knoppix 5.0 live dvd just sucks !!!

[zavalita2002]

I couldnt believe my eyes when realizing, after booting from a copy of a very difficult to get Knoppix 5.0 live dvd, that the most waited for linux distro wasnt capable of doing what a previous verson (knoppix 4.02) could do automatically : detect NTFS windows partitions... That is just terrible ! That, and the incredibly bloated menus, and the failed manual mounting of these NTFS partitions, made me really sick !! :((
What could be the problem ??

[nad]

Ask Microsoft.

[zavalita2002]

The famous hard disk install option, which was 'quite' necessary, is nowhere to be found !!
I've spend 2 hours trying to find a way to install the damn software on my hard disk, hoping desperately that this sort of action would bring up my windows partitions automatically, and finally I gave up. Big disapointement, this version of Knoppix.

[Harry Kuhman]

I had actually heard rumors that both of these had been addresses in Knoppix 5, but your posts actually give me hope that they are not.

Linux can not safely write to NTFS, and this is something that Microsoft has put a lot of effort into making sure of. And now that they have everyone trained to install regular "security updates" it is my guess that Linux never will safely write to NTFS, as whenever it does small "security" fixes can be introduced that can tell the difference between a NTFS volume last written by XP and one last written by Linux, and deliberately corrupt it if Linux is detected. Do you think Microsoft would stoop to something that low?

As to the hard disk install, as long as Knoppix is still made of parts of the stable, testing and unstable versions of Debian, then it is not suitable for hard disk install. And the hard disk install scripts have never worked right, for over three years I've been reading posts about things that worked fine from the Live CD but broke after a hard disk "install". Knoppix is what it is, a great Live CD or Live DVD. If you want a Knoppix like system that installs to hard disk and can include any of the software included with Knoppix, install Debian, it is intended for hard disk install.

Do you really think a subject line like the one you choose is going to make you a lot of friends here in a Knoppix support forum? You are badmouthing a version of Knoppix that has not even officially been released to the Internet yet.

[zavalita2002]

Unfortunately, I gave up pretending that a linux distro, even the most user-friendly on the galaxy (linspire, xandros, knoppix) could actually replace the evil desktop master, that would be Microsoft Windows. You know, an OS to be installed onto the HD, be given a graphical tweaking and then, actually work with day to day software. But this is just a dream for the moment. You can't run Linux and Windows the same time, 'cause the both OS dont give a damn about each other (partition recognition). Even so, hardware detection is not 'perfect' in linux. Even so, the software written for linux is... free, which is so nice, but will (n)ever compete with the sofware for money, at least in the matter of... liability for the possible damage caused by that software. And wouldn't be fair, also...
Well, I've tried about 15 distros, and to be honest, 'your' Knoppix (4.02) was closest to the needs of a ... Windows software passionate user, like me.
Let's wait a couple of years.

[Harry Kuhman]

.... but will (n)ever compete with the sofware for money, at least in the matter of... liability for the possible damage caused by that software.
You know, you're not coming across well already, but this statement really takes the cake. Have you ever read the end user shrink license agreements? Have you ever heard of any sucessful liability claims aginst software makers? Do you have any idea how many man years of productive business time are lost each day just from users having to reboot their Microsoft systems? And can you show me one person who has gotten one nickel back because Microsoft shoved this junk out the door?

[angor]

>Well, I've tried about 15 distros

Like this?
Distro1: doesn't look like windows
Distro2: doesn't look like windows
Distro3: nope, doesn't either
...

>Let's wait a couple of years.

Please don't include me in the "us".

[zavalita2002]

Distro 1-15 : doesn't DO what Windows does. Sure, it can do some other things, like exploring the next galaxy beyond ours, recreate our surroundings, improve our life. But I am a mediocre man. I just want some compatibility, browsing, and NOT working with the command line. :oops:
Today I'd give up Windows, forever, if someone showed me a distro who does these things.
Sorry for hurting the feelings around here.

[dvryknopper]

You know, an OS to be installed onto the HD, be given a graphical tweaking and then, actually work with day to day software. But this is just a dream for the moment. You can't run Linux and Windows the same time, 'cause the both OS dont give a damn about each other (partition recognition)
I run a more Debian version of knoppix called Kanotix which comes with 2 or more boot loaders that I know of, grub and lilo. Grub was automatically installed, I use it for a dual boot kanotix and windows system and the MBR is not taken over by either OS when I load them on the grub menus which brings me to my point, linux recognizes the partitions of windows just fine (it does this well once logged into the OS aswell) Windows is the one with the partition recognition problem.

[Irgu]

Linux can not safely write to NTFS, and this is something that Microsoft has put a lot of effort into making sure of.

Linux has no problem with write reliability. Though NTFS support still isn't full-feature but that has nothing to do with safety. The current status of the NTFS driver Knoppix uses is on this page: http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsmount

[jult]

Unfortunately, I gave up pretending that a linux distro, even the most user-friendly on the galaxy (linspire, xandros, knoppix) could actually replace the evil desktop master, that would be Microsoft Windows. You know, an OS to be installed onto the HD, be given a graphical tweaking and then, actually work with day to day software. But this is just a dream for the moment. You can't run Linux and Windows the same time, 'cause the both OS dont give a damn about each other (partition recognition). Even so, hardware detection is not 'perfect' in linux. Even so, the software written for linux is... free, which is so nice, but will (n)ever compete with the sofware for money, at least in the matter of... liability for the possible damage caused by that software. And wouldn't be fair, also...
Well, I've tried about 15 distros, and to be honest, 'your' Knoppix (4.02) was closest to the needs of a ... Windows software passionate user, like me.
I agree wholeheartedly. There is just no competition when it comes to the ease of use you have with Windows 2000 (which by now is Windows 2006 really, after all the updates). Working in Windows saves me so much time and hassle I'm actually surprised there are still people trying to deny this fact. If you want to win, you need to know your enemy..

For production speed, creative and actual use, you still can't beat Windows. Mac or Linux are not even close, I would say. I've been using PC's for 25 years now, and the hard fact is that removing and avoiding spyware or viruses aren't much of a worry or problem anymore, it has never been a big issue for me personally. You have a lot of choice in Windows. On the Windows systems I use I have no security threats going on. Especially those users capable of installing and using Linux/BSD should know that it isn't the OS, it's the user of the OS. The more likely you would be to use linux, the higher the chance that a MicroSoft install would be easier and just as safe to use for you.

I use Fedora Core and CentOS for some servers I maintain, and for that it's really great, but I still run a few Windows servers too, mostly because for example the G6FTP/BPFTP server software has such an amazing UI and is easier and faster to maintain than its unix/linux competition. Security has never been a problem or issue for me, because I know what I'm doing.

There are several software packages one can use in Windows, like Christian Ghisler's TotalCommander (the total winner on everything related to file-management!) and Sony's SoundForge/Vegas/Acid (no other audio software will beat those), that I have not found any close competition for in the Linux world, and it really makes me somewhat sad to have to stress that Linux desktops have a really long way to go before they get on that level. I don't get why those developers don't see what I see.

A recent development in Linux I dislike is the over-estimated importance of eye-candy. It just isn't that important in daily use of your computer. Slackware seems the only big distro to really get that. And of course MS Windows, which has let me strip it from eye-candy as much as I wanted. I need to work fast and sometimes watch TV/movies on my desktop machines, I'm not looking at icons or themes, in fact, if all is well I'm NOT looking at them, I'm actually using my PC productively, keeping it tidy and having my files where they should be.
Most software is free for Windows too these days. And I can't even remember the last time I experienced a crash or freeze on one of my Windows machines, so that old fight is over.

The mounting philosophy (instead of drive-letter structure), and the "single-user=never root" thought-process are also things that just won't make it big for desktop/creation machines, in my opinion. It's insulting to the owner if you don't give him/her access to his/her own system. The first thing Windows users do is automate their login on their PC/laptop, having to type passwords all the time is VERY annoying. Who needs more users when it's just you? And why would you create a different user when there's just one? Who needs to change users just to change settings, if the only one doing it is the same as the default user? That's just too silly. If you can't trust yourself with your own actions on your machine, why use it at all?

That said I don't mean to say development for linux should stop or something like that, I just think both Linux and Windows should look at each other with more vision and peace of mind. Face reality: It's hard to beat MS Windows, and it's not without reason that so many people are still using it. They are not all nuts or stupid. Windows simply has had much more experience dealing with many more users. You can't reach the same user-experiences when you're just now starting to get to the little things Windows has been dealing with for ages.
Kanotix and MEPIS are getting there, but speed and impatience will rule men's will, and until linux really masters that fact it will not be true competition. People will rather pay 200 Euros if it means they can still work as fast as they always could.

[jult]

I run a more Debian version of knoppix called Kanotix which comes with 2 or more boot loaders that I know of, grub and lilo. Grub was automatically installed, I use it for a dual boot kanotix and windows system and the MBR is not taken over by either OS when I load them on the grub menus which brings me to my point, linux recognizes the partitions of windows just fine (it does this well once logged into the OS aswell) Windows is the one with the partition recognition problem.
Nonsense. First of all, NTFS and ext3 and all those are just filesystems, they're not by definition related to the OS. NTFS is a much older system than many other new ones. Sure, it has its disadvantages, but they were not created to 'annoy the competition' or something, they were built for and on particular hardware, not knowing what the future of storage would be like.

I have a laptop with Windows XP, CentOS and Kanotix all running fine next to each other. I used to have Partition Manager (http://www.ranish.com/part/) giving me the boot-choices, which is actually a free DOS tool. Now I use GRUB for that. Windows does not see Linux, and Linux does not see the Windows partitions. You can if you want or need to, and it's just as much effort to get Windows to see a Linux part. than it is to get Linux to see the Windows part.

[zavalita2002]

Of course, you will burn for this, jult, the linux boys promise you that ! :twisted:
To work with total coamander keyboard shortcuts, to control the eye-candy look of your OS, to save TIME working with familiar things... - it's all about means and purposes. OS is not a purpose in itself, it's just a mean to get your job done nice and easy. Period.
This silly dispute over the good and bad, Windows or Linux, remainds me the browser's battle - first Internet explorer vs. netscape, now IE vs. firefox. It's obvious thst no one took a look at the number three of the charts, Opera. Which is the most VERSATILE tool I've ever met.
Well, it used to cost money...

[dvryknopper]

Nonsense. First of all, NTFS and ext3 and all those are just filesystems, they're not by definition related to the OS. NTFS is a much older system than many other new ones. Sure, it has its disadvantages, but they were not created to 'annoy the competition' or something, they were built for and on particular hardware, not knowing what the future of storage had in mind.

I have a laptop with Windows XP, CentOS and Kanotix all running fine next to each other. I used to have Partition Manager giving me the boot-choices, which was actually a DOS tool at first. Now I use GRUB for that. Windows does not see Linux, and Linux does not see the Windows partitions. You can if you want or need to, and it's just as much effort to get Windows to see a Linux part. than it is to get Linux to see the Windows part.
If what you say Jult about it being just as much work to get linux to recognize the windows partitions was true, then how would you explain the fact that with no work on my part, on my KDE desktop I am able to see my windows partition and my linux partition? In windows you must use Partition Manager, to view the partitions, they are not viewable under My Computer unless you fiddle with them in in Partition manager which is what I was refering to when I said "windows is the one with the partition recognition problem" because windows won't allow you to view the other partitions in My Computer automatically like KDE does on its desktop. And while a relative newb, I do know what filesystems are and I also know that while NTFS is a good file system, I also know that if it weren't meant in some small part at least to "'annoy the competition'" Microsoft would make the inner workings of NTFS more open.

