Knoppix 3.8 at CeBIT w/ Kernel 2.6, FF, and More

clsc writes "The German tech news site Heise Online reports that Knoppix 3.8 is being presented at CeBIT (Hall 9, Stand C39). Knoppix 3.8 has kernel 2.6 as default, KDE 3.3.2, OpenOffice 1.1.4, as well as... Firefox 1.0 and Thunderbird 1.0. There's also a really neato new thing involving unionfs . It seems to imply that you can change most anything on the running system, even as it is running from CD - and changes can be stored too (even on NTFS)."

Comments

cool

[xbmodder]

Nothing to see here... Only the best linux boot CD ever Knoppix has saved me thousands. They should win the Nobel Prize or something.

write to its own disk?

[qewl]

Could the OS when running from CD also possibly be able to write to itself also, so long as it was a RW disk?

Re:write to its own disk?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Or maybe with multi-session CDs, assuming that there is enough room on the CD? Programs could be loaded with the changes you have made, say, to config files... Doesn't seem impossible, and probably more reliable than a CD-RW...

Re:write to its own disk?

[clsc]

I understand this to be the exact case. From TFA:

Damit lassen sich im laufenden System sämtliche Dateien verändern; selbst das Nachinstallieren von Software in das CD-Linux ist problemlos möglich.

"With this all data on the running system can be changed; even post-install of software on the linux CD is possible without problems"

(no, i don't know exactly what the term "post-install" ("Nachinstallieren") means but i guess it's just any install of software that is not already on the disk)

Re:write to its own disk?

[tktk]

I just thought about this very question a few days ago. I had just started to play around with mini distributions, i.e. DSL, BeatrIX. They're supposed to be burnt onto 3" discs or those business card discs. But all I had were regular sized 700mb dics. And I wondered if I could somehow burn config files or newly installed program onto the unused space.

I'm not a programmer so I don't know if it's truly feasible. And frankly I didn't think any more of it. But if a Live CD could burn new info onto itself, I think it'd be a huge step forward for Live CD distros.

Or better yet, burn a Live CD distro, like Knoppix, onto a DVD and use the remain GBs as storage space.

In any case, I suspect it would take huge amount of ram.

Re:write to its own disk?

[clsc]

Error: "Dateien" means "files" not "data". I apologize even though it doesn't change the conclusion.

Re:write to its own disk?

[ctr2sprt]

It could probably be done. You'd need to layer something like FreeBSD's unionfs on top of the running system and back it by memory. When the memory disk gets near full, or the user requests it, it could then be turned into a session and burned to disk, at which point the MD would be emptied and readied for more changes. However this would require remounting the filesystem so the kernel notices the changes you just made, or altering the kernel so it's done automatically. This would be cake for /var or /usr or whatever, harder for /. Remember the days of e2fs when after fsck did something it would say "REBOOT LINUX"? Making changes to a "read-only" filesystem can cause kernel panics.

The easier way of doing it would be with a more robust filesystem like UDF. (Although Linux does support e[23]fs etc. on CDs, you probably can't boot from it.) With enough driver support the CD drive would become just another block device, eliminating the need for hacks like the above. This was, in fact, the case with my SCSI DVD-RAM drive. I just ran mke2fs on it and treated it like a (slow) hard disk. I could even fdisk it.

Note that by allowing this sort of thing you lose some of the benefits of a read-only live CD, in particular its immunity to viruses and such. You'd have to be sure to use CD-R discs, or use the live CD only in a CD-ROM (and not a CD-R or CD-RW) drive.

Re:write to its own disk?

[bombshelter13]

Hey, look... in the third line of the article it says that the new disc we're discussing is using unionfs. How convenient.

Re:write to its own disk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Flash is cheap.

And really, unless you're dealing with old PCs that don't have USB, why not just stick the entire distro on a USB flash drive?

Re:write to its own disk?

[Frogbert]

I considered this when I first started playing around with Mt Rainer drives. Essentially a Mt Rainer formatted cdrw allows for it to be used as normal removable storage. The linux kernel has support for it however I don't think it would be that practical, with that said I now have no doubt that soon some geek smarter then I will get around to doing it.

Re:write to its own disk?

[Apro im]

Lots of PCs w/ USB won't boot from it.

Re:write to its own disk?

[FlashBuster3000]

lol, oh no, you're all on the wrong way.
In the german article it says:
Through unionfs it is possible to change every file on the knoppix-system. But this doesnt mean the cd,
unionfs just takes care of this, and if you, let's say, change ~/.xinitrx, it copies this file to the harddisk, which can be on NTFS (but this is called unstable..).
And through that you theoretically can change the whole knoppix, install software, whatever you like, because your changes are on the harddrive.

Hope, this helped you.

Re:write to its own disk?

[Anonymous Coward]

You think it was a coincidence that I mentioned how unionfs could be used in conjunction with multisession discs to achieve a quasi-writeable filesystem on CD?

Give me a little credit, please.

Re:write to its own disk?

[Short Circuit]

IIRC, multisession CDs automatically handle what unionfs does. Each new session is essentially a diff between the previous session and the current state. (Not a binary diff, though. Modified files are typically re-added whole.)

Knoppix is really good

[Dancin_Santa]

I like to take it with me to the computer store to try out on the various laptops I am considering buying. If Knoppix doesn't have any trouble with the device drivers, I feel comfortable buying the laptop. If it runs into some issues, I can scratch that laptop off my list. And since it doesn't have any longterm effect on the existing OS, it can be loaded on with impunity.

That's how I decided which fileservers to buy to run my distribution center.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[carrett]

yeah. it's also great for people who are new to linux and unsure if they actually want to install it on their machine. i tell all my n00b friends that if knoppix works fine on their box, then, theoretically when they install a distro on their harddisk it should work as well (especially if it is debian-based).

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how I decided which fileservers to buy to run my distribution center.

HAHAHAHAHA! You sir are a genious!

Re:Knoppix is really good

[zarkzervo]

I like to take it with me to the computer store to try out on the various laptops I am considering buying.

"Sir!. I want you to leave the store. Or else I'll have to call the police. Your |\/|4D h4x0R 5k1Lz have no place here."

But seriously. I believe you have to be prepared to use about 30 minutes to explain to the clerk what you are trying to do. Too many have not heard about Linux (and even fewer have heard about Knoppix) and think you are damaging the setup of the computers.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Pantero Blanco]

Hm...I should bring one of my LiveCDs into the computer lab here as an experiment. Then again, considering one guy ended up with police on his doorstep because his use of lynx scared a librarian...

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Mad Merlin]

You could always offer to buy the computer outright if it doesn't go back to the way it was before you got there after you have a look at it with Knoppix (which it of course it will). The sales clerk may think they have an easy sale on their hands.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Order of the Penguin]

If it runs into some issues, I can scratch that laptop off my list

That probably doesn't test features like Intel's SpeedStep, or energy saving features like turning off the display, spinning down harddisks, et cetera.

It also doesn't pick up problems like Dell laptops which get way too hot which usually show up after using the laptop for a length of time.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Tomcat666]

My current laptop (HP/Compaq NX9030) doesn't run any kernel of the current Knoppix version well - driver modprobing crashes, one of them gets the laptop to just hang, the other one won't start X automatically and most stuff doesn't seem to work right. I haven't tried out the many boot options, but that also implies that it doesn't work that well.

However, the main OS on that laptop is Ubuntu Warty. I've never had a single problem concerning the hardware, everything works like a charm since the installation, the current Hoary LiveCD runs perfectly.

I agree to using Knoppix to test a laptop at the store, because if it works well it'll be a great Linux machine - but you might miss out on a few deals.

I guess the conclusion is: Try the LiveCD of the distro you want to install. If you want to install Ubuntu later, don't try Knoppix on the machine, it might make a difference.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[ettlz]

If they won't let you try a Linux bootable CD, then don't bother with them. They can't be a very good store. I bought my notebook at a department store whose staff were more than willing for me to go through display machines seeing which ones booted the Red Hat 9 installer. They made me feel like they wanted me to spend money there.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Anonymous Coward]

so... you use laptops as fileservers??

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring a MEPIS CD too, if NDISwrapper is of interest for wlan drivers.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Wodin]

--
Attention Slashdotters: There is no 'a' in 'definitely'.

While you're at it, there is no "e" in "than".

Oh, and there's an apostrophe and an "e" in "you're". :)

Re:Knoppix is really good

[djdavetrouble]

I should bring one of my LiveCDs into the computer lab here as an experiment. Then again, considering one guy ended up with police on his doorstep because his use of lynx scared a librarian

Try booting up with Knoppix STD and see what kind of reception you get.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Anonymous Coward]

And while we are at it, "loser" is spelled with one "o", not two. As in: "That loser couldn't find the time to learn some social skills, he was too busy with his computer." "Looser" is how nerds should start acting in public.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[sconeu]

im definately sure that your more wrong then me, you looser. lol suxx04z

-- DISCLAIMER, In actuality, I find bad spelling and grammar to be quite annoying. Thank you.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[ettlz]

lol suxx04z

4tt3n5hun d00dz: t3hr3'z n0 4 in suxx0r.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Axeus]

And....I've had numerous problems with hardware detection and configuration with Ubuntu, and none with Knoppix.

So, your advice may be correct, but it works both ways.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[toddestan]

I have a crappy Toshiba laptop that locks hard when Knoppix probes it for SCSI devices. Mandrake installs without a hitch, and Mepis boots up just fine, though it doesn't know what to do with the integrated graphics so I get lovely 640x480 resolution off the Live CD.

So just because a laptop can boot easily Knoppix doesn't mean it will easily boot your other favorite distro, and vice-versa.

Re:Knoppix is really good

[Anonymous Coward]

That's interesting - I have an NX9010 running Libranet and it boots Knoppix perfectly (mind you, doesn't like the latest firewire drivers).

JB

but the real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if they wrote a virus for KDE, would they call it "The Klap?"

Re:but the real question is...

[qewl]

... if they wrote a virus for KDE, would they call it "The Klap?"

Or alternatively Gnomorrea?


... FluxPox maybe?

Re:but the real question is...

[whitespacedout]

If it spread outlook-style, you might call it sylpheelis.

Re:but the real question is...

[Sylver Dragon]

If it spreads through Thunderbird it could be:
The Avian Flu?

Re:but the real question is...

[Mishura]

Or if you use Blackbox WM, could it be:
The BLACK plague???!?!?!!one!11

Re:but the real question is...

[SoSueMe]

Then why, when it runs in Windows(TM), do we call it "Normal"?

Reiser4?

[d1v1d3byz3r0]

Any word on when Knoppix will support this lovely fs natively?

Re:Reiser4?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed it this weekend using Reiser,after the ext3 filesystem totally croaked. Not sure which version it was, but it was Knop 3.7

Re:Reiser4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should it?
O.K. I forgot, anyone using Reiser4 will need a Recovery-CD five to six times a month.

Re:Reiser4?

[d1v1d3byz3r0]

If you're not sure, it was probably Reiser 3.x. Reiser4 is a complete overhaul of the FS.

Re:Reiser4?

[codergeek42]

Perhaps once it's not completely broken on everything that's not bog-standard x86 and when it's included and tested in the vanilla kernel tree?

Mod this offtopic, but...

[Ziwcam]

You're aware you can't give mod points in a forum you've posted in, right?

Re:Mod this offtopic, but...

[HeliumHigh]

Ya... but not in a new one! So who wants that +5 insightful?

Knoppix has come full circle

[Gopal.V]

Back when knoppix came out - it was a curiousity. Mainly because most systems needed hours of configurations to get it working "the way I want it". Small things like hooking up a "fetchmail" before "postfix flush" or putting both into the if-up scripts. Morphix was the first step towards that (eg if you want to browse securely from a cyber-cafe - without any keyloggers peeking).

Now with lots of machines with 512 Mb and greater RAM, a LiveCD doesn't sound that bad. This unionfs thing clinches it - but the catch is still that if you change your machine, all this is lost. All that said, LiveCDs are here to stay (I think LiveDVDs might be just around the corner ..)

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[rokzy]

LiveDVDs are here, at least from SUSE

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[Mad Merlin]

There have been several Knoppix DVDs already, special versions of 3.5 and 3.6 at least, although they were only given away at various tech shows in the past. Now that they're using BitTorrent to distribute as well as regular mirrors, I don't see any reason they don't have wider distribution of the DVD version. Perhaps ~2 gigs of software is enough and they don't want to fragment development between the CD and DVD version, I wouldn't say that DVD burners are commonplace just yet.

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[emanuelez]

Knoppix already has some more or less famous LiveDVD versions! Time to have LaTeX back on Knoppix! :D

Just my two (€)cents

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that a LiveCD won't stop hardware keyloggers, of course...

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[peterpi]

"if you want to browse securely from a cyber-cafe - without any keyloggers peeking"

Saw this little beauty in thinkgeek the other day:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5a05/i mages/750/

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[bombshelter13]

Most hardware keyloggers can be easily disabled by reaching behind the case and unplugging the damn thing. Yes, there are some that reside within the casing of the keyboard, but if you've got people who're that desperate for your personal information after you, you probably have bigger problems to worry about.

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that slashdot/thinkgeek, who are the first to ravenously slaver at the mouth regarding the gpl and privacy violations, sell computer snooping devices that have no purpose other than information theft.

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[quake74]

I don't know if that was a joke or not, but if you need LaTeX ona a LiveDVD you can use Quantian. I just downloaded the 0.6.9.3 (or try an older version for a LiveCD) and it' quite impressive. It also has AucTeX for Emacs and a bunch of other math packages I don't really use.

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[sewagemaster]

perhaps with the more DVD space, packages/software need not to be in their compressed forms as they were on the CD. instead of unpacking them as needed for execution, maybe having them uncompressed in the dvd would save the overhead - especially on older machines...

on a pII and early pIIIs knoppix does seem to crawl quite a bit...

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[peterpi]

Yeah, they're a bit dodgy to say the least. You've got to love the half-assed excuse though ;)

"Monitor unauthorized access to your computer or your network. Use it to troubleshoot or make fixes by tracing back through a users command sequence."

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[base3]

I always check the machines I use for two reasons:

• to protect the information to which I have access
• and to maybe get a free keylogger with which to play :)

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[Mishura]

Yes. This is one thing MandrakeMove or whatever it was called did.

But yeah, Knoppix, Mepis, Ubuntu--I'm sure they all do this.

Very handy, its like a portable computer without the computer--just make sure you have a x86 terminal with a USB port and enough memory to run the LiveCD. As soon as I can afford a USB keychain thingy, I may try this. I can see potential for this. (Wish I had this in school.)

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[SoSueMe]

Actually, they're here.

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[The Conductor]

Can't remember the soure, but because cd read rates are slow and microprocessors are fast, you wouldn't want to leave the data uncompressed. Early attempts at live cd's, before the cloop device was introduced, were too slow to be practical.

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[The Conductor]

As soon as I can afford a USB keychain thingy
You haven't been checking the prices lately. Skip a few lunches times and get 64 MB for under $15. Or schmooze around a trade show; they are cheap enough now for marketing freebies (preloaded with marketing literature, of course).

Re:Knoppix has come full circle

[emanuelez]

Yeah... Quantian is good when it comes to science. I also found Eduknoppix very useful!

Re:Might just be me..

[Anonymous Coward]

versions up to 3.7 are here, but the 3.8 isn't available yet.

Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

Plan 9 from Lucent, the would-be successor to UNIX, has been built to support this sort of thing from the ground up.

It's a shame that novel OS's like Plan 9 are largely ignored, only for some of their features to be introduced later into mainstream OS's as "new" ideas.

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[Mad Merlin]

Would you prefer to see these good ideas merely ignored also?

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[idlake]

Plan 9 has a lot of good ideas in it, and I hope that many more of them make it into Linux.

However, unionfs did not originate with Plan 9--other UNIX systems have had it, too. I don't think it even came from Bell Labs.

It's a shame that novel OS's like Plan 9 are largely ignored, only for some of their features to be introduced later into mainstream OS's as "new" ideas.

Plan 9 was/is a research system; that's it's function in life. As long as the developers of other systems don't falsely claim that they invented it, and as long as they reference the inventors in publications, it's OK. Some large computer manufacturers are not quite honest about this sort of thing, though, and claim that they are constantly "innovating" when in reality, they are just copying.

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[JoshG]

According to the mount_unionfs manpage in FreeBSD and OpenBSD this same functionality was introduced by March 27, 1994...

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mount_uni onfs&sektion=8&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-RELEA SE+and+Ports/

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[c0l0]

The problem with Plan 9 FOR ME has been a specific term in its licence I'm somewhat unable to find in there today... However, it went something like this:

"I will not be using Plan 9 in the creation of weapons of mass destruction to be used by any country other than the US."

I know there are plenty of those weapons existant in the USA and in far too many other countries in the world, but it's just ridiculous to lock out all nations from developing new, maybe even more powerful ones, and not including the United States into this as well, as they imo proved to me the most creative ones in that matter.

It'd be perfectly pleasant for me if it were just generally prohibited to involve Plan9-powered machines in endeavours to get billions killed, but this way, I'm just not interested at all.

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the Amiga had a similar feature in 1984....

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[gl4ss]

which feature are you even talking about?

how about if they make plan 9 a bit something more than a playground for novel ideas? so that people would use it - and know it's features, so that when they wouldn't have to reinvent them.

Re:Plan 9 has had this feature for a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

obligitory Waterboy quote:

Dennis Ritchie didn't write Faces, I wrote Faces. Dennis Ritchie is the devil.

3.6 - 3.7 - 3.8

[MrEcho.net]

Well I hope this ver doesnt crap out like the 3.6 ver did on my laptop. But the 3.6 ver worked at my school as per the 3.7 doesnt. Weird networking issue.

Re:3.6 - 3.7 - 3.8

[bcmm]

I've had live CDs freak out over networking. I had a Gentoo live CD (not a live desktop - it's for installation) that wouldn't connect, and it turned out that the autodetection (which I think is derived from the same package as knoppix's) was loading modules for firewire ethernet because I had a firewire card, then ignoring the ethernet card because it had already done networking.

Could be the same problem, because, like yours, it first appeared when I used more recent version (I guess they improved Firewire support).

If it is something like that, try loading the right modules (use lspci to help) then running whatever knoppix uses to set up the network (I've never had to do it manually in knoppix).


P.S.
Be careful with Knoppix at school. I know it can't do any harm, but you still might get in trouble. At my school, network security relies on all the machines students can use being restricted (no shell, no telnet, no ping), to the extent that there is an unpassworded VNC server running on one staff machine. If your school's like that, they might not be very happy with you using knoppix.

coLinux and live CDs

[QuantumG]

I was talking to Jeff Waugh from Ubuntu the other week (*cough* blatant name dropping *cough*) who suggested that the next Ubuntu Live CD might have coLinux on it. You'll be able to plug the CD into any Windows XP machine and get Ubuntu running in a window (that you can fullscreen if you like). He said he'd prefer not to use the Cygwin X server, so I think he's going to put up a bounty for a frame buffer -> DirectX driver for coLinux.

No need to reboot to demo linux, that could well be sweet.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[WetCat]

Why not run TightVNC session against coLinux running in Windows?
I use it that way and it works very good.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[glenkim]

I was thinking about this just the other day. But I thought a simpler solution might be to just have a X server running on vnc, and then connect into that. The DirectX would probably be best, but at least this way is easy.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[cduffy]

I hope he specifies as part of his bounty criteria that it be performant. Such a thing exists already as a proof-of-concept -- it's just that the update rate is measured in seconds-per-frame.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[DrXym]

While it would be cool to see Colinux working, I seriously doubt it will allow networking. Getting colinux to network is a massive pain involving installing Win32-Tap, reboots, messing around with bridges / NAT, fiddling Linux-side to make it work and generally ripping your hair out. This is definitely one area that requires improvement - both for Colinux and Microsoft who should ship some kind of TAP device by default.

Once it does work, it works like a charm, but it took me a couple of hours to figure it to work with my setup. I started with a pre3.0 Debian root_fs I grabbed from the net. Once I got the networking going, I changed sources.list and upgraded to Debian 'sarge' dist. Now I have a lovely GNOME 2.8 desktop all running under XP at (my guess) 80-90% of native speed. I've sucessfully gotten both VNC and NX to run under it though performance through NX is more sluggish than I expected.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[QuantumG]

Jeff was telling me about this. I suggested that intercepting the sockets library instead of trying to modify the network driver might be in order.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we can do Knoppix for Windows from CD ... there's a QEMU on the CD which autoruns, and the CD will boot 'real' as well so there's no waste when you have finished learning and want to take the trainer wheels off. Not highly performant under QEMU, but good enough. Treats Windows like a NAT-router-firewall (!), so networking is preconfigured.

Torrents here

Ubuntu Warty is fine, if a little sluggish because HZ is 1000; but that is fixable.

Last time I tried Hoary there were slight problems with not supporting a virtual Cirrus Logic graphics adapter; hope it gets fixed.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[tkw954]

I believe http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ can do this, using Qemu. I haven't tried it yet, but they claim the bootable USB pendrive can boot from bios or from within Windows.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the link. This is really cool. Do you know if the qemu accellerator was used?

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Quiberon]

No, there is no accelerator. To get the accelerator to run, you have to do some messy installation, rebooting, and admin privilege.

This is strictly zero-footprint stuff; log on as a regular user, put in the CD (for autorunning), and wait a minute or two while it 'boots'. Everything emulated, a little slow, but it works and is fine for quite a lot of purposes. I have done an 'ssh' to a machine on another continent, and an 'xterm' back down the secure pipe; you would never know the difference from a 'proper' Linux.

I'd recommend the 2.4 kernel ones. 2.6 kernels take 1000 timer ticks per second by default (and these are all the default ones). Even so, 'Kanotix-for-Windows' with 586 opcodes works well enough.

Seeding 11 CDs and a DVD up a 32 kbyte/second link might take a while, but hang in there !

http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/torrents /

http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/k37qemu. png

Have fun !

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the reply. Wish I had mod points. I can't believe this is not front page news.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you consider putting up a torrent for a damnsmalllinux.org qemu iso? dsl is tiny and it'd be cool to load this

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[bcmm]

Several people have mentioned using VNC for this.
The details: there is a program called xvnc, which is either packaged or included with X for most distrobutions. It is a combined X and VNC server, which runs much faster than normal X with a seperate VNC server on it because it does not actually use the frame buffer or display the X desktop, i.e. you can only view it with a VNC client. Also, it doesn't require a working display of any sort, which would be good for colinux. Apps respond with almost the same speed as a normal X server if the server and client are on the same machine, so any major speed hit is from network delays.

It wouldn't be too hard to have this on a live CD, especially as many Windows clients such as TightVNC do not need installation.
This could be great if they could only fix the networking on colinux...

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Quiberon]

I think it comes as standard with DSL. Haven't checked whether it is set up to autorun.

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

What comes standard with dsl? Qemu?

Re:coLinux and live CDs

[Minna Kirai]

Microsoft who should ship some kind of TAP device by default.

Some Microsoft apologists have applauded that lack as a security-measure, because it supposedly makes it more challenging for a worm/botnet to run code that abuses the local network to attack other systems.

Re:What about a beowulf cluster of these?

[I kan Spl]

Actually I think that would be a good idea. I have a bunch of boxes at home, is there any distro out there that would boot form a cd and turn them into a cluster for some instant number crunching?

Knoppix can REALLY impress

[xiando]

There is one way of really supremely impressing people using Knoppix some people are not aware of: IF you have a gigabyte of RAM or more then you can actually load the whole Knoppix CD into memory so you can use the CD drive for all other kinds of things... But this has one obvious bi-effect that I have realized impresses so heavily: When programs are started from RAM, they obviously load faster than from a hard drive. Knoppix loaded into memory is the fastest Linux distribution I have seen so far, almost all programs start instantly. So if you have a machine with lots of ram and want to seriously impress: This is the way to do it! This is kind of cheating as no normal Linux system can perform like this, but it is ideal for demonstrating Linux. On a personal note, I would seriously be happy if something like this could be done with a normal distribution: Say if you have 3 GB RAM, then why not load everything into a portion of it at boot and run programs off memory .. even if you have Linux installed on your hard drive? Obviously this is 'waste of RAM', but hey, if you have lots of money and therefore RAM, why not??

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[qewl]

Feather is a great distribution for doing this. It only needs 128 to 256 MB to have everything loaded and still plenty of processing ram. Great for somewhat older computers and has all the hardware recognition of Knoppix 3.6

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[Mad Merlin]

I'm sure you could create a block device using RAM of say, a gig, or 1.5 gigs (as needed) and then just mount /usr on it and copy your normal /usr into it. On the other hand, if you've got 3 gigs of ram anyways, I don't think anything will ever get pushed out of RAM in normal use (stuff will remain in cache), thus you wouldn't really need to fiddle with the ramdrive at all.

Then again, I don't have 3 gigs of ram to play with, so what do I know, anybody care to donate?

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[Bert64]

I used to do that with the Amiga, you could create a reset resident ramdisk so you could copy your OS into it and reboot from it..

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have more RAM than used disk space, the buffer cache will do this anyway. I tried this when testing the RAID1 on a newly installed server, with only the base system installed. I couldn't get it to load balance between both disks (as RAID1 is supposed to do), and after a while I couldn't get it to read from disk at all.

After wondering about this, I checked df and top. Used disk space: 192 MB. Buffer cache: 192 MB.

10K cheetahs in RAID1 may be fast, but that setup beat anything.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[ahfoo]

Well, Gigs of RAM isn't really all that cheap, so I think using Damn Small Linux to do the same thing is more impressive for most people because you can use what is available in the here and now. You can easily load DSL into RAM with 256Megs and sometimes it works with 128Megs, but you won't be able to add many other packages once you get it online.
However, and I'm currently typing on just such a system, it's not as fast as you'd hope. The reason is that LiveCDs use compression on the filesystems so you have that overhead preventing things from being as fast as it could be. But certainly as big RAM goes mainstream there is no doubt in my mind that the idea of running the whole system from RAM is inevitable. Like I say, I'm already there albeit using a compressed filesystem.
As for this unionfs thing. Is that completely unrelated to klik? That's a pretty cool development on Knoppix that has come a long way in a very short time. You can already install most Debian packages on Knopppix without a hard drive install using Klik. And even better, you can save the packages to hard drive or removeable media. So, you don't lose them at all when you change to another machine.
This totally rocks. I'm not sure if it's related to the unionfs thing, but it certainly deserves mention because it is hot shit.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[rdc_uk]

Mmmm, memories of my A1200HD;

20 seconds for a cold boot, 2 seconds for a reboot.
and a 20Mb hard disk :)

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[Anonymous Coward]

It is possible to do it yourself:
- create a ramdisk and mount it as /usr
- copy the files from the previos /usr to the new one
- make an image of the ramdrive on shutdown
- load the image at boottime

except for point 3 this is exactly what knoppix does. So it CAN be done.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[Tim C]

This is kind of cheating as no normal Linux system can perform like this

If you're demonstrating how much faster a Linux machine can be than whatever it is the person is using currently, then there's no "kind of" about it, unless you explain exactly what you've done and what they'd need to do to recreate the speed increase.

Otherwise, you're in danger of wowing them, persuading them to switch, then having them discover that actually it's not that much faster after all, and possibly just switching back again.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[cerberusss]

Say if you have 3 GB RAM, then why not load everything into a portion of it at boot and run programs off memory

All other replies suggest copying /usr to a RAM disk, but there's a much easier solution if it's just about loading apps quicker after starting up. First, look into the swappiness kernel parameter. Then, create a mechanism to read these files into memory.

Short story: add two lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local:

echo 100 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
for i in `find /opt/OpenOffice`; do cat $i >/dev/null;done &

The first line tells your kernel to swap away as much as possible, leaving lots of space for disk buffering. The second line reads the files of your choice in the cache.

Note that this is all very primitive and there are lots of enhancements, but the basic idea should be clear now.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[mrogers]

There's a tradeoff between boot speed and application start speed - Win98 tried to get faster load times by preloading things at boot time but personally I found the slow boot really annoying. I suppose you might be able to get faster load times by using an absurdly large read-ahead disk cache; looks like the read-ahead code is mostly in /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/ll_rw_blk.c if you're interested in digging further. Or you could have a low-priority process that reads executable files, thus dragging them into the disk cache so they'll load faster when they're actually executed; not sure if there's a separate cache for executable pages though. I'm going to try this with firefox and see if it improves the load time.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[FrostedWheat]

Ah the RAD disk, I'd forgot about that. Now there's a feature the PC could really use!

There are hardware solutions but those are pricy, and bound to the IDE channel which isn't as fast as direct RAM.

Wasn't it amazing what you could do on a system with 2Mb of RAM!

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[sconeu]

My old Tandon 286 had a version of RAMDRIVE for DOS 3.2 that was persistent across a 3-finger salute.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[mrogers]

I've just been writing a boot script that finds programs that were accessed between the last boot and the last shutdown and loads them into the disk cache. Speeds up load times even when you "only" have 64 megs of RAM.

http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/mrogers/quickstart.h tml

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[cerberusss]

Much smarter!! I'm going to put up a link to your site! BTW I don't know whether you thought of this, but this can potentially also squeeze some minutes out of a laptop battery: reading a bunch of files on one fell swoop will potentially avoid costly harddisk spinning up later.

Again, smart. Amazing what one can do with some simple shellscripting.

Re:Knoppix can REALLY impress

[The Conductor]

Win XP does something like this. It tries to guess what programs you usually run and then preloads them when the disk is idle. Of course we have to wonder if Microsoft's own software gets higher priority, so Outlook (erroneously) looks like less of a pig relative to competing clients.

Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm looking for a linux distribution which shows the technical boot process (unlike gnoppix and ubuntu) and switches to graphical mode only once, when it starts X (unlike fedora core).

I'm not scared by the technical stuff, and I want my OS to appear efficient and unbloated. And I claim that it's even good for Joe Luser. If he sees "Fujitsu 24 GB drive" everytime the computer boots up, he might actually learn (gasp) some specs about his computer, unlike a Windows boot process.

Which distro should I encourage with my humble use?

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[d1v1d3byz3r0]

Gentoo. You can configure to your humble heart's content.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[TractorBarry]

Hear hear.

Try Slackware. You'll love it. And by default you'll have to type "startx" to get any sort of GUI action going on.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[philkerr]

Or combine Slackware with a Live CD like Slax, or my own Audio/MIDI tuned Slackware LiveCD, m-dist.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[tehshen]

switches to graphical mode only once, when it starts X (unlike fedora core)

Fedora has the graphical boot by default (it looks a lot nicer in my opinion) but you can turn it off easily.

Open /etc/inittab and change

id:5:initdefault:

to

id:3:initdefault:

. No more graphical boot.

You could also uninstall the rpm, I think it is called 'rhgb'.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[dolmen.fr]

I'm looking for a linux distribution which shows the technical boot process [...]

Just press escape during the boot.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[gl4ss]

any.

if you care about enough to see the boot process you should know how to find out how to enable it.

if you're just looking for shit to fly past the screen.. echo some neat looking stuff at the end of the boot process.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't this distro the opposite of what a liveCD is all about? You want to check out the PC while at the store, and not camp out.

