Knoppix -- a towering achievement
Even if you've never run Linux before in your life -- or if you've been using it daily for a decade -- you need Knoppix, the best usable live-CD OS out there.
I confess. It was my first. My first Linux, that is. And that same version, 5.1.1, is still current (developer Klaus Knopper is very methodical in his work).
Besides being a great system to use -- and to use as a rescue disk when things are broken -- Knoppix lets you see what a Debian Linux system can do (and in this case, a Debian system running the KDE desktop and packed with apps). For even more software, get or burn the Knoppix DVD. I have a DVD-ROM but not a burner, and I'm thinking of ordering a DVD. And just as you can run Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux in RAM (if you've got 128 MB for the former, 256 MB for the latter -- though those are just my estimates), Knoppix can be booted to run in RAM (with the toram boot command) on systems with ... is it 1 GB, or 512 MB, I can't remember.
Right now Knoppix 5.2 is starting to float around. It was released in a German magazine in July, and was supposed to be out this summer.
There are some great Knoppix tips in Carla Schroder's Linux Cookbook, as well as books that apply specifically to Knoppix.
I recommend "Knoppix Hacks," by Kyle Rankin. A new edition is forthcoming.
1 Comments
Leave a comment
About this blog
New ways to sign in to comment: I just added the ability for prospective commenters on this blog to sign in using their AOL, Yahoo! and Wordpress.com accounts (for the past 200 posts anyway ... more than that will take an extensive, middle-of-the-night rebuild). That's in addition to the other sign-in choices, which include starting a Movable Type account on this blog, Typekey, OpenID, Live Journal and Vox. If you have trouble getting your Movable Type account verified, or any of the other sign-in options are not working properly, please e-mail me. With these added ways of signing in, there's more reason than ever for you to make a comment (or several!).
Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
And if you've never burned an ISO file onto CD, you can do it with Nero. I don't have Nero, so I use ISO Recorder, which is free and downloadable: http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm