Knoppix will give you Red Hat Debian.

[CptKrf]

Ok, so the title looks like I have been eating too many Windoze patch CDs.

I like Debian for all the usual reasons but never recommend it to a beginner unless he/she wants to learn from the bottom up. To have an optimal system you have to intimately know your hardware which can be tough for an Ex spoon fed Windoze user. I expect a lot of Debian newbies stalled in front of the Xconfigurator screens.

I was playing with Knoppix as a great tool to hand out as a 'try before you buy' Linux demo. When some of the more intelligent members of the Windoze community liked what they saw and installed it for real, I had the problem of what to tell them about Knoppix being a 'lite' version of Linux.

One nice thing about Red Hat 9 was its almost bullet proof Windows easy install process. Alas, RH9 is defunct. But the latest version of Knoppix does an even better plug and play than RH9 did.

Then it occurred to me that Knoppix was a great installer for Debian. Just do a hard disk install of Knoppix then start apt getting what you want and you wind up with full fledged Debian.

CptKrf

[IsaacKuo]

I'm in the middle of building a computer I want to dual boot Win98/Linux on (a P4Celeron 2.4Ghz with 256Mb RAM, 40Gig hard drive).

I've been thinking of using Knoppix because it's reportedly extremely easy to install, with its excellent automatic hardware detection. But everyone just talks about how cool it is running off of CD. Is it a good place to start with on a hard drive installation?

Ultimately, I want to heavily customize my user interface, possibly with a lightweight window manager like Fluxbox. I really want to get rid of all the "crap" on the desktop like docks, "task bars", start-button-like-thingies, and pretty much anything else that eats into full screen real estate--with the notable exception of window tabs. Window tabs that fit on the side of a window with sideways tab titles just blow my mind. Everything else, though--I want to do away with and Knoppix screenshots I've seen all have all sorts of this krud poluting the desktops.

The "flashy stuff" I want in the interface is window tabs, true transparency, shadows, and possibly a gimmicky 3D way to switch from one desktop to another. Is Knoppix a good choice or would another distribution be easier to mold into what I'm aiming for?

Thanks!

[Hayl]

any distro can run any software.

[nothingbutlinux]

I highly recommend Knoppix as THE way to install Debian. When you intall Debian with their installer, yes you end up with a barebones system, but there are MANY mundane things you have to do, like install CUPS, for example. I've installed Debian on several PCs, and I always use Knoppix now.

Yes, it will load things you probably don't want, but that's the beauty of Debian, you can easily apt-get remove. Knoppix loads KDM, but if you want to try several different windows managers, KDM gives you a drop down menu that lets you select any window manager you have loaded. It also keeps the window manager you selected as the default, so each time you log in you'll be taken to that manager.

Don't let the fact that Knoppix loads more things than you want keep you from using it. You'll find it's much faster to use Knoppix, then apt-get reomve than it is to use the Debian installer.

[IsaacKuo]

Thanks for the advice! I've downloaded the last English language Knoppix iso...and sadly, my only currently working CD writer can only do up to 650Mbytes. :(

Oh well, I guess I'll have to build my DVD burning system before I can experiment with Knoppix...

[TheHeadRoach]

How up-to-date are packages for knoppix?

[danimal1009]

Originally posted by IsaacKuo
...and sadly, my only currently working CD writer can only do up to 650Mbytes. :(
I'm guessing it's not your CD writer thats the problem, but the discs that youre trying to burn on. Do they have a 650 MB capacity? I see most new blank CDs have a 700 MB capacity.

Also, using Knoppix as a Debian installer causes a few minor problems... Such as with apt-get. I installed 3.2 on my HD, and I did a apt-get upgrade and it broke some things. I could never get it to work right after that, so I figured out how to install Debian, and I'm much ahppier with that.

[IsaacKuo]

It really is a limitation of the burner. It came preinstalled on a new (at the time) HP Pavillion PIII 800mhz.

I haven't even seen a 650Mbyte blank in well over a year--you can't get them anywhere anymore.