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[Anonymous Coward]

echo shit

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[/dev/zero]

To disable the graphical boot (separate issue from not coming up with an X desktop): Edit /etc/grub.conf and remove "rhgb" from the kernel parameters:

title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.766_FC3)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.766_FC3 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.10-1.766_FC3.img

becomes:

title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.766_FC3)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.766_FC3 ro root=LABEL=/1 quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.10-1.766_FC3.img

Re:Are they going down the 'desktop fluff' path?

[TractorBarry]

Now that looks just up my street.

I shall be trying this a.s.a.p. !

My luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have finished downloading Knoppix 3.6 with my modem yesterday...

Re:My luck...

[qewl]

Hey, if you live nearby, I can carrier pigeon it to you ;-)

Re:My luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not funny. Every time I connected with the internet since Knoppix 3.6 was announced on Slashdot, I would run "wget --continue iso-mirror-url" and keep it running for some time before I would disconnect, and next time wget would download from the point where it interrupted last time. I finished yesterday and was very happy wven though it costed me a fortune with 33k6 modem @ 6.85 euro/hour. Today I connected with that Knoppix to test it, went to Slashdot, and saw this story... *sigh*

Re:My luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

Find someone with a fat internet pipe, and have them download and burn the cd for you.

Then have them mail or bring it to you.

If you're in western europe, we can arrange something ;)

Re:My luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

Find someone with a fat internet pipe, and have them download and burn the cd for you.

Then have them mail or bring it to you.

If you're in western europe, we can arrange something ;)

I am! Do you have a "fat pipe"? Will you "bring it to me"? We could definitely "arrange something" - oh yeah baby! I'm in! Please post your contact and I'm on my way, thx!

Re:My luck...

[Anonymous Coward]

3.6!? you must have started the download when it first came out!

Re:My luck...

[dolmen.fr]

If you are in western Europe, you probably have at your local newspaper shop Linux magazines that bundle free Knoppix CD.

Re:My luck...

[NoMercy]

I just downloaded and burned 3.7, I feel pretty shafted, the downloading isn't an issue, but I don't have many CDRW's of 700Mb to hand :/

Re:My luck...

[Hank the Lion]

I just downloaded and burned 3.7, I feel pretty shafted, the downloading isn't an issue, but I don't have many CDRW's of 700Mb to hand :/

Hm, if you burned 3.7 on CDRW, you could try erasing it and burning 3.8 on top... ;-)

Re:My luck...

[bcmm]

Use a CD-R then. They're pretty cheap now.

confederatefs

[dotslashdot]

Is there a confederatefs located at the bottom of this stack that uses ioslaves to pick fields from a database?

Re:What about a beowulf cluster of these?

[advocate_one]

Yes... just google for it... it comes up top with just a simple search... deity... kids these days want everything served up for them... too darn lazy, that's what it is... grrr... when I were a lad... we had to build our own clusters from scratch... none of these new fangled magic tools like ClusterKnoppix... aye... right tough we were...

Re:What about a beowulf cluster of these?

[espenfjo]

You can always try ClusterKnoppix.
http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/
I t uses OpenMosix, so it`s only 2.4 yet.

*nag nag*

[Anonymous Coward]

*BSD has been having unionfs for years, so I really don't see what the fuss is about.

Re:*nag nag*

[Anonymous Coward]

*BSD barely got a usable livecd at all.

Re:What about a beowulf cluster of these?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Quantian, which is based on ClusterKnoppix.

Writing to NTFS...

[Mad Merlin]

As the summary hints at writing to NTFS, will this version of Knoppix use Captive NTFS in some manner, or is it just going to write to a loopback file to get around the problems with using the native Linux driver for writing to NTFS?

Re:Writing to NTFS...

[Anonymous Coward]

google translation tools indicated the ntfs support mentioned in the article is the standard limited write support currently available in the 2.6.x kernel series: you can write to existing files on NTFS as long as you don't change the length of the file.

-brendan

Re:Writing to NTFS...

[clsc]

... a loopback file methinks. At least TFA states that you have to create an empty file of the desired size in your Windows partition first. It also states that there's a tool that does this for you, so you don't have to boot Windows first.

Re:Writing to NTFS...

[irgu]

Captive NTFS is defunct for a year now: Development Status: Project is no longer developed. It's very pitty it couldn't achieve reliability.

Knoppix uses the rewritten NTFS driver which supports loopback read-write mounting a file on NTFS. Nothing new, the now also dead Phat Linux already did the same in 2002 with the same open source kernel driver. Currently the most popular "run Linux from NTFS" distribution is TopologiLinux.

It's very nice to see Knoppix caught up too.

Re:Writing to NTFS...

[Mad Merlin]

I was under the impression that Captive NTFS was "finished", though I've never had a need to try it myself. Do you speak from experience?

Re:Writing to NTFS...

[irgu]

Experience. Captive NTFS corruption problems are also posted to its mailling list and documented in its TODO file.

Re:Writing to NTFS...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Does this mean, then, that you can "effectively" rewrite files on NTFS natively (i.e. without Microsoft DLL's), by copying the NTFS file to RAM [or another filesystem], updating the file, creating a "blank" file of that size on NTFS, and then overwriting the blank file on NTFS with the new data? (The article is sparse on details here...)

If so, is there a HOWTO somewhere that describes how to set this up to work transparently (so that it looks as though you're directly editing files on NTFS to the rest of the system)?

Another day...

[stuffisgood]

another livecd....Now what am I supposed to do with the ten Ubuntu two-disc sets I got in the mail today.

Re:Another day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 200...pass it along to strangers at the corner of 19th and Holloway.

Now we need simple online storage - GMail FS anybo

[OlivierB]

The one last thing that could even more favorise live CD adoptions could be online settings and file storage.
Sure you can carry around a USB key and store your settings there. But imagine being able to boot a machine anywhere and beinga ble to retrieve your field from something ala Yahoo briefcase.

Solutions exist out there; think GMailFS
If they would include this on the KNOPPIX CD with automount and all..
I am drooling just thinking about the possibilities!

Re:Funny

[Pantero Blanco]

Rather, you shouldn't be allowed to run it without someone who knows what you're doing standing behind you. Letting a customer use it to test drivers, but someone should make sure an immature jackass isn't using it as a chance to cause havoc.

Like slax?

[m50d]

Is this unionfs like the ovlfs that has been used in SLAX for ages? And if so why not just port ovlfs to kernel 2.6?

Re:Like slax?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the two filesystems share some of the same properties unionfs also provides snapshotting and sandboxing. Also unionfs is developed as a stackable file system which was far easier to port to 2.6. If you had to take an existing 2.2 or 2.4 file system and port it over to 2.6 its a substantial amount of work. Many things have changed from 2.4 to 2.6.

Re:Like slax?

[AlXtreme]

Yes, it's just like ovlfs, but a lot better. Just like translucency, mini_fo and cowloop that Morphix has been using far before Slax was born.

Unionfs is the future of overlay filesystems, Slax should wake up: it's useless to port ovlfs over when all other livecds (Knoppix, Morphix and Kanotix) are divirging to unionfs.

Re:Like slax?

[xEndymionx]

SLAX using unionFS has been in development for months now. it would be out, but unionfs still has a lot of weird little bugs that need to be worked out before the whole thing will work well. fabian (from knoppix) has been posted a bit with tomas (from slax) at the unionfs bugzilla, as well as on the slax forums: http://slax.linux-live.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3 790&start=15. as can be seen from that link, an alpha using unionFS has been released. careful though, it doesn't include ALL of the apps that are normally in SLAX, it's mostly a check if it will boot and load KDE on a wide range of hardware.

Live DVD

[HogynCymraeg]

The concept of LiveDVD has already been done: Suse LiveDVD This is probably not the first.

Re:Funny

[Trogre]

Displaying goatse may be harmless fun, but imagine what would happen if we turned all of those machines into spam zombies.

Please don't ever say that goatse is harmless again. Your little experiment would have been much funnier (and less traumatising) if you'd used a pic like this.

UnionFS

[HogynCymraeg]

Sounds a little similar to intermezzo

Re:UnionFS

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all:
OVLFS and 2.6: Since VFS code and many more stuff in linux kernel changed a lot between 2.4 and 2.6, it would require a lot of hacking in order to make it work. Anyone has a month worth of time to actually rewrite half of it?

There are many, many similar projects. Namely mini_fo, which is however quite damn buggy. Furthermore, translucencyfs, which unfortunately doesn't provide a lot of functionality. Cowloop only works on one mount, and since it works on block device level, it requires underlying FS to be r/w (unlike filesystem-level unionfs or ovlfs).

Also note that UnionFS for 2.6 was first released some time in January. DeadCD (http://www.deadcd.org) took advantage of it two hours after release (yes, it is my project:). Currently, UnionFS has a lot of issues that still prevent from complete functionality, however, as soon as it gets fixed, new DeadCD will get released.

-- iSteve

Bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

You could always offer to buy the computer outright if it doesn't go back to the way it was before you got there after you have a look at it with Knoppix (which it of course it will).

Have you ever tried rebooting a computer (ab)used as a demo in a computer store? The chances are that in 85% cases it won't even boot. (Yes, IAACSC - i am a comp. store clerk). Besides, if you think any intelligent person would ever let you boot your own OS in his machine than you must be crazy. "Oh, look, it went back to the way it was before I got there after I had a look at it with Knoppix, which proves I have not installed any trojans!" I seriously hope your post was a joke.

Re:Bullshit!

[Bert64]

People will often install trojans on a store computer without booting another os, all you need is a cd with a windows autorun on it and a few seconds to insert it.. Not very difficult and unlikely to get noticed.

Re:Bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

So an intelligent person won't let someone boot Knoppix because they can install a trojan, even though that person is a potential customer, and even though it's trivial to install a trojan *without* conspicuously booting a whole seperate OS. Huh.

Re:Bullshit!

[psyon1]

Why does it matter if a person installs a trojan? Any good store should reimage the system before its sold if it was a demo, and I doubt your customers are doing their banking from the demos.

Re:Bullshit!

[Sylver Dragon]

Two words: Deep Freeze.
Let the user dick around with the computer all they want. But always do the following:

1. Do not have it attached to any network larger than maybe one or two other demo PC.
2. Along with 1, never, never, NEVER, have it connected to the corporate network. I would almost go so far as to say that there should be no physical connection at all. Granted, with a good router, this wouldn't be an issue, but why take a chance?
3. Have something similar to Deep Freeze running on the system to keep the configuration from being changed permanently. Or, just have the system boot from a remote image on a read-only media.
4. Periodically, through out the day, reboot the system and let the precautions taken in 3 have effect.