[jult]

If what you say Jult about it being just as much work to get linux to recognize the windows partitions was true, then how would you explain the fact that with no work on my part, on my KDE desktop I am able to see my windows partitionBecause your KDE system installed a piece of software to be able to do that with. How is that special?

Oh by the way: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm
And there are many more of those out there.
Always remarkable how Linux Promotion Unlimited suffers from the sudden incapability to use Google when it comes to MicroSoft bashing. ;-)

[dvryknopper]

You missed my point entirely Jult...... :roll: I wasn't saying that the ability to have the drive recognized on the KDE desktop automatically was was "special" I was saying that it was slightly less work than you have to do unders Windows to view both the windows and linux partitions on the machine. My point was I didn't have to do any fiddling to be able to view my partitions while under windows you do. As for the link you posted....thankyou, your illustration of my point in that fashion was quite eloquent :D
You are showing me a third party application that is not included with windows that you must download and install which is more fiddling than you have to do with my distro and I believe any distro using KDE, so thank you for reducing my risk of carpal tunnel syndrome by reducing the amount of typing I have to do :wink: I'm sure that must be a big problem for you with all of that googling you must be doing because obviously none of us poor linux users can use google.....

[Capt. Cautious]

Good Day all you Knoppix lovers,
I do NOT usually reply to the kind of comments that our 'potential' new friend made re: knoppix 5. However I am internally compelled to comment. First, I have learned a huge amount about Knoppix & winblow$, the good, and less than good points, simply by lurking and learning. Second and more to the point, anyone you uses Knoppix should realize emphatically - it is not winblow$! When one takes the step to learn and expand their OS knowledge and methods one must expect that some things will not work as expected, indeed might not work at all. Such is the passage with new versions and software. I wish to suggest that one, a bit of respect for the fact that these people are volunteers and do this because they derive both enjoyment in helping us less knowledgable folk, and two the are actively helping in the growth of one of the most fascinating OS on a disk systems I've seen in a lifetime.
Sure, some distros ( Linspire for example) strive to emulate the winblow$ model, fortunately few, so far as I know, but most try to create the unique flavor that is a live cd that is not exactly intended to install.
I honor the fact that he came to the forum but I am disappointed in his humanity in courtesy, to fellow geeks.
Obviously, I don't like Winblow$ however they are the frontrunner right now, simply because of their unethical practices and the underhanded and constant attempts to destroy the competition Knoppix represents ( Linux as a class more accurately ) in much the same way the AMA tries to destroy Chiropractic. Being realistic, there is little we can do to keep MickySoft from constantly changing the kernal in ways that prevent using the kernal to write to NTFS partitions, however, the creativity of the folks at the "Fuse" project is eminetly hopeful.
In conclusion, My dislike of winblow$ is based upon it's tactics and monopolistic practices, rarely on the os itself. I prefer Linux and the Knoppix distros because you can tweak them in ways windows does not allow unless you are a programmer or incredibly knowledgable with the registry. I also wish to express my thanks for the learnings I have acquired here.
I Remain ~ In Service & In Health,
Captain Cautious

[zavalita2002]

Though I opened the pandora's case, :oops: , I must say that this opinions exchange will never end, so...

[dvryknopper]

It should be pretty obvious to anyone who has been following this thread, and looked at jult's post history that he/she is nothing more than a flamer. I would advise anyone who wishes to use this forum for the betterment of their own personal knowledge to resist the urge to reply to anything else jult has to say in this thread. Jult's replys do not address what is presented in the post in this thread he/she is allegedly responding to if you notice, all they do is bring up a poorly thought out "reason" why M$ is better than linux esp knoppix or he/she brings up "push linux user buttons & piss off" topics (see his post before this one) that have nothing to do with what he/she is responding to.

[pau1knopp]

zavalita2002,

its not totally your fault... you apologized for your initial comments which, while provocative, don't totally account for the "train wreck" aspect pertaining to this thread. you had a little help from subsequent posters...

