A Linux Addict is born....

[fourtrackmind]

Hello, all!

I have been fascinated with Linux for three or so years. I never really wanted to sacrifice my everyday online system to try it out, though. I attempted an install of a distro said to work on old 486 machines, on one of my working ones. It never did work, so I gave up on my Linux obsession.

A few weeks ago, I was watching Tech TV, and heard them talk about a live CD version of Linux, called PHLAK. I was curious, and downloaded it. I was relatively impressed. I saw it was based on Morphix. I downloaded the Gnome version of that, too. I was more impressed. I downloaded the KDE version and was amazed.

I'll bet you see where this is going. Yup, I saw Morphix was based on Knoppix, and got that, too. I absolutely love it! This is the prettiest, most full-featured live CD I never thought possible. Congratulations, Knoppix team.

I see a full install of Debian on a new PC soon. :D

One question, what would be the advantages of moving up another rung to full-blown Debian, rather than just doing a HD install of Knoppix?

Thanks again, for a truly amazing CD.

[Stephen]

I see a full install of Debian on a new PC soon. :D

One question, what would be the advantages of moving up another rung to full-blown Debian, rather than just doing a HD install of Knoppix?

Thanks again, for a truly amazing CD.

You get pretty much exactly the packages that you want installed when doing a Debian install but you have to configure the packages yourself if you do not like the defaults that Debian uses. There will be none of the Knoppix leftovers that can cause problems and if you ever ask question on the Debian user mailing list you will get a better reception, some of the people there seem to have an intense dislike of anything not "pure" Debian. Now it is a lot more work to get Debian on the box but at least you know where to look (Debian itself) for the source of the problems and not have to wonder if it is a leftover package that is giving you the grief.

[fourtrackmind]

Thanks for the reply, Stephen.

Which 'leftovers' are there in a knoppix HD install and generally what kind of problems would they cause?

Also, being completely new to a working Linux system, how difficult would it be to configure the packages you mentioned?

Thanks in advance. 8)

[Stephen]

Thanks for the reply, Stephen.

Which 'leftovers' are there in a knoppix HD install and generally what kind of problems would they cause?

Also, being completely new to a working Linux system, how difficult would it be to configure the packages you mentioned?

Thanks in advance. 8)

There is the sysvinit which will never be updated unless you go out of your way and jump through a couple of hoops to do it. Some knoppix specific scripts like the ALSA hack for sound from the CD things like that. Your best bet really is to install Knoppix and get a feel for how things work on a Debian system if you screw the system up then it is a quick reinstall and you have a working system again. Then once the new Sarge installer comes out you will have some experience, know what you need in terms of programs that you are using daily things like that and you can move on to a Debian install if you want, without all the extra packages that you will never use being installed like there is in Knoppix.

[fourtrackmind]

Thanks, Stephen!

That's what I thought about the 'getting used to it' thing, but I needed someone who knew better to confirm.......:D I just wondered if Debian might be a better place to start from, rather than Knoppix.

Thanks again

[Stephen]

Thanks, Stephen!

That's what I thought about the 'getting used to it' thing, but I needed someone who knew better to confirm.......:D I just wondered if Debian might be a better place to start from, rather than Knoppix.

Thanks again

Well that depends on what you want and how much effort you are willing to put in I only had to install Debian a couple of times to get it right but if I had more experience with the installer I would have got it right the first time, this was after using Knoppix for a couple of weeks and having used Redhat/Mandrake since 98 but those are so easy to install it is not funny click a few buttons and you are done basically it is the package management that kills you there although Redhat/Fedora at least has apt-rpm now so things could be better with it now. So if you want to give it a shot with the Debian installer you should go for it the worst that can happen is you try and fail but if you want some experience on a system that runs Debian first and you can essentially make any mistake you want, destroy the system and be back up running in 20 minutes then Knoppix is it.

[gowator]

The beauty of Knoppix is that you can screw it up as much as you like and reinstall.
Its ideal for discovering linux then sooner or later you will probably start to feel the limitations and make the change.


I think you showed a great deal of forsight asking the question and that probably indicates that sooner or later you will be one of those that needs to go the whole hog. But for now, id say relax and enjoy :D

[fourtrackmind]

Thanks, for your replies.

Gowator, I can see myself being a Debian dude for SURE. I read that if one uses the live distros, they will most likely end up using the distro it is based on. I understand that. I don't know what is different from, say Debian and SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, and others.......but, that I guess, is down the road. As you say....I thin k I'll just 'enjoy the ride' for now.

Unlike windows, once I get bored enough here in prepackaged-land......I can go as deep as I want.

Thanks again for your replies.

[times_r_shitty]

Unlike windows, once I get bored enough here in prepackaged-land......I can go as deep as I want.

You could always tackle Gentoo, Slackware, or FreeBSD, which, as far as I can figure, require you to be intimately aware of the architecture of your hardware down to the quantum level. As for me, I'm hooked on the hardware detection of Knoppix, which I have installed on my HD now. I can't tell you why, but no other distro has EVER corrected guessed the make model and v&h sync of my cheapo off-brand 21" crt monitor.

If you decide to install Knoppix, I suggest that you give these post install clean-up scripts a look.

http://www.kano.mipooh.net/

[fourtrackmind]

Thanks for the reply, times


You could always tackle Gentoo, Slackware, or FreeBSD, which, as far as I can figure, require you to be intimately aware of the architecture of your hardware down to the quantum level.

