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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.
I thought they meant knowing in the biblical sense and I was gonna get some action early this year.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
What would be interesting is a customised knoppix, made for beginners who are trying to learn to use Linux.
;)
I'm thinking of things like tutorials, instructions, etc, all available on startup, so that people who don't know what to do have an easy way to learn.
I guess it goes on my to-do list...along with a graphical front-end to portage, untainting my kernel, and recharging my iPod
However, if you're looking for something that gives you more detail on how to use Knoppix and extend it, you might want to check out the O'Reilly title Knoppix Hacks
---
Blogs celebrate the New Year too :-)
I was using Knoppix on a 333mhz K6-2 for quite a long time, and it was very much usable, and even speedy. Although, to be fair, the machine had 256MB ram.
Of course, I'm not putting down the author, or the book, I simply wish to point out that one shouldn't underestimate the power of older hardware. Knoppix is still a great tool for those who simply cannot afford a more 'modern' machine, and this fact should not be left out.
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.
Exactly, I've rarely heard somoene use knoppix because they wanted to try linux. BTW, please don't reply to the parent post with how you know a newbie who used knoppix to try out linux; every rule has exceptions.
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.
Well... Lets see... First off... There was a time that I had heard of linux, but never used it. And in those days I spent a better part of a month reading about the different distrobutions. I finally settled on setting up Mandrake 7.1, dual booting with my comfortable windows.
I am still no expert with linux, however I'm comfortable enough with it for most tasks. But a book like this may help me learn more about linux in general to go from a basic Luser, to power user.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
Buddy: "My XP is trashed and I can't get any of my files."
Me: "Here's a Knoppix disk. Put it in your CD and hit the reset button. Save the files you need then re-install XP. In the meantime, you can check your files using OpenOffice."
Buddy gets his files back, uses OO, is too lazy to re-install XP, calls me up to get him back on the web. He never ever reads any manual but we have a new linux user.
Most people never read manuals. The beauty of Knoppix is that they don't have to. It usually detects everything beautifully even on 'not-quite-up-to-it' machines.
I, on the other hand, do RTFM but giving a geek a manual is basically preaching to the choir.
If you like Gnome more than KDE you should really try Gnoppix.
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.
Sounds a lot like "Please don't argue against me, I know I'm wrong"
If I were to say I knew *a* newbie who used knoppix I may be proving your point, but in my case I've found that the *majority* of knoppix users are newbies - a majority is rarely the exception side in the rule vs exception debate
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Does this book evaluate the various versions out there? I played with the standard knoppix a bit, and as a new year's present have just started a torrent download of the Games Knoppix. I have never seen such a fast torrent dl
So, what lies ahead for Linux/Knoppix this year? Will it be the year that let the ant finally cross over the elephant's back? Or will it be another slogging inning, cricket as usual?
roblimos book "point and click linux" is what you want then. You get simply mepis on cd, then a dvd with instructions that you can run simultaneously with booting the live cd if you use your normal dvd player hooked to the TV for that part. Just recently got one for my GF, it fits what you are looking for, linux for beginners.
released under the GNU Free Documentation License in PDF format.
Kind of amusing that open source documentation should be released in a proprietary format.
May I ask why you recommend Debian or Gentoo over Fedora? No flame intended, I'm genuinely curious. I've been using Fedora since it was RH7, because it was recommended to me when I was a newbie, but I'm interested in learning about what I've been missing.
SIG: 11
*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
The CD does have a hole...
Mod parent "Score:-1, Cracksmoker"
:^) )
Dude, are you for real? I mean really, who brags about having certificates from the "largest software company in the world"?
Quantity does not infer quality.
I can honestly say that the astounding number of vulnerabilities in Windows pays my house payment, car payment and for all my toys. There is no shortage of work when it comes to compensating for or trying to repair the damage done by the software from "the largest software company in the world."
Long live Microsoft! (.....at least until I have enough money to retire comfortably.
-Scott
I'm not sure what dork modded this insightful.
