Running Knoppix on a centurion guard WinXP machine

[Kethinov]

Hello. I currently live on campus at a college which has nothing but WinXP machines everywhere. I spend a great deal of time in one of the many computer labs as part of my work/study program. I'm there to offer tech support for students who don't know how to do basic things.

In other words, I'm paid to read Slashdot.

But I'm tired of using WinXP at work. It's clumsy and makes developing my PHP projects hard. Especially since Unix and DOS files are formatted differently. So I have considered putting a Linux partition on the computer I use at work.

Unfortunately this is not possible. There's some kind of "centurion guard" which resets the contents of the entire hard drive back to their original state once the machine is rebooted. And the college reboots every machine once a day after it closes. Even if I format the hard drive, centurion guard restores the original WinXP.

I've heard of how Knoppix can "get you from zero to Linux" in a short period of time and how it comes with KDE et al. I have a few questions.

All I need in my Linux installation is KDE, gaim (or equivs), Mozilla, some kind of FTP program, and something to code PHP in (such as KWrite... so tired of notepad with its no syntax highlighting!)

These requirements are lax. My question is does Knoppix have all this? And if so, when I burn a Knoppix CD, how quickly can I boot it into a nice KDE enviornment to develop in? Remember, I'm going to have to be doing this *every* day. Furthermore, since Knoppix is a CD and the HD will have a Windows NTFS file system, how will I save my work? I would hate to have to format and repartition every day. Can I edit and save my work on the web using my webserver directly (the webserver is Gentoo Linux ext3 filesystem)? That would be ideal.

I appreciate any advice.

[rickenbacherus]

Unfortunately this is not possible. There's some kind of "centurion guard" which resets the contents of the entire hard drive back to their original state once the machine is rebooted. And the college reboots every machine once a day after it closes. Even if I format the hard drive, centurion guard restores the original WinXP.

I for one would love to know how you eventually defeat this crapware but until then.....


All I need in my Linux installation is KDE, gaim (or equivs), Mozilla, some kind of FTP program, and something to code PHP in (such as KWrite... so tired of notepad with its no syntax highlighting!)

These requirements are lax. My question is does Knoppix have all this?

It has that and a whole lot more. Checkout the packages.txt on the download mirror.


And if so, when I burn a Knoppix CD, how quickly can I boot it into a nice KDE enviornment to develop in?

How quickly? Well that kind of depends on the box your booting it on. Only sure fire way I know is to just do it. On my K7550 w/256M it takes maybe 2-3 minutes at most. Honestly I never really timed it before but it doesn't take long.


Remember, I'm going to have to be doing this *every* day. Furthermore, since Knoppix is a CD and the HD will have a Windows NTFS file system, how will I save my work? I would hate to have to format and repartition every day.

You can save your desktop customizations to a floppy or USB stick.


Can I edit and save my work on the web using my webserver directly (the webserver is Gentoo Linux ext3 filesystem)? That would be ideal.

I appreciate any advice.

Presuming you can get online and you know how to access your remote machine then sure you could save your work on the remote box. I like ssh. Or, if the boxes you're on have two cdrom drives maybe burning your work to cd is an option.

[adamm]

I for one would love to know how you eventually defeat this crapware but until then.....
Centurion guard is far from crapware. I'm a sysadmin of about 7 library branches, and ever since I have installed centurion guard I have not had to touch those computers at other branches.
Centurion guard is hardware based with a small bit of software on an included floppy and hooks inline with your floppy drive. It's amazing, you can even fdisk the drive, hit the reset button, and all is back to normal.

To unlock the system, you have to have a key. (not software, you need an actual key) wich is on the back of the unit. The user can basically trash the system and a reboot fixes it.

I'll have to try knoppix out on one of them and see if it works. Although, a good sysadmin prevents booting from anything but the hard drive in the BIOS. :wink:
Here is a link to the device http://www.centuriontech.com/centurionguard.htm

[Kethinov]

I for one would love to know how you eventually defeat this crapware but until then..... My solution is Knoppix ;)


How quickly? Well that kind of depends on the box your booting it on.Pentium 4 1.7ghz, 256mb ddr ram, 32mb ATI agp graphics card, 52x CDROM.


Presuming you can get online and you know how to access your remote machine then sure you could save your work on the remote box. I like ssh. Or, if the boxes you're on have two cdrom drives maybe burning your work to cd is an option.No CD burner on campus. Getting online shouldnt be hard. The college uses a simple dhcp system. Auto IP requesting etc. I think saving Knoppix settings to a floppy would work, but saving my projects on a floppy would definitely not. I'd have to do it remotely somehow, such as through SSH. I sure would like to be able to edit a remote document right in KWrite and save it without having to dick with FTP though. I like Linux and I like having a console when I need it but I really hate using the console and I really hate console based apps.

[Kethinov]

I'll have to try knoppix out on one of them and see if it works. Although, a good sysadmin prevents booting from anything but the hard drive in the BIOS. :wink:I can do whatever I want to the BIOS. It's not password protected, and it's already setup to boot the CDROM and Floppy before the HD. But even still. I don't have any malicious intentions, so what does it matter? All I want is a REAL OS to develop in. WinXP is tiresome.

[adamm]

I say go for it and boot to knoppix... it couldn't hurt... unless you try to write to the NTFS partition, which is unadvised.

[Kethinov]

unless you try to write to the NTFS partition, which is unadvised.Heh.. doesn't matter anyway, right? The guard thingie would restore the HD on reboot even if I tried. Is NTFS read and write support compiled into Knoppix's Linux kernel?

[adamm]

Actually, because windows didn't boot up and run the small driver associated with the centurian guard module, I believe you can trash the drive.
I'm not 100% sure on how the small bit of software you install ties into the hardware.

and no, NTFS is not built into the kernel

Q: How can I write data on NTFS partitions?
A: Don't even think of it. You can read NTFS, but writing will cause data loss.

this Q.A. was from http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/FaqUsing

[Kethinov]

Ah thanks for the info. I'll try out a Knoppix CD here as soon as I get one burned and post my results in this thread.

[rickenbacherus]

Pentium 4 1.7ghz, 256mb ddr ram, 32mb ATI agp graphics card, 52x CDROM.

Should be plenty fast. You may or may not need to boot with xmodule=ati.


No CD burner on campus. Getting online shouldnt be hard. The college uses a simple dhcp system. Auto IP requesting etc. I think saving Knoppix settings to a floppy would work, but saving my projects on a floppy would definitely not. I'd have to do it remotely somehow, such as through SSH. I sure would like to be able to edit a remote document right in KWrite and save it without having to dick with FTP though. I like Linux and I like having a console when I need it but I really hate using the console and I really hate console based apps.

Well, what would you say if I told you that you can use ssh AND the GUI? Yes and there is nothing to set up either. Simply open Konqueror (web browser) and use Fish. What's fish? Try this and see.

fish://user@12.34.567.89

As long as an ssh daemon is running on your remote box you should be able to log in. Then you can just drag and drop files as usual. It's very cool. If for some reason fish won't work there is a graphical ftp client that can use ssh too- gftp.

Thanks to aay for showing me fish. :)

[garyng]

Q: How can I write data on NTFS partitions?
A: Don't even think of it. You can read NTFS, but writing will cause data loss.

this Q.A. was from http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/FaqUsing

One cannot write freely to a NTFS partition, but can use NTFS as a storage media. The trick is, create a large file(either dd on FAT and transfer it to NTFS while running window or may be download cygwin and run its win32 based dd) then loop mount this file. Writing to NTFS is not safe if it touches the directory structure etc but is usable(I believe there is one linux distribution does it) if one just 'modify' an existing file without changing its length, which is what the loop mount is about.

[Kethinov]

Hi all, once again. My Knoppix idea in combination with a settings floppy has defeated the centurion guard. I do all of my work using ftp in Kate and retain my settings.

I am having a few problems though. While I've had no trouble booting Knoppix on any of the computers on campus, only a few of them actually accept my settings floppy.

I boot knoppix like this:

boot: knoppix floppyconf

The computers where I work in the lab accept the settings floppy (yay!) but none of the others on campus, not even my computer at home accept the settings floppy. It says it's looking for Knoppix settings on /mnt/floppy and it sits there like that for a good 5 to 10 minutes then eventually gives up. This whole time the floppy drive activity light is on. These symptoms are common across many different computers with many different specs. EXCEPT the ones I use at work.

And I have another small problem. The monitor geometry of the computer I have at work is a bit off. It's a 17" LCD running 1024x768. In WinXP it's fine but in Knoppix it's shifted to the right. There's a one inch black gap on the left, the entire display is shifted right; not centered.

I'd appreciate any advice in correcting these two problems!

[rickenbacherus]

Not any help on the floppy issue since I don't use Knoppix that way but AFA the screen size goes...often times you can manually adjust the screen size with the monitor controls so that it looks good in Linux. Then of course boot back to win to check there as well. You may find that win still looks OK. gluck.

[bitey]

I'll bet the floppy issue is a hardware problem -- the heads on the various floppy drives you're using are aligned differently. I've had better luck using a usb memory stick (currently a Lexar JumpDrive).

[Kethinov]

often times you can manually adjust the screen size with the monitor controls
Unless I'm missing something here, LCD screens don't have geometry controls ;)


I'll bet the floppy issue is a hardware problem -- the heads on the various floppy drives you're using are aligned differently. I've had better luck using a usb memory stick (currently a Lexar JumpDrive).
I've considered using a pen drive, but I doubt the problem with the floppies is hardware based. I've tried the floppy on over a dozen computers and it ONLY works on the hardware models that are identical to my work computer. Also, keep in mind that on the machines were Knoppix won't load the floppy, it can read it and the files on it fine after it boots.

[Kethinov]

My apologies. The LCD screens do have geometry controls. That fixed the screen problem. But I still haven't solved the problem of why my settings floppy only seems to work on platforms identical to my work computer.