Keeping a public computer from being a problem is possible, even under windows. But, like anything that is going to be on the front lines, you have to take precautions.

Re:Bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

No, go kio_fuse instead!

[headLITE]

Actually, they should include kio_fuse. It's a fuse module enabling the kernel to mount any KDE kio_slave. This combined with the fish:// or webdavs:// kio_slaves...

You can get 1 GB of webdav accessible space at GMX.net for free if you know enough German to get around the freemail signup.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's the whole point! We ran it with people from the store watching what we were doing, some of them even told us that they use Linux themselves and it's a pity they can't sell Linux preinstalled without the Windows-tax, or telling us that they use Knoppix all the time. In three stores we wouldn't even touch the PC but only give our CD to a "linux guy" working at the store who did the testing for us! Please reread my previous post. The whole point is that we had a customized iso - it had sound drivers removed and during the boot time it installed our trojan on the Windows partition. Here how it looked for anyone "who knows what we're doing standing behind" us: a normal Knoppix boot, KDE desktop starts. We were like: "Hey, I didn't hear the 'initiating starting sequence' voice. Are the speakers on? Let's check out some music from vorbis.com. Oh shit, doesn't work, let's try another machine..." The only program we were using was Mozilla browser and XMMS audio player. The whole point of our proof is that a customer should NEVER be allowed to use his own OS to "test drivers" unless you are willing to reinstall a clean system EVERY TIME he does it. Anyone who things otherwise deserves to be rooted.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

You just don't get it, do you? The point is that it is trivially possible to secure your computer against installing trojans by not running as administrator but an uprivileged guest account. On the other hand it is PROVABLY IMPOSSIBLE to secure against your own OS. Period.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't ever say that goatse is harmless again. Your little experiment would have been much funnier (and less traumatising) if you'd used a pic like this.

But would it result in people fired and policies changed? Very unlikely. Sometime to make a strong statement you need to use strong content - this the freedom of speech.

Not On BitTorrent yet...

[dohboy]

...but here's where to grab it once it is released:

http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/

disk encryption bug

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the disk encryption bug finally been fixed? I reported it last spring, but the 3.7 releases never correctly handled loop-aes multi-key keyfiles. Use KANOTIX instead.

Re:disk encryption bug

[Anonymous Coward]

Specifically the problem is this: mount, losetup and swapon in KNOPPIX only use ONE encryption key of the 64 which are stored in loop-aes keyfiles. A serious vulnerability which causes a false sense of security.

Re:Funny

[Barnoid]

The whole point is that we had a customized iso - it had sound drivers removed and during the boot time it installed our trojan on the Windows partition. [...]

What a smart 'proof of concept', installing a troyan on a Windows machine. Hope you are proud of yourself.

Would you prefer if nobody lets you test their computers and you can find out *after* you bought it whether it runs Linux flawlessly or not?

Grammar, please.

[The Fanta Menace]

"change most anything"?

Is slashdot reaching such depths that submitters can't even form sentences correctly?

That should be "change almost anything", thankyou.

Yeah, yeah, I know, offtopic -1.

Re:Grammar, please.

[Gil-galad55]

I don't really have a problem with colloquialisms. I think they give otherwise uppity writing a little spirit--or at least a country twang! And, it's not as if slashdot is a literary journal. I do draw the line at the incessant spelling errors, and I cry havoc when I see fragments, run-ons, and sentences that clearly have their roots in a bad Turing test. It does seem that slashdot is pretty rife with these errors nowadays, and while it ain't Beowulf, it should at least give professionalism a passing glance.

Re:Grammar, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me great purveyor of grammar knowledge, but isn't "thank you" two words?

Was ist das Nurnstuck git und Slotermayer?

[otis wildflower]

(English xlation ;)

Yes, you are right!

[leehwtsohg]

I remember the Amiga RAM disk that would survive resets. Why does such a thing not exist for Linux? Does the RAM on a PC get erased more on warm reboot or on cold reboot?

Re:Yes, you are right!

[The Conductor]

I think that is hardware dependent. The orginal IBM PC did a memory test after reboot. But more recent hardware doesn't seem to. I know that Win2k will jump back to the Windows boot menu, making it imposible to go into BIOS setup (or boot Knoppix) without cycling the power.

Called the Klap????

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if it is a virus.

Re:What about a beowulf cluster of these?

[CiRu5]

Not to be picky but I believe openKnoppix uses openMosix for clustering and this does not create a beowolf cluster, it simply shares the load of individual processes over the cluster..... A beowolf requires the programs be specifically programmed for spilting up the program into "cells" and sends those cells of "a" program across the cluster.... openMosix just sends various processes to other computers on the cluster to share the total load.......still really cool though.

Remaster

[Anonymous Coward]

It is pretty easy to remaster your own Knoppix flaver. I do not have the steps at hand so I can't help you out on that one but some googeling will bring you results I think. I learen the steps from the O'Reily book titled "Knoppix Hacks", I had to alter the steps just a little bit since the book covers 3.6 and I use 3.7, but nothing really annoying or difficult. You can install whatever you want with apt-get

Re:Mod me down d**fu*k*rs!

[Anonymous Coward]

"d**fu*k*rs"?

Dude, there's something wrong with your keyword.

Oh, and this is slashdot, you can say "fuck" here.

keyloggers

[js7a]

Knoppix is not immune to hardware keyloggers or BIOS-level keyloggers, the latter of which have been rumored to exist (I have my doubts .)

However, it's plenty easy to install a hardware keylogger undetectably inside a chassis.

There are easier, safer ways for public terminal security.

Re:keyloggers

[moonbender]

Ha, I was wondering how you control the keylogger. ThinkGeek claimed both that "A menu is displayed with options to erase data, view data, search data for keywords, change password, or disable the device." and at the same time "Works with all PC Operating Systems with PS/2 keyboards (sorry, no USB)."

I was thinking about a graphical menu - looks I was wrong: http://keystroke-loggers.staticusers.net/images/me nus.jpg

I don't like keyloggers, but that is nifty.

Re:keyloggers

[Anonymous Coward]

Combining Tinfoil Hat Linux features like a virtual keyboard with a Live CD would work around keyloggers.

Re:keyloggers

[js7a]

Using a virtual keyboard is also a work around productivity.

Re:keyloggers

[Minna Kirai]

There are easier, safer ways for public terminal security.

Although 1-time passwords greatly reduce the chance of successfully exploiting you on a public terminal, they are not perfect.

On a hostile terminal, it's possible that whatever client-side software you execute can be compromised, even if you brought it with you on CD/USB/HTTP. And if that's happened, the program might not merely log your password, but also download and log files from your remote account, silently and in parellel with whatever activities you intend to be doing.

An attack like that would be elaborate, but is inside the realm of possibility. To say "this will never happen to me, the hacker would need to spend a lot of effort, and guess exactly what my configuration is" is an appeal to "security through obscurity".

Re:What about a beowulf cluster of these?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a joke! Just trying to get the first beowolf cluster comment :)

Re:Not On BitTorrent yet...

[mscnln]

I appears this may be one of those annoying not-released-to-the-public versions... like 3.5 :(

mnb Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

All you need to do to prevent such lame "hacking" is use NTFS encryption.

Firefox

[bcmm]

Firefox seems the obvious choice for a live CD. I was shocked that it still contained Mozilla Suite, given its size compared to Fx ("ff" is not the correct abbreviation for Firefox, according to the Mozilla foundation)

What are they going to do with all that free space I wonder?

P.S. run "bb" from the console in Knoppix. Best waste of space ever.

Re:Firefox

[nutshell42]

does Firefox really make a difference? The download is still 8MB and the browser neither seems faster nor less memory-hungry than plain Mozilla (never compared installed size but Knoppix ships the packages iirc).

To me the additional features of Mozilla for 4 MB more seem like a good deal. Well Opera provides most of that in a quarter the size but unfortunately their cookie management is so shitty I can't stand it =/

Re:Firefox

[bcmm]

Warning - anecdotal evidence only in the following post.

Well, on my machine, Firefox loads a lot faster than Mozilla.
Knoppix has serious problems with app loading times on slow cdroms, simply because the hardware can't go as fast as a HD. Firefox will be usefull because it will hopefully load faster.

I think mozilla is great, but I switched to Fx because of performance

Though maybe they have cleaned up Mozilla a bit since then. And added more features to Fx (i.e. slowed it down slightly). I'll look at Mozilla again I guess...

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You're a jackass.

(Of course, you never really did that. But if you did, you'd just be Yet Another Stupid Kiddie.)

And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard drive

[Anonymous Coward]

You should see how easy it was to install this damn thing - you can either use "sudo knoppix-installer" for a hand held new install or do this to literally get the live cd working on the PC with a persistent home directory -

* Partition the harddisk to make room for knoppix:
o ext2 partition /dev/hda1 used to boot the kernel with lilo (30 Meg)
o ext2 partition /dev/hda2 for the knoppix image (I used 10000 Meg, but 800 Meg should be enough)
o swap partition /dev/hda3 (I used 1024 Meg)
o ext2 partition /dev/hda4 for the persistent home (rest of drive
* Boot the knoppix cd with the cheatcode "tohd=/dev/hda2". This will copy the knoppix image to disk
* Reboot the knoppix cd with the cheatcode "fromhd=/dev/hda2" and check if it runs without the cd.
* Make the persistent homedir via the knoppix menu (penguin icon->configuration->make persistent dir, use entire /dev/hda4 and format)
* Do not save your KNOPPIX configuration via the menu, all changes to the environment will be saved automatically because of the persistent home.
* Copy the files from /boot to /mnt/hda1. Also copy the file "/mnt/cdrom/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz" from the cd to /mnt/hda1.

Note, you will need to mount hda1 and make it read/write. The copying can only be done with sudo, thence the command to copy is "sudo cp /boot/* /mnt/hda1". Or, you can use su. I just found sudo was fine.

* Copy /etc/lilo.conf to /mnt/hda1 and make the following boot entries (do not forget to uncomment the line with "prompt", or else the lilo boot menu will not appear): (vi /mnt/hda1/lilo.conf)

Note, learn vi commands first

image=/mnt/hda1/vmlinuz
initrd=/mnt/hda1/minirt 24.gz
append="fromhd=/dev/hda2 home=/dev/hda4 lang=us myconfig=/mnt/hda4"
root=/dev/hda2
label=Knoppix
read-write

* Mount the /mnt/hda1 partition temporary as /boot so lilo writes its map-file to the right place (sudo mount /dev/hda1 /boot)
* Let lilo write the boot loader to the master boot record (sudo lilo -C /mnt/hda1/lilo.conf)
* Remove the knoppix cd-rom and reboot.

