Knoppix

DOOManiac · May 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">OMG, it rocks!!!! :D</div>I first heard about <a href='http://www.knoppix.net/' target='_blank'>Knoppix</a> from <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=10&t=31044&st=0' target='_blank'>this thread</a>, but I felt that this deserves a thread of its own.

<a href='http://www.knoppix.net/' target='_blank'>Knoppix</a> rocks. I LOVE IT!

What is <a href='http://www.knoppix.net/' target='_blank'>Knoppix</a> you ask? Its a linux distro (Debian-based) that runs entirely 100% off of your CD-ROM. It doesn't mess with your boot sector, partitions, or any silliness like that. In fact, by default all drives are set to READ ONLY, and you have to manually enable writing to the drive (warning: Linux (all distros afaik) cannot write NTFS partitons, so don't try it!).

So what is this CD with an entire OS on it good for? Lots.

I got it as a rescue disk. Now if something happens and XP won't boot, no longer must I either formatting right then (and losing data) or putting my hard drive into someone else's computer (or their's into mine) to back up data. This little puppy can back up stuff no problem. It has full network connectivity (so you can read/write to file shares too), Internet connectivity (LAN, PPP, PPPoE, etc), and even CD Burning (providing you have a second CD-ROM. Can't burn the drive w/ the OS in it heh).

Its also got about a hundred apps installed with it too. OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. So if you're computer is down and you still need to get some work done, you can.

And its also just damned fun to play with. :)

it runs suprisingly fast too, being from a CD and all. Hell, almost faster than Windows off your hard drive. But I guess that's just Linux :P

Best of all (in my opinion), Linux has taken leaps and bounds towards user-friendliness since the last time I used it. I was able to easily find everything I was looking for very, very quickly. The only thing even slightly confusing was the mouse sensitivity (simply labelled "acceleration" in a seperate application just for mouse properties... wierd). Other than that, its rockin.

I'd recommend everybody w/ bandwidth to spare and a 700MB cd to burn go download it. Keep it as a rescue disk, you never know when you may need it. Or just play around with the thing. Those of you who don't have the bandwidth to spare can order it on CD too for like $5 or so.

<a href='http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html#order' target='_blank'>To download Knoppix, click here</a> and scroll down to where it says "Download from Mirrors".

Silver_Fox · May 2003

...

'neat'?

Scythe · May 2003

Cool, I would like to give this a try sometime.

But wait, I'm on 56k...

Oh well, dream over. Back to work.

--Scythe--

(P.S. My burner is an external USB2.0, would it work with that?)

Asraniel · May 2003

of course you can burn it with that burner (why not?)

Yes, knoppix is realy cool.. and it looks very good.. i love the standart background...

Sycophant · May 2003

Cool concept! And wasn't there an "full OS on a floppy disk" a few years ago as well? (<i>/me tries to remember the name....</i><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'>)

And as my bad luck would have it, my spool gave up its last blank CD two days ago. The sad part is that in the past two days, there have been at least 8 CD's I've <i>really</i> wanted to burn. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'> I've got a directory with about 5gb of stuff ready to burn, which I intend to as soon as I get a new spool.

I'll just add this to my mess of bits and bytes for now. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

DY357LX · May 2003

Well it's gonna take me roughly 2 and a half hours
to download. I've always been alittle curious about Linux etc so
i'm gonna give it a try.
Not 100% sure what i'm doing but as it doesn't screw around
with my anything on my Comp I feel I have nothing to lose :-)

The only mild concern I have is altering my BIOS to "boot from CD".
What happens if I leave Unreal Tournament 2003 or MOHAA in
the drive? Will it be ignored or will I get crazy errors about
a hidden MOHAA OS that E.A created in a secret lab?

TenSix · May 2003

The CD has to be bootable as well, or else....it does nothing.

Linux might be good, but I have too many Window's apps I need to be messin with that (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Imageready, 3D Studio Max, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, GTA3: Vice City, Deus Ex 2, Enter the Matrix....see where im going?) <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'>

MaTT · May 2003

sounds interesting...

/me downloads <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Cereal_KillR · May 2003

if it cannot write NTFS partitions, where can I put my stuff on? Do I need a new partition?

Talesin · May 2003

Yes, there are a bunch that just fit on a floppy. LOAF (Linux On A Floppy) is one of the more well-known. Hal91 was one of my favorites for an emergency rescue disk when on a jobsite, when a machine had COMPLETELY died.

USB2.0 devices will write at standard USB speeds if support for them is not there. If there is no support for the bridge... well.. you can have more problems. Similar, USB support needs to be either compiled into the kernel or stored as a loadable kernel module. Foreknowledge and investigation are important.

Linux can READ NTFS partitions just fine, currently.
However, NTFS <b>write</b> support is experimental, thanks to MS idiocy. It seems to work for some people... for others it completely destroys everything that was on the NTFS partition.
My recommendation would be to either NOT USE NTFS IN THE FIRST PLACE (**highly recommended in any case!!**), or to get a CD-RW and use it for 'holding space'. Possibly partition off a section of HDD if you have unformatted space just laying around.

Cereal_KillR · May 2003

now why would NTFS be unrecomended... :/

DOOManiac · May 2003

Because it sucks. Well, I mean I guess its great if you have heavy security in mind, but if you want compatability (other OSes reading the partition), it sucks. Monse also says FAT32 is faster than NTFS.

