I don't think I made myself clear in exactly how low end my customer base is. None of my customers have ANY interest in anything like that. With the exception of two Dells all the rest of the servers I've dealt with are white box systems. For the most part they are used for local file serving and some groupware stuff. For what I do Debian is fully supported in every respect. Hell none of my customers even do their own web hosting. My customer base is strictly small business and some SOHO. Only one of my customers even has more than one location. That one I've got set up to do VPN between the two locations. For remote management, which I rarely have to do, I use certificate based SSH. For people like me and the customers I'm looking to aquire and keep those features are not a selling point. I'm happy doing what I do. Yeah I sometimss spend a bit of time scratching my head trying to figure out how to do some oddball thing a customer wants but I have fun while scratching my head. Some of us are happy with what we are doing and just are not ambitious (sp) enough to want to deal with companies that are big enough to want or need a systme like that. If one of my customers systems go down I almost always have enough spare parts to get it back up immediately. And I'm very demanding about backups. I make it clear that backups are important and that failure to make them is a good way to loose a lot of money. Anyway I just wanted to clarify that not all of us are working on systems that even need those features. My prefered customer base is the little mom and pops shops who need a cheap but reliable system. As long as they pay my bills and I'm having fun doing what I do I'll keep it up. When it starts getting really boring I'll look at going up to the next level.
I don't think Knoppix itself will do better on the desktop than Ubuntu. I've used both and like both. Yes I know you said something like Knoppix and not specifically Knoppix. Knoppix has a LOT more software built in (at least on the DVD version) but it has one BIG strike against it in my book. Based on what I've read Knoppix does NOT do well when installed to a hard drive. The design of it causes it to break easily when actually installed. That will hold it back as a desktop version.
As to being a X distro house. We are a one distro house. No it isn't Ubuntu. We run Debian. I've been using it for years now and although I do check out other distros every so often I've yet to find one that has anything in it that makes me what to change.
I have to disagree here. My wife is starting her own business and after looking at several different ways to go decided to with Linux for her office systems. I installed a variety of distros for her after sitting down with her to look at a couple of different lists. She tested Symphony, Puppy, Debian and Ubuntu. After looking at and playing with them she opted to to go with Debian over Ubuntu. She honestly liked Puppy best but since it's own page says it doesn't support compiling software I ruled it out (I'm her IT dept. I'm easy to reach and provide better support than she can get elsewhere.) So she actually opted for Debian (She is running Etch. I've not run a copy of stable on my desktop in years. I find the testing line to be rock solid and totally stable for my use and it provides more recent packages although I often replace the included packages with either.debs from whatever software project I'm using or just break down and compile the latest version.) I also prefer Debian over Ubuntu. Debian does everything I want to do. I've set it up on servers and everything worked there as well. So I don't think Debian will lose as many people as you think. In fact I think as people learn Ubuntu and start looking at what it's based on it may actually increase the use of Debian.
You need to start looking at this issue from an enterprise point of view and not a small-business personal point of view in order to understand it.
I have to disagree with that statement. I think it depends on what you are trying to do. I for instance do provide Linux servers and support in my area. I however REFUSE to do business with enterprises. I focus on small businesses. How an enterprise will look at it is not at all relevant to me. I will give you however that if you are looking at working with enterprises then what you said is true. Not all of us do. Personally I don't really want to support any company with more than say 5 servers and 50 desktops. I work for myself and I don't want to lock myself in to any one company. That's one of the things that makes Linux truly great IMHO. It's there for all of us no matter what we want to do. It can do everything from act as a desktop all the way up to providing enterprise support on supercomputers. That IMHO ROCKS.
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I don't think I made myself clear in exactly how low end my customer base is. None of my customers have ANY interest in anything like that. With the exception of two Dells all the rest of the servers I've dealt with are white box systems. For the most part they are used for local file serving and some groupware stuff. For what I do Debian is fully supported in every respect. Hell none of my customers even do their own web hosting. My customer base is strictly small business and some SOHO. Only one of my customers even has more than one location. That one I've got set up to do VPN between the two locations. For remote management, which I rarely have to do, I use certificate based SSH. For people like me and the customers I'm looking to aquire and keep those features are not a selling point. I'm happy doing what I do. Yeah I sometimss spend a bit of time scratching my head trying to figure out how to do some oddball thing a customer wants but I have fun while scratching my head. Some of us are happy with what we are doing and just are not ambitious (sp) enough to want to deal with companies that are big enough to want or need a systme like that. If one of my customers systems go down I almost always have enough spare parts to get it back up immediately. And I'm very demanding about backups. I make it clear that backups are important and that failure to make them is a good way to loose a lot of money. Anyway I just wanted to clarify that not all of us are working on systems that even need those features. My prefered customer base is the little mom and pops shops who need a cheap but reliable system. As long as they pay my bills and I'm having fun doing what I do I'll keep it up. When it starts getting really boring I'll look at going up to the next level.
I don't think Knoppix itself will do better on the desktop than Ubuntu. I've used both and like both. Yes I know you said something like Knoppix and not specifically Knoppix. Knoppix has a LOT more software built in (at least on the DVD version) but it has one BIG strike against it in my book. Based on what I've read Knoppix does NOT do well when installed to a hard drive. The design of it causes it to break easily when actually installed. That will hold it back as a desktop version.
As to being a X distro house. We are a one distro house. No it isn't Ubuntu. We run Debian. I've been using it for years now and although I do check out other distros every so often I've yet to find one that has anything in it that makes me what to change.
I have to disagree here. My wife is starting her own business and after looking at several different ways to go decided to with Linux for her office systems. I installed a variety of distros for her after sitting down with her to look at a couple of different lists. She tested Symphony, Puppy, Debian and Ubuntu. After looking at and playing with them she opted to to go with Debian over Ubuntu. She honestly liked Puppy best but since it's own page says it doesn't support compiling software I ruled it out (I'm her IT dept. I'm easy to reach and provide better support than she can get elsewhere.) So she actually opted for Debian (She is running Etch. I've not run a copy of stable on my desktop in years. I find the testing line to be rock solid and totally stable for my use and it provides more recent packages although I often replace the included packages with either .debs from whatever software project I'm using or just break down and compile the latest version.) I also prefer Debian over Ubuntu. Debian does everything I want to do. I've set it up on servers and everything worked there as well. So I don't think Debian will lose as many people as you think. In fact I think as people learn Ubuntu and start looking at what it's based on it may actually increase the use of Debian.