That's it. you can use lilo.conf to set up another OS that exists, like Windows 98. I chose to dedicate the disk, seems easier. 10 minutes and I'm working with a fully functional Knoppix bootable hdd based PC.

Now THAT fuckign rocks hard.

spyware/malware cleaner on a livecd

[spacepimp]

I've used knoppix for many varied task cleaning windows for clients, f-prot has cleaned virii, i've gotten data recovered. The one thing that keeps this from being able to rescue, windows, is a spyware/malware cleaner. has anyone seen a project like this to for a live disc? i understand windoze blows etc. but these are client machines, i just support them.

Re:spyware/malware cleaner on a livecd

[TractorBarry]

If such a live CD were made it could prove to be a killer Linux app.

Imagine the interest generated when you boot off the live CD and then manage to remove all the malware infesting a users machine, even the stubborn stuff, whilst simultaneously showing off some Linux goodness at the same time.

Even better automate the whole cleanup process and end it with a nice "If you were running Linux full time you wouldn't have got all this crap in the first place" message.

This would very soon get a new meme into the user population "Linux removes viruses & spyware, Linux good, Linux is my friend, me want". Especially if a few media outlets pick up on it.

Re:spyware/malware cleaner on a livecd

[skadus]

You might try this. It's the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. Takes a XP disc, makes a LiveCD out of it, and adds stuff like AntiVir to it.

I've used it once or twice (was testing it on a computer I was about to reformat anyway to see if it booted), but I haven't really gotten into all the programs, so I can't tell you much else than it exists. :p

Re:spyware/malware cleaner on a livecd

[Anonymous Coward]

That DOES exist! The people responsible for the article (German computer mag c't in the Heise publishing house) have put such a LiveCD on their mag cover once in each of the last two years - with Sophos, Kaspersky and F-Prot, each one with full update rights for one year. :-)

Re:spyware/malware cleaner on a livecd

[Anonymous Coward]

Peep various "khauyeung", BartPE, and WinPE CDs for ways to do this.

Re:spyware/malware cleaner on a livecd

[gnixdep]

I have used it extensively for just this purpose, remastering it to contain spybot S&D, ad-aware, spysweeper, stinger, AVG, f-prot and other tools.

Very handy for really buggered systems.

unionfs workalike on BSD / Mac OS X

[headLITE]

Just for your information, Mac OS X and other BSDs can mount anything over another directory without hiding its own content. For example, on Mac OS X you'd use the -o union mount option to merge two different filesystems.

the best is always improvable

[BilliamBlake]

I hope this versin fixes the two biggest problems that I have had with the latest 3.6 (never tried 3.7 but I see it's available) - specifically:

1 - problem with captive ntfs (doesn't work unless you add the appropriate user and group). It's easier for me to use BartPE or Winternals.

2 - inadequite x support for flatscreen monitors (yes, I have tried many different cheatcodes for fixing this, even copying what is set on the native os) It seems there is about a 10-20% failure rate.

Having said that I am looking forwared to the new version.

Re:the best is always improvable

[anandrajan]

Knoppix 3.6 does not work on my machine. Single AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Tyan dual AMD S2462 "Guinness" motherboard, Nvidia GeForce Ti 4200 AGP, Samsung 172T LCD. X hangs after a few minutes of working and I have to power reset.

Re:the best is always improvable

[Sylver Dragon]

Just gave captive-ntfs a go under Knoppix 3.7. It's still broken. It is necessary to add the captive user and group through KUser before you can mount NTFS partitions. Also, I tend to manually copy in the ntfs.sys and ntoskrnl.exe from floppy, as I had problems with captive under 3.6 if those files weren't from XP-SP1a, and I don't have any computers around that aren't SP2 already.

Re:the best is always improvable

[kzadot]

Probably damaged cpu, mainboard or ram. You can choose to run memtest as knoppix boots and that might help diagnose your problem.

Logical Volume Manager

[Anonymous Coward]

Please include LVM utilities in Knoppix. It's frustrating to try to fix a system that has LVM enabled.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Remastered with e17

[Anonymous Coward]

What might really be interesting, (perhaps a niche project) would be to remaster knoppix with enlightenment e17. I'd love to be able to show off all that eyecandy.

I use KDE and Gnome on a regular basis but showing people KDE is getting fairly bland. Yes, I know there are two schools of thought on this eyecandy vs. clean/simple/functional, but knoppix *is* for showing off to a certain extent.

Initiating Startup Sequence

[Ratbert42]

Did they get rid of that annoying audio file? It turns what's otherwise a class act live cd into something that reminds everyone of trekkies living in their parent's basement.

Re:Initiating Startup Sequence

[Captain Scurvy]

I always plug in headphones if I'm booting knoppix on my laptop in public, to silence that really loud annoying BEEP and also to get rid of that stupid, stupid "Initiating Startup Sequence" crap. I think it should be gotten rid of.

Re:Initiating Startup Sequence

[hoggoth]

> Did they get rid of that annoying audio file? It turns what's otherwise a class act live cd into something that reminds everyone of trekkies living in their parent's basement.

I really like the audio 'initiating startup sequence.' It's cool, the audio version of blinkenlights.
(shuts basement door so audio doesn't disturb mom)

Re:Initiating Startup Sequence

[bcmm]

If you mean the "initiating system startup", you have a point, but I think it's funny. If you mean the "open source" song (now removed, I think; it was ~3 minute ogg vorbis file), then absolutely, that was terrible.

Re:Initiating Startup Sequence

[rec9140]

I love that startup sound! Its a whole lot better than that annoying sleazdoze startup sound. Thats all I hear all day.

Its even better when connected to the whole house audio system and it goes thru all the speakers in the house.

Nope, got my own house so its not going bother mom.

If I want to really drive people crazy, I'll turn on the outside speakers

Re:Initiating Startup Sequence

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't hear it at startup, but other audio players work at run time, then you know that the audio levels are not saved in hardware, but must be re-initialized in software.

This is useful to have that startup audio when evaluating a potentially new hardware aquisition.

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard dr

[Anonymous Coward]

bla bla blah , wouldnt it just be easier to have a little GUI installer where you press "next" a few times instead of typing up all that crap ?

seriously thesedays if it aint got a GUI i aint interested

Horrible fonts.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a troll! I installed 3.7 and the fonts were awful! Isn't there a way to have them look pretty out of the gate? It was very noticeable under the Spe python editor and mozilla. Any suggestions for fixing would be greatly appreciated. Thx Ovapositor (too hurrried to log in)

Security risks

[Florian]

I hope Knoppix developers implement file storage of a modified installation in a sensible way, i.e. without automatic detection and usage of the user file on system startup, and possibly with user/password fingerprinting. Otherwise, Windows malware could be written that creates manipulated Knoppix system files on hard disks and takes over once somebody boots a Knoppix CD on the machine.

Re:Security risks

[bcmm]

I'm sorry, but thats bullshit.

Boot viruses requiring two specific host OSs to gain control? Knoppix is simply not popular enough to be written into commercial malware, and while a virus would be an interesing proof-of-concept, it would spread so slowly that it would never even infect 100 machines before the relvant holes were patched.


And it doesn't really mount and search all files systems for Knoppix files anyway. That would take way too long.

But dont the sales associates ask,

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me sir, but are you h4x0ring the computer?

Or-

Are u attempting to pwn this deck, sir?

(I was wondering how those words are pronounced...)

I like knoppix and all

[beyonddeath]

But it doesnt do everything, ie I needed to resize my root partition (LVM2) and apparantly knoppix doesnt have lvm support. and the fedora rescue cd doesnt load lvm, so im sol cause its an EXT3 partition that cant be resized online.

Re:I like knoppix and all

[sireasoning]

both ubuntu and pclinuxos .81a does lvm2. pclinuxos .81a actually maps the lvm drives into fstab but has a bug that identifies all lvm filesystems as ext2, so you would probably want to edit /etc/fstab and put in the correct filesystem for each lvm2 partition.

Re:I like knoppix and all

[Anonymous Coward]

Older versions of Knoppix did support LVM, but it seems to have been yanked.

Re:Not On BitTorrent yet...

[Hyperhaplo]

What do you mean?
Please clarify...

Suggestion

[JediTrainer]

so I think he's going to put up a bounty for a frame buffer -> DirectX driver

Why not use FreeNX Server on the X side, and an NX client on the Windows side? Others have suggested VNC, but NX should be more efficient.

On a side note, I've been able to use NX to use my work desktop from home (via cable) and it feels almost as fast as if I were sitting there. I hadn't been able to accomplish that before, even with VNC or the various X solutions (forget what they were called now).

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard dr

[xtracto]

I think parent have a point, I would mod you up if I had points. I told my father to download Knoppix (we dont live near) so he could try this "Linux" thing, now he started to use Knoppix just for fun, and he liked it but after some time he has told me he does not want to use it from the CD, and asked me if there was a way to put it in the computer (I am using his own words... ok?). Now, I know I just can not tell him to do what the GP wrote, he will be more than lost and he will just trhow away his Knoppix CD... he has windows in his current machine, with all his files etc etc. I told him about installing Mandrake or other OS, but he told me he wanted this Knoppix because he was used to it. So, well, I think yes, parent has a point, there could be an easy way to install it. (I can tell my father to resize his partition using Partition Magic, so its no problem for dual booting).

This one has my vote!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wanted to check out e17 but am not bold enough to work off of CVS's. Popping in a liveCD with the desktop that rules them all (well, eventually :-) and then leaving the store with all of the laptops showing off e17 (oops gotta stop now...)

signed,
The sneaker brigade for Rasterman

Re:This one has my vote!

[Anonymous Coward]

And mine.

Every so often I like to leave a few presents in the PCs on show at my local PC world. With CDRs being so damned cheap now (about 8p each for the truly cheap & cheerful variety) I can afford a bit of guerilla marketing.

Most entertaining :)~

Re:Now we need simple online storage - GMail FS an

[Anonymous Coward]

The one last thing that could even more favorise live CD adoptions could be online settings and file storage.
Sure you can carry around a USB key and store your settings there. But imagine being able to boot a machine anywhere and beinga ble to retrieve your field from something ala Yahoo briefcase.

This goes back to the Catch-22 situation of where do you get your network settings from? Esp. connecting to broadband where you also need to store the username and password for the connection.

Phillip.

WindowMaker?

[hawkwind]

Have they put wmaker back in?