The only reason I formatted w/ NTFS is my drive is so big, and XP is hard coded not to allow bigger than (i think) 60gb FAT32 partitions. If you want a partition that size, it makes you go NTFS :/

But back on topic:

Today I tried Knoppix on my laptop, and it worked perfectly! It also ran damned fast considering the laptop is a POS w/ only 96MB ram and a 400mhz cpu, plus like a 8X cd-rom (if that) that only reads correctly 50% of the time. But it even detected the PCMCIA and everything! w00t! :D

So, does anybody know an * EASY * way to format and repartition stuffs with Linux?

Rion · May 2003

it sounds interesting.. but does having the OS on the hard drive really take up that much resources?

MonsieurEvil · May 2003

Well, FAT16 is faster. NTFS5 is very slightly slower (more from a benchmark than a practical standpoint), but the far greater data integrity makes up for it. And if you do as I recommend and put your swap files on a FAT16 partition, you get the best of all worlds.

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

This sounds cool, but why would I use this? If I needed to recover a busted XP machine I could use a boot disk and the 2000/XP Recovery Console, for example (and be able to read NTFS partitions if needed).

What sort of linux partitioning and formating do you want to be able to do? There are a ton of wizards and scripts out there. Or you could just make a small FAT16 section of your drive for use with the knoppix disk as some swap space.

I'm trying to find it, but there used to be an OS a guy wrote in 1999-2000 called Q-OS, which was an internet brower, text editor, file system, and a couple other bits, all in a true windowed-GUI. It fit on and ran from a single 1.44 floppy disk. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

Dr_Shaggy · May 2003

I tried Knoppix on the suggestion of a slashdot thread. I've never had linux installed on any of my computers, but I have friends that are big into it, also I know the basics of using linux. So I burned this Knoppix iso, popped it into my win2k box, and was amazed when it booted itself in the same or less time it took for win2k to boot, all from the cd! Plus it recognized all my hardware and my connection to the internet. I was treated to a fast boot that went straight to a very attractive desktop with lots of free software ready for use, and a working internet connection. This went against all the problems I had heard about for friends doing linux installs.
Thumbs up for knoppix, its linux for impatient idiots like me!

FAT32 is faster than NTFS? I was using win2k on a FAT32 partition, then I changed to XP (using many of the excellent tips from the windows tuning section of readyroom.org, by monse?). I reformatted to NTFS and the most notable difference is defrag time, FAT32 defrag still wouldn't be done if i left it overnight, but the NTFS defrag is much faster. I dunno if this is a proper test of hard drive performance though.

pardzh · May 2003

Definitely trying this, just because of my curiosity with linux has always been put off by rumors of it being not so user friendly. Now I have no excuse not to try it.

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Dr_Shaggy · May 2003

Oh yeah, heres a story talking about installing linux on your comp using the knoppix cd (cd no longer needed) in like 20mins, <a href='http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/02/1729247&mode=thread' target='_blank'>check it out</a> (from slashdot)

That_Annoying_Kid · May 2003

Doom, Knoppix definetly rules, and it automatically does DHCP for you so if you boot a comp that logs into a DCHP server to track your thru a network "it's called the instruction network" then you have privacy again, stupid school district.

MonsE, are you joking? find that for me if you aren't! <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Confuzor · May 2003

Anyone know whether it's friendly to DOS games? If so, you bet I'll be getting it... :D

DY357LX · May 2003

I've downloaded it and burnt it to an ISO
and changed my BIOS to boot from CD-ROM
but i still launch into 98 <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'>
And the .img file it supplies is too large for a floppy disc.
Any idea's

Mr_Enigma · May 2003

FAT32 Forever!

Liku · May 2003

Yay!!! To bad I'm not a Linux user.

philmcneal · May 2003

hm I can make a small fat partition and then install extra software for knoppix?

maybe I can use this to host my half life server in linux!

DOOManiac · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DY357LX @ May 5 2003, 06:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I've downloaded it and burnt it to an ISO
and changed my BIOS to boot from CD-ROM
but i still launch into 98 :(  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Make surt that if there is a boot order, the CD-ROM is checked BEFORE the hard drive. Also, you may have to do something like hit ENTER to confirm boot off cd in some bioses (i know my main computer does, but my laptop didn't). Finally, try removing the HDD from the boot list altogether, so it won't even try to boot from the drive (its still there, it just won't try to boot off it). Just be sure to change it back when you are done. :)

DOOManiac · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ May 5 2003, 01:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> This sounds cool, but why would I use this? If I needed to recover a busted XP machine I could use a boot disk and the 2000/XP Recovery Console, for example (and be able to read NTFS partitions if needed).  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Because my hard drive is big, and WinXP (and its recovery console) is hard coded not to let you format a 75MB (or bigger) partition in FAT32. It simply won't let you. You gotta format it in NTFS. This is listed on the MS Knowledge Base <a href='http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314463' target='_blank'>Article 314463</a>.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it. Another option is to start from a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk and use the Format tool included on the disk.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

My drive is too big for the Win 98/ME fdisk tool to recognize too. So bleh, if I want to format to FAT32, doing so in linux (or some other third party partition thingy) is the only choice.

Plus since its in a GUI you can look at the NS forums or be on IRC while you repartition :P

philmcneal · May 2003

can you install extra software?

Knoppix

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