"general support" is usually where forum users post technical questions with lots of supporting information to resolve a particular, concrete issue. you *might* have even been able to post this same in "the lounge" section and possiby gotten a few folks to agree with you.... as other posters noted, CEBIT releases are notoriously buggy.

i usually wait for the CD versions to come out for the official KNOPPIX releases. even with a high speed connection, the DVD downloads are too much for my patience. i would encourage you to retry the official 5.0 release when it comes out.

regardless, you may want to alway expect a few bugs of some sort or another, then you won't be too dissapointed when they rear their ugly head. however, so far i have not found anything that i coulnt' live with or fix by remastering the original myself.

entertaining thread, so i wanted to add my two cents (and always worth every penny)

regards,

~pau1

[FlameWeasel]

Distro 1-15 : doesn't DO what Windows does.
And thank the Holy Trinity of Tux, Torvalds, and Knopper for that!

I haven't gotten a single virus in two years. I haven't had to wipe and reinstall my hard drive. I haven't had to deal with the joys of antispyware antivirus antimalware firewall wholebodycomputercondom programs. My machine hasn't lost half of my files because Windoze crashed in the middle of a write and fried the drive's FAT table.

For the exactly two Windoze programs that I still am forced (by clients) to use for work, I can take out the CD, UNPLUG FROM THE NETWORK, boot up using my decrepit 8gb drive containing a bare install of Win2K (apologizing profusely to the poor little toaster), get the garbage done, shut down, put in the CD, and reboot back into a system that allows me to string together a bunch of commands through pipes so that I can accomplish my job in a tenth the time it would take under Windoze.

Meanwhile, my 250GB drive, which contains roughly twenty million U.S. dollars of other people's engineering data at the moment, is isolated from all of the fourteen year old pinheads who think that it's funny to screw up people's lives.

One of my formerly-least-favorite tasks is downloading and managing reams of document image data, often several thousand pages at a shot. Knoppix handles it fine; it has all of the TIFF and PDF tools that I need to convert them into Acrobat documents, and now that I've put the commands into one convenient little script to run overnight, it's a breeze. Everything happens automagically. On Windoze, not only would I have to install a dozen packages, I'd have to pay dearly for them too. And scripting? Forget it. ActiveState's Windoze Perl (not supported by your butty-buddies in Redmond) could try, but it has a distinct tendency to barf after a few hours of churning data. And I'm not aware of anything else in all of Windoze-dom that could even try.

So enjoy your Windows system, dude. And if you ever decide to post something worthwhile, let us all know.

Hail Tux! Hail Torvalds! Hail Knopper! We sing hosannas to thy names. . . .

[zavalita2002]

Has anyone understood something of what he said ?
Anything related to my post ?!

[RandomGoon]

Has anyone understood something of what he said ?
Anything related to my post ?!

Why yes, yes I did. I think the point, or to be more precise - counterpoint, FlameWeasel was making was that he was more than satisfied with the functionality of Knoppix vs. Windows. I found it to be an excellent argument with very little hostile content.

But, just in case you missed the bleedingly obvious - FlameWeasel has no problems with Knoppix. For my part I too have no major issues with Knoppix; it does exactly what I need it to do. And yes, I still use XP too.

Anyway, for my part, I'm waiting for the "official" 5.0 English download before I make any judgements on whether or not "Knoppix sux".

'Goon

[Harry Kuhman]

Anyway, for my part, I'm waiting for the "official" 5.0 English download before I make any judgements on whether or not "Knoppix sux".
I agree completely. Klaus decides when Knoppix should be available for download, and I don't think anyone is a better judge than he for when his work should be downloadable on the Internet. These unofficial distributions do a real disservice to the Linux community.

[torp]

i am really enjoying the 5.0 DVD, then again i'm not addicted to winblows anymore. i have three machines, the main running the live DVD 5.0, and two laptops running DSL. I run openoffice on all three and have file compatibility with the winblows office suite. i don't think the 5.0 DVD sucks at all, as a matter of fact it is loaded with so many outstanding productivity tools, i don't think i'll ever use them all.

torp