A lightweight windowmanager seems necessary to me for boot-cd linux.

RAM

[frog51]

Erm...gigs of RAM really is cheap.

Really, really cheap.

Seriously. 4Gb RAM is now at a price most folks can afford. Cheap enough to have a spare machine just for Rainbow Tables:-)

Knoppix

[NAACPsupporter]

Is there a place that can show you how to install Knoppix on a hard drive. I find Knoppix to be the only Linux distribution that works with all my hardware. I would like to install it on my hard drive and not run it from the CD rom. I am mostly a windows person, so I need a step by step guide. I intend to install Knoppix at the community boys and girls club so that they can use the internet on older computers. Thanks!

Re:Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16515
The Forums are a wonderfull tool for us nubes

Re:Knoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers Are Not For Negroes!! Shut Up And Go Pick Some Cotton!!

just kidding.

Re:Knoppix

[NAACPsupporter]

Do not say that computers are not for Negros when in fact computers would not be here if not for Negros. We invented many of the technologies used in computers.

Re:Grammar, please. No, who cares!`

[LWATCDR]

"It does seem that slashdot is pretty rife with these errors nowadays, and while it ain't Beowulf, it should at least give professionalism a passing glance."
Slashdot is not a professional forum. This is not the IEEE. I agree about the errors but I worry more about the factual error vs grammar. You should also understand that English may not be the first language of a good number of people that post on Slashdot. If you can understand the content don't worry about the grammar.

NTFS writes finally?

[mnmn]

Captive ntfs has been a pain, and 90% of my knoppix's usage comes from trying to fix some file on some NTFS partition. Even upto 3.7, it was crashing for me.

Good NTFS writes would be the biggest news for me in 3.8. Not much else room for improvement elsewhere

Re:Not On BitTorrent yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

He means, like me, we can't find the version anywhere on any links.

Re:Grammar, please. No, who cares!`

[Gil-galad55]

English probably is the first language of the editors, however. It is them to whom I was referring; I couldn't really care less if someone posts a comment without proper punctuation or what-not. Although I will use my stab-in-the-face-through-the-interweb device on anyone using SMSspeak. Do not tempt me.

Any news, rumors, even hints

[Wapiti-eater]

on when 3.8 may become publicly available?? I see nothing on the knopper.net site about 3.8.

Speculating and debating all these neato features, politics and wish lists is just mental masturbation until folks can actualy get their grubby mits on it and can abuse it, break it and other fun things.

KNOPPIX 3.8 relaesed for public download HERE!

Now, that'd be a headline worth clicking on. Who's crystal ball has been recently calibrated? Give us the skinny!!

(HINT: It'd be stuff that matters)

Re:Any news, rumors, even hints

[headLITE]

Well CeBIT is from March 10 through March 16 so I speculate 3.8 will be available in two weeks?

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious you are making this up.

Your whole story is stupid, because if the machine is on the internet, you don't even need a disk to infect it. Just type in a URL with your code and say yes to install. No one watches that close.

Even if they aren't on the net, you just need a USB drive and a couple of clicks.

In your made up story, they'd know it was you and get your picture off video.

Remastering your own custom KNOPPIX

[rwa2]

Remastering your own KNOPPIX is easy and it works.

I built a custom system maintenance image for work in a couple of hours. Among the changes:

• Stripped out games, i18n (takes up a lot of space)
• installed some extra utilities (gkrellm, iftop, etc.)
• captive-ntfs ntoskrnl and ntfs.sys files already stored in /var/lib/captive
• installed DOSemu to run Ghost and DriveImage (previous backup standards). This allows me to do backups and restores over the network, or from a USB2.0 / firewire drive (that isn't always detected properly under real DOS). I can even backup and restore to SATA or SCSI/RAID arrays that aren't supported under DOS.
  Unfortunately, DOSemu stripped out wholedisk access, so I have to restore the MBR with dd . :( Anyone know how to hack wholedisk access back into the dosemu source?
• Custom scripts to automate connecting to our fileservers and detecting/backing up drives with partimage, dd, etc.
• And of course, custom backgrounds :P

Pretty damn useful... it's the only system maintenance CD that boots on all of our hardware.

If only grub could be bootstrapped from CD, we would also use it to boot into existing systems and it'd be perfect!

Re:Remastering your own custom KNOPPIX

[spacefrog]

I could be mistaken, but I think the initial loader on the suse install cd might be grub-based.

Re:Remastering your own custom KNOPPIX

[Anonymous Coward]

feel like sharing it? (of course w/o the warez)

Re:Remastering your own custom KNOPPIX

[mixmasta]

I believe grub can be booted from cd....

Check out the Ubuntu live cd to check it out. That's where I saw it.

Step-by-step

[FreeLinux]

Boot from the Knoppix CD
Open Konsole
type su
type knoppix-installer
answer the prompts
reboot
Done.

Re:Step-by-step

[bkb]

Your post is just to good.Made me laugh out loud. You see not all of us are terminal pros.I love it.There is the KISS method Keep It Simple Stupid. When KISS is used everyone is a winner. If you do what you do above everyone head you are not reaching your audience but just showing off. I wish others were as direct as you were with your post. BRAVO! BRAVO!

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard dr

[M_Talon]

I was running XP on my second box at home and wanted to try making a Linux box out of it. I didn't want to commit to a repartition, so I tried Knoppix. While playing with it, I discovered this method of install...

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition

No partioning or constant CD loading neccessary. Works fine from NTFS. Biggest problem here would be getting an ISO image of the disk down to the hard drive.

Of course, if you're comfortable doing the repartitioning, I would recommend the HD install (sudo knoppix-installer). That way you can use apt-get to keep the system up to date.

Note of caution

[rwa2]

I've run into at least one laptop that runs KNOPPIX fine, but hangs when loading Linux from disk (under Knoppix, Debian, and Redhat FC3). These distributions all install fine, but they invariably hang up halfway through the boot process, on inane things like starting up the print service (and stuff that has nothing to do with hardware). It's always in the same spot (but on different services between the different distros).

Really has me frustrated. BTW, the hardware in question is an Alienware Area-51m laptop.

Re:Note of caution

[yem]

Check with knoppix, then follow up with a visit to http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Re:Note of caution

[shellbeach]

I've run into at least one laptop that runs KNOPPIX fine, but hangs when loading Linux from disk (under Knoppix, Debian, and Redhat FC3). These distributions all install fine, but they invariably hang up halfway through the boot process, on inane things like starting up the print service (and stuff that has nothing to do with hardware).

Well, at least you could then use knoppix to remove the link to the offending bootscript in the start-level of your choice ... (you could use the distro's rescue disc to do this as well, of course ...) For that matter you could just boot into single user mode and fix it that way ...

You should also be able to do this to view the syslogs and work out what the last was that the kernel was trying to do. For that matter, if the magic-SysRq feature is enabled in any of those distros (and I think it is in FC3 at least, god only knows why all distros don't build their kernels with it) you could see if you can do Alt-SysRq-r, Alt-SysRq-e, Alt-SysRq-i - that should kill everything except init, and at least tells you that the kernel hasn't hung. You may be able to work on the system from here, or if you just want to cleanly reboot follow it by Alt-SysRq-s, u, b to reboot)

Really has me frustrated. BTW, the hardware in question is an Alienware Area-51m laptop.

Well, the brand and model name don't exactly inspire confidence ;)

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me be the first to say that you, sir, the grandparent poster who purportedly did this, are a GENIUS. Seriously and no sarcasm intended. That is exactly what I was thinking when I read all these 19 year olds saying, "Wah wah wah -- if a retail store won't let me abuse their machines because *I* am elite and I have mad skillz and wouldn't ACTUALLY hurt their box, then I won't buy it!!!" Good. In the retail industry, a small percentage of customers takes up a large percentage of the staff's time. ANYTHING you can do to discourage these customers from coming in will mean lower prices for the rest of us. I don't CARE of you think you "Should" be allowed to install "x" on a box before you buy it. Do you ask to sample the coffee before you order? Do you interview the person cutting your hair before going in?

And to all the people saying this person was a jerk -- he (or she) is making a really good point and bursting your little "I should do this because there are no consequences to what *I* am doing, I am special bubble. And you know it.

LiveDVD

[DustMagnet]

I burn LiveCDs to DVDs all the time. It works great, because they run noticable faster. I think the main benifit comes from shorter seeks.

Better: RHGB Kernel option

[fforw]

Open /etc/inittab and change

id:5:initdefault:

to

id:3:initdefault:

. No more graphical boot.

I think the grandparent searched for a method to not do a GUI boot process but still boot into X. This can be accomplished on Fedora by remove the rhgb kernel option in

/boot/grub/grub.conf

For example change:

title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.766_FC3)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.766_FC3 ro root=/dev/hda4 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.10-1.766_FC3.img

to

title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.766_FC3)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.766_FC3 ro root=/dev/hda4 quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.10-1.766_FC3.img

The Installation Screensaver

[bitspotter]

Using unionfs with a hard disk over the read-only CD filesystem, I'm thinking it would be possible to initiate an "install" process in the background, utilizing idle time, that wouldn't interfere with regular usage of the system.

The process would go something like this: Boot the system from the CD, check out the functionality. If you like it, click a program that says "Install". It asks you to select the harddrive where you you'd like to store the system (perhaps even to an ntfs partition?). The next time your system idles, the screen saver comes on. Then, in the background, the installer begins copying files from the read-only cd image to the hd overlay layer on the fly. *None of the applications even notice*, and it can be interrupted at anytime if you come back to use your system before the install is complete. Once it's done, it dings, and ejects the CD.

With Linux, I've enjoyed instlling apps without rebooting, but I'm now looking forward to installing an OPERATING SYSTEM without rebooting.

That is pretty sexy.

Quantian is a Knoppix LiveDVD

[monopole]

The Scientifc knoppix packace Quantian has a LiveDVD version which works beautifully, allowing for a shovelfull of scientific and numerical programs

hohoho

[bitspotter]

English version of the article

hohoho

[bitspotter]

English version of the article

Wicked! You, human!

[NRAdude]

Genius? One can cause much harm; not genius. When you sample coffee, do you secretly throw cocaine inside the reservoir after you fill your cup? After you interview a barber or hair-trimmer, do you vandalize their equipment that they may cause a horrible cut on a perspective customer? At least another poster (Togre) rebuked that goatse' hello.jpg is a most disgusting image and should be substituted for this to support a more l33t geek fassion statement. I say 10 lashes for any that fly the goatse colors on their mast; it is more mutiny, if not lowering moralle.

remastering LiveCDs made easy

[schweini]

I still consider remastering livecds a drag - but i've been playing around with emulators like qemu lately, and was wondering:
does anyone know of a distro i can boot e.g. using qemu (knoppix works fine), configure it inside the emulatorcontainer, and then simply burn the "image-file" to a cd? this would make remastering really easy and powerful, IMHO....