I've got my 14 year old baby brother using linux with knoppix (zero linux experience) and I've also given it to an MCSE friend of mine who, like any MCSE, knows jackshit about proper computing and now is TRULY learning.
Yes, anonymous dork, knoppix is often used to familiarise new users.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
FYI:
3
The last time I used the official Knoppix 3.6 for windows recovery, captive-ntfs, which enables linux to use the native ntfs drivers on the windows system for rock solid reliability, was broken. Although reading is possible, you should never write to an ntfs volume without captive-ntfs.
fix: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6025
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'.
Must be a quick start guide.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I, on the other hand, do RTFM but giving a geek a manual is basically sending Jesus to sunday school.
It's tragic. Laugh.
I have handed out several Knoppix discs to people with Windows problems. The results have been mixed but one guy will run Knoppix until he buys his next computer with Windows bundled.
If all you want to do is check your email once a week you don't want to be bothered. You want the computer to be an appliance. You don't care if it's Windows or Linux. You just want it to work.
Strangely, the guy who turned me on to Knoppix is a die-hard gamer with a machine that is greater than the sum of all my boxen put together. He runs XP.
It boots, asks me to select a video mode or press space. I pressed space, it boots the kernel, scans for USB, enables DMA acceleration, then just sits at the next step:
Looking for CDROM in: /dev/scd0
Since it is booting from the CDROM, what can be wrong? How do I proceed?
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
Why no just respond to his critique? Also-- attitude: a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways. Your observation is part of your beliefs and feelings that you hold, and as such part of your attitude towards this issue. Whether or not it drives sers away, I don't know, but if you are seeking to covince anyone of, well, anything, there are beter ways.
Glad to see it talks about the current 3.3 version of Knoppix
rewriting history since 2109
No, 828Mb is correct. 128 for Knoppix to run in, and 700 to load the CD into RAM for faster access.
That was a Robert Heinlen classic.
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
Ubuntu is another Gnome-centric distribution with a live CD. It also comes with an installer disk, so if you like what you see with the live CD you can install from the installer CD.
Yes, I know Knoppix and Gnoppix have installer scripts, but this is a real installer. And it's quite easy to run...in the territory of Mandrake and Fedora.
Free pressed CDs can be had for the asking. This is a good thing, because some old machines have CD-ROMs that don't read CD-Rs so well.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Something similar happened to a friend of mine.
The copy WinXP on his machine decided to lose the ability to boot up properly. It would show the XP screen....and right before it would go to the login screen, it would reset itself.
Okaayyy. Well, he stuck XP on another drive to try to recover his data. XP on the second drive could see the first drive, read any of the data, except for -his- data, because his data was in "My Documents", which apparently windows will only read if it is the copy of windows it was created with.
So, can't get to his data, now what?
I pulled out my trusty knoppix cd, popped it in, and we were able to recover his data.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to get him completely away from windows. He still uses it for games, and linux for everything else. He also acts pissed when windows is mentioned. It's a start.
...
Come to think of it, this sort of thing is what got me into FreeBSD. The machine I was using was running WinNT back in the day. It died one night to a virus or it ate itself or something.
My dad was pissed, and the computer went to his work to get fixed and I didn't have a computer for 6 months.
Needless to say, that burned me pretty bad, and a switch away from windows was an easy thing to do.
I would also recommend something other than Fedora to somebody (new). Maybe not Gentoo or Debian (because they both involve the scary/evil command line, and are hard to install), but probably Ubuntu (okay, it's Debian based, but much easier). Fedora is a big bloat. It's got too much availible in the installer, and it's sluggish when the system is up and running. Why do you need four CDs for a system? It's a waste of space, particularly if you have internet access to grab what little is missing. It's not a high end server with lots of daemons running on it, it's a desktop... keep it light!