Slackware was my first attempt 3 years ago, on the above mentioned 486 and I had to know every aspect of every piece of hardware, as well as heads and cylinders on my HD.......awful stuff. That also doesn't include the formatting, which assumes you have a firm knowledge of Linux, and what it needs. I must give them credit, they tried to make it easy on the newbies, but they themselves said it was NOT a newbie distro.


I can't tell you why, but no other distro has EVER corrected guessed the make model and v&h sync of my cheapo off-brand 21" crt monitor.

Yeah, the Live CD even saw my Aureal Vortex......a soundcard almost EVERY distro does not support. :roll: (although I have seen 'hacked drivers' for Linux........) Even though it's not supported, it still knew what it was! :shock:


I suggest that you give these post install clean-up scripts a look.

There's that word again. Scripts seem to be a big part of Linux, that and compiling. It seems a very command-line affair to do anything to a Linux system. Is this a correct view? It seems that you don't install anything without the command-line. Perhaps I am overlooking something.

All in all, I am very tempted to just back up my personal stuff from windows, and wipe it clean......then do an install. I just hope I don't run into the partitioning headaches and the "it won't boot by itself' thing that also seems so common. :wink:

[times_r_shitty]

There's that word again. Scripts seem to be a big part of Linux, that and compiling. It seems a very command-line affair to do anything to a Linux system. Is this a correct view? It seems that you don't install anything without the command-line. Perhaps I am overlooking something.

Well, I'm far from a 'nix expert. I've made serveral abortive attempts to migrate to Linux, beginning with Mandrake 5.1. However, I believe that the ubiquity of the command line in Gnu/Linux is one of it's strengths. Scripts, which I've developed little ability to write, enable you to get a lot of work done in one fell swoop. Actually, egg-head types utilize script a lot on Windoze as well, its just not as common. Also, most of the things that can be done with scripts as well as just typing commands in the shell can be done in X with a point and a click. Of course in the case of repetitive or highly complex tasks, the point and click way is much much slower than simply writing a bash script.


All in all, I am very tempted to just back up my personal stuff from windows, and wipe it clean......then do an install. I just hope I don't run into the partitioning headaches and the "it won't boot by itself' thing that also seems so common. :wink:

You could always just get another cheap Maxtor HD and put Linux entirely on that. I believe that is safer than sharing a drive with windows. My current desktop triple boots with winME, winXP-pro & Knoppix/Debian. I've eliminated a lot of the partitions that used to be devoted to M$, and increased the disk space allotted to Gnu/Linux. My /home directory (which is now a separate partition) is 80 GBs.

Here's a point that some other people may have touched on, but I'm going to say it again. Knoppix is the perfect distro from which to learn Linux. The reason that I say this is because with Knoppix, you are free to take chances. You can configure files, compile kernels and what not --- and if you blow the system, so what. You can reinstall it in 20 minutes. I know that at my level of inexperience, if I installed Slackware or FreeBSD on my system, I'd be afraid to touch it, for fear that I'd have to go through the nightmare of reinstalling it again. With Knoppix you can destroy the OS and then say, Hmmm that didn't work --- let me make myself a sandwich while Knoppix reinstalls, and I'll try something different.

[Hunkah]

For a few more dollars you can buy a removable HD Bay and a couple trays. Put one HD (good one) as your daily HD and a smaller one in to frig with. That is what I have done. I can do stuff on the hard drive and not worry about messing with my good HD.
I don't trust dual boots. One might eventually mess up the other.

I now have my good system booting to Fedora with a 10GB HD and a Win98 on a 4GB and an 80GB Win2k. My 20GB is used to hold OS images as a back up. When I get sick of using fedora I will be testing another Knoppix HD install. Each are secure from the other!

[fourtrackmind]

Thanks for the reply, times.


You could always just get another cheap Maxtor HD and put Linux entirely on that.

Where do I find these drives? Googling just leads me to a bunch of bloated sites, that tell me a new HD is going to run me almost $200 for like 6 gigs. That's not cheap to me. There are dozens and dozens of sites that have their own idea of 'cheap'. Seems I remeber Office max having 10 gig HD's for little over $100.....but they only have USB HD's these days, and they are too expensive.

When Walmart.com can sell a whole computer with no OS, and a 20 gig HD for $199, I can't see paying $200 for the HD alone. My thought was also to get a second HD, and simply switch out which HD I want to use........until the above mentioned price problem.

Hunkah,

Thanks for your reply as well.


For a few more dollars you can buy a removable HD Bay and a couple trays.

To you, I post a simmilar question: Where should I look to find this stuff?

Thanks people! 8)

[schunn99]

A good site that go to find prices on hardware is Tigerdirect.com. They have maxtor,western digital and many others for around $60 for a 20 gb all the way upto a 250 gb for $250. They have a maxtor 60 gb for $70. They have an maxtor 80gb for $80 :D

hope this helps
sincerly,
schunn99

[Hunkah]

I am sure that there are "discount" stores that sell computer components only. Sometimes going to the "high-end" "fancy-big-doors" office depots are the wrong places to get cheap parts. Try refurbished in your search. Some larger companies will lease systems for a couple years and then give them back. It is a bigger tax break (at least here in Canada) to lease.

Sometimes you can get parts from the places that re-sell off-lease systems.
There are others, like online auctions and such. But drive bays are around $25.- Canadian for the whole kit, and as little as $15.- for a bay.

[Schopenhauer101]

Thats what i did. I bought a maxtor 160 gig, but i did'nt live happely every after anyway...
Im still trying to mount the "¤"¤%/()="@#!! thing without any results. If anyone by any chance could help me out a bit i would be extremly happy. You can find it all in this forum here:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2470&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Take care!
Björn.