes a HUGE difference in the set of skills and knowledge I have. I can write C code for data analysis 'til the cows come home, but that doesn't mean I can ever remember the basics about lilo, grub, disk partitioning, dd, fdisk, kernel compiling, package management, driver tweaking, and all that other crap that only comes up with a new linux installation. I am not a linux hobbyist so it's not practical to keep that kind of trivia fresh in my brain, as old hat as it is to many of you. This is why *nix has such a long way to go on the desktop, because even someone with my relative computing sophistication is always freshly intimidated when it comes to "trying out" linux at home.
I agree. The beauty of Knoppix is just handing a disk to a newbie saying "try this". After assuring them that nothing bad will happen to their computer, nothing at all really, they are bound to try. Getting a newbie to install linux and possibly wreck their window install? Much scarier.