Ubuntu by contrast has only one CD. It's got a good base system, with an office suite, web browser, email client, movie player, music player, etc. and most of the common software types used. I download one 510MB ISO, plus about 70MB of extra stuff (MP3 support, Windows codecs, NVidia drivers, wlan drivers...) that's not on the CD, plus updates. Fedora I download 2 GB of CD images, plus about 70MB of extra stuff, plus updates.
Some CD image sizes, as a comparison:
Debian netinst (debian-installer rc2 sarge): 110MB.
Windows 2000 Professional w/ SP3: 375MB.
Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty): 510MB.
Windows XP Home w/ SP2: 540MB.
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2: 580 - 640MB.
Knoppix 3.6: 700MB.
Fedora Core 2: 2110MB!
All stated sizes acquired from local sources or P2P networks, rounded off to the nearest 5MB. I'm aware that a complete Debian (sarge) set is 12 CDs, but not many people use it as an installation method.
Probably the other reason is the more personal hate of rpm and yum.
SSdtIGFzIGJvcmVkIGFzIHlvdSBhcmUK
Actually, knoppix is what I used to start familiarizing myself with Linux - and also my first taste of how much a pain in the ass it can be! Knoppix didn't support nforce2 based motherboards by default, and at the time there wasn't a publically available customization containing what I needed. So of course I had to go through the motions of looking up a solution, compiling, etc. It wasn't so bad, but it showed me that with Linux, don't expect something that should be seemingly easy to be. I still use knoppix, but until I get used to Linux, it'll be Live CD's and Windows on my main computer. A book such as this would have helped me a bit, although I would have used it only as a reference for things I couldn't figure out. Most people don't even look at the manual when using or installing things, unless they run into problems. So why would anybody expect a person to willingly read a book in order to familirize themselves, when we can't even get them to read a manual for more common things?
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.
Using OpenOffice is admirable, but for a 134 page document? I stay away from office suites for documents longer than a handful of pages...
They never heard of LaTeX? :)
May you be spat upon by a camel.
I always thought that line was, "If you like Gnome more than KDE you should really try therapy".
cLive ;-)
(it's a joke dammit. "Some of best friends are Gnome users and they're lovely people." :).
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
In order to reduce the slashdot effect on the author's server please consider downloading via coral links or via p2p networks like edonkey/gnutella.t :8090/knowing-knoppix/pdf/knowing-knoppix.pdf/ Main Contentt :8090/knowing-knoppix/pdf/cover.pdf/ t :8090/knowing-knoppix/pdf/back.pdf/
n knowing-knoppixpdf Main content via gnutella network.2 7aef6b60e65b231cecdb140c7C Main content via edonkey network.
Here are the coralized links
http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.nyud.ne
http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.nyud.ne
http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.nyud.ne
The source of the book cannot be coralized as it is more then 4MB.
Basically the above URL's are coralized.That means that the content is cached to a nearby location.You can read more about coral's at http://www.scs.cs.nyu.edu/coral/overview//
Here are the edonkey/magnet links to download via p2p networks
magnet:xturnsha1LNDDBUSI3H5ECNTIUP5RLSEX5GMLV44Ed
ed2k:7Cfile7Cknowing-knoppixpdf7C40002537C349dd9c
while(true) { IQ = sqrt(IQ); }
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.
Have you actually installed Debian lately? You do know that Ubuntu uses the exact same installer, don't you? Sure, you have to choose what packages you want when you install Debian, but there are sane, self-explanatory categories set up for you. The most hairy bit is the partitioning screen, and wait for it Ubuntu's is identical. "No hand-holding for you!"
On every other count I agree with you. Fedora is the tool of Satan, etc.
</defensive-of-Debian-mode>
.... in my experience, girls + gifts makes the odds a lot better than girls + 0 gifts, YMMV though...
and no, it's not all I got her for the holidays...
"because his data was in "My Documents", which apparently windows will only read if it is the copy of windows it was created with.
So, can't get to his data, now what?" Well, now you learn how to use NFTS file permissions and click that really complicated couple of tabs and buttons that take ownership of all the files, giving you full access to them.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
... fabricating "most people" statements ... can get you an +5:insightful
...?
....
People get modded up for all kinds of bone-headed idiocy.
I myself have posted sarcastic comments (Karma-whoring for Funny, with a twist of Flamebait and Troll) and gotten modded up +Insightful and +Interesting. Result, I felt cheated -- I didn't deserve +Insightful, what idiot would call my sarcasm "Insightful"
With mod points as with everything else in life, I guess there's no accounting for taste
-kgj
-kgj
Can you tell me where I can find the Linux 7.0 webserver? Got any links?
Since you know soooo much about the LinuxOS I figured you would know.
Or, if you want to experience Debian/Ubuntu -- heck, make that Linux in general -- without the hassle, just download the BeatrIX ISO, burn it, and boot.
"Small, simple, elegant." They mean it.
Sounds like a fairly common problem. Although MS doesn't acknowledge it, there is a serious flaw in their ability to handle corrupt NTFS volumes (0x00000024 blue screen). If you go to their troubleshooting guide, they say to fix a corrupt NTFS.sys file use the "repair" tool on the Windows XP boot CD. What they obviously don't realize is that the stupid repair CD will try to access the drive before it starts to "repair" anything . . . so you get another blue screen.
Enter Knoppix.
Pop in the CD
>su
>ntfsfix
Maybe you have to mount the drive too, and you're done. And in case you don't trust it, you can mount the drive and save all your files to a networked computer before you try the fix. Honestly, how hard is it for MS to make a boot CD that ONLY boots from the CD?!
-- sometimes AND gates turn me on.
Jesus Christ man don't you know when you've been trolled? I mean when the original poster is making coments like:
"Unlike most people who spout off at this site, I have the certificates to prove this, and furthermore they're issued by the biggest software company in existence."
and
"Who do you think we professionals trust more? Reliable companies with tried and tested products, or that bedroom coder Thorwaldes who publicly admits that he is in fact A HACKER???"
it is pretty obvious that it is a troll. Or maybe it is me who has been trolled because I was stupid enough to respond to your post?
I'm conflicted about this book. It covers a lot of things which are important for first-time Linux users: "This is KDE", "This is what a superuser is", "Everything is a file". Each chapter has FAQ-type troubleshooting questions that may or may not be helpful to people throwing their hands up in despair about Knoppix. However, I'm a little leery that they put boot time options before use of KDE (advanced topic before beginner's stuff). In general, I think the book bounces back and forth between good "So You Want To Be A Linux Consultant" material, like the stuff about hda, fd0, boot process, init, and so on, and good "Grandpa Computer User" material, like the stuff about KDE ("click on things to start them", "you can lasso many things at once"). This makes it difficult for either group to use. Also, despite the article summary, I don't see anything in this book about Windows disaster recovery.
Ethan
I just read it through and it was simple and empowering for an (almost complete) linux and knoppix newb. I'd like to check it out as part of a repair/recovery toolbox. Anyone have a good link?
There's no mention in this of klik which allows you to simply download and run other software with knoppix (and other systems). Klik even gave everyone a christmas present of a 100M download of openoffice2 (well 1.9.65 or something similar) which allows you to try it simply and without installing, no need to upgrade your system and risk impacting anything else.
A second quick point is that it doesn't seem to provide useful information on encrypted DVDs. It is quite easy to download and extract libdvdcss2 and run xine so it can find the extracted libraries (LD_LIBRARY_PATH) so with a 27k download you can watch any DVDs you like with the existing xine.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
because his data was in "My Documents", which apparently windows will only read if it is the copy of windows it was created with. So, can't get to his data, now what?
Unless he was using some wierd assed encryption on his My Documents folder, I call bullshit.
Copyright (c) 2004 Mike Bouma, MCSE, MCDST, MS Office Specialist, widely respected Amigan, Amiga community representative Let's do a Google Search on this guy, eh? Dude, can I buy a house in LA? Please... ?