Re:remastering LiveCDs made easy

[gaslightjoe]

Damn Small Linux uses qemu to load DSL on a running windows xp machine, but you still can't write to NTFS!

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard dr

[bitspotter]

Excellent!

Now if only the fs changes outside the home dir could be stored without mounting the persitent home...

Re:Now we need simple online storage - GMail FS an

[mxyzpltk]

Why bother? It's pretty easy to get Knoppix booting off a 1GB USB flash stick. You can partition the stick so you have a big read-only section for Knoppix itself, and a still-sizable partition for settings and data. Encrypted loopback filesystem support is built-in with Knoppix, so your data is pretty darn secure. True, older machines can't boot off USB, but they can boot off CD or floppy, allowing you to load USB drivers and divert the boot.

Lovely

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just decided recently that I want to test the waters again in the Linux world. My previous (and first) venture (RedHat) was not pretty. I almost sailed a laptop into a wall. I am a veteran of MS DOS 5, Win 3.1, and up. I did avoid WinME. I tried Linspire and it intrigued me enough to look more closely at the other distributions. I got hold of Knoppix 3.7 and just installed it to my laptop's hard drive today. Then I come here and find out there's going to be another version and have to read about it. What timing. Am I already starting to convert?!

I hope Knoppix will support my PC's hardware at home, because Linspire sure didn't. Odd thing is that once I booted into Knoppix from my laptop's hdd, some of the devices no longer detected, as they did when booting from the cd. I also bought a copy of Linspire today.

Re:Grammar, please. No, who cares!`

[LWATCDR]

Well since I do not use SMS I know not of this SMSspeak of which you speak. Many people attack the spelling and grammar of replys when they do not like the reply and can not attack the content.
I mistook your reply as one of those. Bash the editors all you wish.

Unionfs IRC Channel

[Anonymous Coward]

I found on the unionfs mailing list that some of the people using it setup an irc channel. It can be found at irc.freenode.net #unionfs. One of the developers is in there often and seems to talk with everyone about the issues they are having with unionfs.

Re:Wicked! You, human!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the POINT, see? Genius. Proof of concept to demonstrate exactly why it isn't innocent or safe to just go out randomly inserting "Boot CDs" into retail demo computers. Everyone was making spurious claims that "any retailer that won't let you do this won't get my business" etc. etc. When it is QUITE CLEAR that any $8/hour blue shirt won't be able to tell if you are doing something HARMFUL to the system, in spite of it being "just a Knoppix CD" See? Of course you do. That's the point I was making. This isn't just sampling coffee or interviewing a barber or whatever. This is getting access to a system and installing whatever you want. Sure, "you" are harmless, but should they let just anyone go on those computers and install any CD they bring from home? OF COURSE NOT.

Ugh: Mod Parent Up

[lilmouse]

I hate to say it, but he does have a point. Allowing me put boot from my CD allows me to do just about anything I want with the computer. Suppose I installed a little program to mangle the bios and turn off all the fans?

Boom! No more computer.

Ok, showing goatse pictures is rather tacky, and I can see why this was modded flamebait, but it's actually rather insightful.

--LWM

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard dr

[lilmouse]

Wow, that was so easy - I'll go home and do that today!

I shouldn't have any problem remember the, oh, 20 odd steps involved, nor remembering all the lines for my lilo configuration.

Easy as pie!

Thanks!

--LWM

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from HD

[cvdwl]

Actually managed to copy the files from CD (not iso) onto a windows hard drive, then downloaded Grubd and mucked around with one or the other of the menu.lst files in there. The result is that:

1. Boot Windows into modified boot.ini
2. Options are Grub or Windows (from c:/boot.ini)
3. Select Grub, Options are memtest, a minimal dos (sorta handy), Windows (iterate) or various Knoppices.

Result, Knoppix completely contained in a windows directory, no CD's or boot disks required. And no LILO, which I've never really liked. And, more important for me, no downloading an iso over a slow home network onto ancient hardware.

YMMV... I wasted a fair bit of time doing this on an old P2 - 350 I had lying around. A lost weekend if there ever was one!

Re:And if you want Knoppix to run from the hard dr

[Anonym1ty]

it's been a while, but whatever happened to just going to a shell and typing knx-hdinstall ? Seemed to work just fine

Koppix 3.8 available via bittorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Koppix 3.8 CeBit edition available via bittorrent from the tracker at http://www.boegenielsen.dk:6969/

download knoppix on emule/edonkey

[Anonymous Coward]

ed2k://|file|Knoppix%203.8%20Linux%20(CeBIT%202005 %20Edition).iso|728958976|960B2CC4DA0A8C41B7BF07BC 488988E5|/
ed2k://|file|Knoppix%203.8%20Linux%20(CeBIT%202005 %20Edition).iso|728958976|960B2CC4DA0A8C41B7BF07BC 488988E5|/

02282005.iso|728958976|960B2CC4DA0A8C41B7BF07BC4 88 988E5|p=713A1867FA6683D75D30FED5B390A034:7E2306323 0E8029A7D164BF572E34920:13666219FD026DED8F1435CFFA 00EEC0:2942DCDEBA49C9F139FC930E8BE74760:A9762E22E3 293C965C5555B39E7EDE3E:66C86AEE8A53EFA86FCBC61B2F2 86197:9347EF1F330EAA0F993D31843A311FD8:B6645AE81B1 81F6B76FD92624B58F738:BFF01D84F433DBDA2F203658887A C601:B26B9031DACC3A16A939AC61BF84F38A:33965FB813FB 3611F96C36BEFFF5E39A:CAC92DB6C7A13128DEAAA17540844 5CA:9E571B536C219CE77B137152AA4E3A68:058B34A2FA024 8D17E5A64BFAF97C9DC:41E1CCB718D2B5D8E0A726C2C97085 B7:5C998637EC2F6CC504BC5BEF3ACFD98F:D1B84FC4B30E05 228C03BEA34C5833A6:1E9EDAC0F3971813543D37F44A919C1 8:E27445B5504232D2796E29571BC8560A:E289E94A7250A94 7567F3DA6CCB34F3F:ED913C7B1BAF11AF77DB3C823E553CCF :38C3081FDB01F19562846EFB279094AF:CB4229D02CD48689 56BD2F9BDB95EEDB:D3437765A45DDC2735148411CD4DE9CE: 83F948B9D74D1A53B465EB532F143857:0F07622CC20600866 2B532F430F9B290:37EBA732A112833F5AE8B084E7C3B207:6 8A401D1A661735D5A1330F4F07FF0D4:48E61AF45F952BF973 CAA9702CD027D2:F95ADF9877DCFB1F83617CFFF67AF684:54 279D64FC03D275B2C43DBDF240C99A:8FC1D1A22B1FAD884A2 59FF90162EB8F:990A60BE46BAE4D509BA500ED374B022:B52 CA90641727F4E541FBCC946646FC4:57C1C175340F1A9FF797 C3456CE88591:67FFDAA872FD6E471306936EAF6A5EB4:25F0 54FE29CDAE601C7BC41CBA5CD1BE:A64BB9B7A212B5C6EF129 7C07556B10F:2F2DC9DDE61D3D070561C606EBAC195B:F24F9 52DC57CE95F1D4A8D449595402C:E55BE43D6FE636558F474C 82F3548C62:EB382F6CB92FE5925D3D2147369F4426:7C6FF2 9CC569085E7B1EE1EEA1FAD909:896158CDC827198005310F3 F3FA0CBC1:D6A15FC3EE153A9A55192C4634A0EF61:030CC41 B2C8C1891382CEC778C7E273A:B4BEC4F2CBAA8D76D7A23CF0 2DDD18F9:D78919B606594D3E9DCF904DB43A0CF3:71E99C3C EB49B4725636241E8DE17AE9:B278551D2B0E43B48DE624404 EC193FE:C75D8CF02AB89F34397027C703EBBB89:6BA8CC8F2 3A79675D28F183DE713ED18:D9BDC64B7C6F51EBB587038750 E5214B:A66D5ED4BA101EECCA645EAF1356AB5A:998ED39D6B 56EF281C7F80462901B86D:19C4511E5813CE8C3018398925B 27D93:5470FFF1E9E2B259C22403590E785D39:740EBD6CE01 A03F053CBE296DF6A0993:6D4AD356AAAA8716C71CAD1A3347 52A2:FA07C8C56102586115E38D23398C361B:F2E52A51F6B5 176AC7215B42377A608B:0412CE7570FA8AB0C4D7258C745F1 FAB:38ED5818A9032826C063C14872761330:6C09CB2338176 E858E70FFCE7C134830:53683384DBC57745B935768571E9DD 8F:7F57657BADE412C082CCED942A01FBAF:2CA37304A25FC8 FE530D2F12CCECF602:ABD4F6EAB8EF42295E6E9E61667B7AC 0:CAADFBD5C7DA9347B213E767423A1539:F22687B8AF1B3C0 28C01C5D76B83A790:FC0B24862DBEF2885172BF67CB690865 :688C75B780FD41E64202861DD595D2E1:2410C485338B53D4 460343A1693AF9E0:92C2401D953FC79D7DA70F361D474C80: B02DF5D769DABE4BB7CDCBDA2948E2D7|h=GZ43DKGWDCSH6MW Y5SGA7S65HU6FW2XJ|/

Knoppix 3.8 IS on BitTorrent

[Krellan]

Yes, it IS on BitTorrent now.

http://stacktrace.org/index_html/20050313-Knoppix3 .8CeBitTorrent/KNOPPIX_V3.8-2005-02-28-CeBIT_Editi on.iso.torrent

Here's the webpage this link comes from:
http://stacktrace.org/index_html/20050313-Knoppix3 .8CeBitTorrent

And, here is a (very slow, may be down now) conventional download:

http://dl1.gamerznet.org/vollversionen/unix/knoppi xx/KNOPPIX_V3.8-2005-02-28-CeBIT_Edition.iso

Here's the webpage that it came from (beware, heavy advertisements/popups, better get Adblock for your Firefox):

http://www.winfuture.de/news,19477.html

Enjoy! (To my knowledge, Knoppix is 100% Open Source, so all these links are legal)

Knoppix site down use mirrordot

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/0d38fb2e04a289ac8 819fb831714ae3d/index.html