When I had an Amiga you were a widely known raving lunatic, and to be ignored/avoided at all costs.
Doesn't look like much has changed.
[FUCK BETA]
Look, the guy fixing things doesn't use MSWind. I don't use MSWind. The guy whose computer it was didn't know how to access the files (he was obviously no guru).
That this wouldn't cause YOU any trouble doesn't mean that I want to bother learning MSWind. On Linux or Netscape I would fiddle with file permissions and see if that solved it. On MSWind I won't bother to figure that out. I'll use a Linux solution. Or a Mac solution (not likely...wrong processor). But I've READ the MSWind EULA, and since then I won't work with them except under duress. And I definitely won't do anything that might mean I'd need to agree to that EULA. I've READ the bloody thing.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Mom! Dad's drunk and posting on slashdot again!
If you're saying that you don't have time to learn the basics of the operating system you're running because you're too smart, educated and busy, I'd suggest you read a primer or have a friend show you the basics. Hardly much of an investment.
On the other hand, if you do understand the basics, but can't be bothered trying to learn all the commmands available to you or remember their respective options, well, let me introduce to the "man" and "apropos" commands.
Next excuse?
$1.79 per peak request per second.
Is that before or after sales tax?
A bullshit excuse was given for why they couldn't simply copy stuff over and someone called it. Suck it up and quit your whining.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
saw this on a linux magazine just the other day.
yet another knoppix related distro named
Kanotix. Supposedly to be based on Debian unstable with more updated packages and more frequent releases.
the packages are supposed to be compiled optimized for the i586 architecture, so the distro wouldnt be suitable for lower-end systems.
screenshots here
current release highlights:
Kernel 2.6.9 with many patches incl. suspend2
ACPI and DMA enabled by default (can be disabled with acpi=off respectively nodma)
i586 optimization - not for use with older CPUs!
128 MB RAM required, 256 MB RAM recommended
AVM Fritz!Card DSL support
Eagle USB DSL support
KDE 3.3.1
OpenOffice 1.1.2
Captive 1.1.5
ALSA 1.0.6a
GRUB boot loader for CD start - ideal for rescue in command line mode
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool in the extra menu of the boot loader
my blog
Quantity does not infer quality.
Don't you know that the speaker implies; it's the listener who infers?
(Props to Dave Sim.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It seems like the guy had the right idea here, and the writing seems top notch (it's written in just the tone I would try to use to explain Linux to someone) but it seems like the organization could be a bit better. My Aunt and Uncle have constant problems with their PC due to viruses, worms, or just plain windows shitting all over itself. They've recently expressed some interest in Linux, and I've been thinking about burning them off a copy of knoppix so they could try it, and if they like it then go ahead and install Linux on their computer.
This guide looks like it might be a nice reference to go along with my instruction, but the problem is the layout. Althought the layout is resonable to a technically minded person, it seems that it might be better off putting more of the in-depth information in sidebars or something.
The boot up section started off quite well, but I think that it wasn't nessesary to go into detail about the bootup process.
Maybe he should take the first few paragraphs of each section and use them to make a basic walkthrough (you know, like those 4 step walkthroughs with pictures that come with routers) and have the current paper be a more "in-depth" look. Sadly, as it stands, as soon as people see "SCSI" or "IDE" or "PCMCIA" they'll go into idiot mode and fail to grok the rest of the paper, and resort to throwing feces at the monitor (I swear this must be how some people try to use their computers).
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I'd suggest you read a primer or have a friend show you the basics.
Not everybody has that friend. That's who this book is aimed at.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
You obviously weren't there.
It wasn't up to me to think of that. ;P For the most part, I was only around when he first got the problem, and midway through him trying to fix it with a second copy of XP.
After a few hours of him trying to pound on it, and my non-windows using self not having any idea either, I got my knoppix disk and that solved that, even if it wasn't the "right" way.
I...hope one of the things he tried was to take ownership. (I seem to remember that existing in WinNT at least, but I don't think I thought of it). Might he have been so frustrated and pissed off at Windows' sudden erratic non-booting behavior that it might have slipped his mind? I don't know.
Wow, I always wanted to submit a story to Slashdot. Now, here I am *in* a Slashdot story. More than I ever wanted! It certainly had an amazing effect. In two days, an extraordinary 25,327 visitors downloaded, or attempted to download, the PDF. Thank you, all those who took the trouble to post comments. In a few days there will be a new version, dated 2005-something, that will take the comments into account.
:-(
> "The only people plugging in a knoppix cd are nerds who #1: already have a considerable working
> knowledge of linux & 2: don't read...this."
Yes, I know, that's pretty true. But everyone has to start somewhere. I hope at least some people might find it useful.
> "[if it doesn't work]... you've lied to them saying it was plain and simple... he never says anything
> like "and if THIS doesn't happen, THEN do.."
Guilty! I have changed certain sections about reading the hard disk accordingly. I have already made some attempts in the "Quick help" sections to address some of the errors I have encountered and mistakes I have made while using Knoppix myself.
"Kind of amusing that open source documentation should be released in a proprietary format."
Yes. I plead guilty again. But it is at least an open source format that is built into OpenOffice.org, and GNU Ghostscript, both of which are GPL.
>"Using OpenOffice... for a 134 page document? I stay away from office suites for documents
> longer than a handful of pages... They never heard of LaTeX [latex-project.org]?"
Indeed. Using OpenOffice.org for a 100+ page document is getting kinda horrible... I tried LaTeX but I never figured out how to get the kind of presentation control that I wanted.
> "I think the book bounces back and forth between good "So You Want To Be A Linux
> Consultant" material, like the stuff about hda, fd0, boot process, init, and so on, and
> good "Grandpa Computer User" material, like the stuff about KDE ("click on things
> to start them", "you can lasso many things at once"). This makes it difficult for either
> group to use."
That is an excellent comment. See here the power of peer review. I could never have thought of that myself, yet it seems so obvious now it's been pointed out to me. I have moved the material about "device names" and "user accounts" almost to the back of the book.
> "wasn't necessary to go into detail about the bootup process... as soon as people see "SCSI" or
> IDE" or "PCMCIA" they'll go into idiot mode and fail to grok the rest of the paper, and
> resort to throwing feces at the monitor"
Good point. I have taken out the detailed description of the startup process. I have replaced it with an one-line explanation and a few examples of how long the auto-detection process takes (between 40 seconds and 2 minutes depending on the speed of the machine).
I used RedHat from 7.2 up until 9. It is a mess, if you will only use the default install it behaves nicely, but when you start adding stuff you loose control fast. I had a VAIO notebook at that time, and gentoo was faster and easier to manage. Fedora is worse than RedHat in the sense that they don't have support from RedHat anymore (that you probably know), and you loose the polished and finished distribution you used to have. If you try debian or gentoo you will never look back. Once you started deploying packages with emerge you will be instantly in love.
What has Knoppix brought into my life as a linux user? More questions from new users. And new users always seem to start with Knoppix, only later to give up on Linux.
I'm glad to see Linux growing in popularity, but the first thing I tell friends when they ask me a question about a problem with his/her knoppix install is, "Install slackware or a full install of a linux distro." The theory behind Knoppix and cd installs is little effort and less dedication. It's a low risk to throw a cd in and walla have linux running without having to destroy data or take the extra measure of partitioning a disk.
My new answer to a friends question will be, "check out this new book, it answers everything." If they show the dedication to read it, I will proudly look into helping more. It just too bad that some won't take the time to do so, but only linger around asking for help from others. I love the linux motto of just sending people links to a wiki to solve their problems.
When I first entered the linux world I hated being sent from wiki to wiki, I felt like a peon and people were treating me like one, but the entire tribulation of sending me here and there really encouraged me to keep going. It's an addicting travel. Let's treat this book as a beginners step to beginning. Please stop the non-sense of beginner Knoppix users!! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!!