A few n00b questions

**harken** · 01-11-2005, 10:28 AM

Ok, here I am, typing this message from KNOPPIX's v.3.7 Konqueror! Just downloaded the distro (3 days with 8 kb/s!).
As I said, I'm new to Linux, so I have a few questions about KNOPPIX:
-I saw somewhere in this forum a post where someone said that Knoppix is nothing more than a toy w/o any support. Is it true? I'm considering installing a Linux OS (along with the already installed Win XP) on my system and I need to know whether to go on with Knoppix or turn to something else.
-I've read almost all the topics in this forum ("MS Windows & new to Linux") and as far as I understand, the steps to install Knoppix should be: partition the HD (after a defrag), install Knoppix and configure a bootloader (LILO or Grub).
If so, what's the best way to do it (consider I have 2 partitions: 75/45 Gb, with XP installed on C): should I create 2 more partitions (swap and ext2/3) from Windows with PartitionMagic and then install Knoppix or should I directly run Knopppix-installer and partition with qtparted?
I don't want to mess something up, although I'm not quite a noob to computers (only to Linux).
-again, what's the best way to make sure my paritions (NTFS) remain intact (although resized)?
-on boot, when detecting devices, it says it doesn't know the manufacturer/driver for my video card (ASUS Radeon 9200SE/128 MB). Why? Radeon is not such a new chipset.

That's about all for now...but I'll probably stress you with more questions!

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-11-2005, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by harken

-I've read almost all the topics in this forum ("MS Windows & new to Linux") and as far as I understand, the steps to install Knoppix ....

Perhaps you should read, or at least scan over, the posts in the hdd install forum, if only to see what you're getting into. Knoppix is a fantastic Live CD. But there are some design choices that while right for the Live CD are not good choices for an installable system. Still, people like the easy setup so much that they install Knoppix anyway. But at least read over the hdd install forum to see the issues.

Originally Posted by harken

...-on boot, when detecting devices, it says it doesn't know the manufacturer/driver for my video card (ASUS Radeon 9200SE/128 MB). Why? Radeon is not such a new chipset.!

My understanding is that Nvidia has been good about supplying drivers for their 3d cards and chips to the Linux comunity. ATI has not. Since there is a lot of trade secret magic that goes on in a modern 3d card, it is very hard to support these cards properly without support from the makers. Knoppix should still be able to do basic video to your card, but you're not going to get full use from it until ATI wants it to happen.

**harken** · 01-11-2005, 11:45 AM

Thank you Mr. Kuhman for your prompt response. I already started reading the "HDD Install" forum topic by topic. Eventually I'll get to understand the appropriate installation procedures.

But there are some design choices that while right for the Live CD are not good choices for an installable system. Still, people like the easy setup so much that they install Knoppix anyway.

Could this be a "subtile" way to say that if I want more than a Linux toy I should use other "flavors" of Linux? I'm not interested in just playing around with a Linux so I can pretend I'm cool in front of a bunch of noobs (I'm no longer at that age). If I "establish" an relationship with a program (whether is it a game, a programming language or an OS) I want it to last!
Of course, for the beggining I'll use the Live CD to get accomodated with Linux but after that? I mean in no way to discourage the Knoppix users, I'm asking for myself (actually I think Knoppix is alright for a start).

Thanks in advance!

**CrashedAgain** · 01-11-2005, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by harken

Thank you Mr. Kuhman for your prompt response. I already started reading the "HDD Install" forum topic by topic. Eventually I'll get to understand the appropriate installation procedures.

But there are some design choices that while right for the Live CD are not good choices for an installable system. Still, people like the easy setup so much that they install Knoppix anyway.

Could this be a "subtile" way to say that if I want more than a Linux toy I should use other "flavors" of Linux? I'm not interested in just playing around with a Linux so I can pretend I'm cool in front of a bunch of noobs (I'm no longer at that age). If I "establish" an relationship with a program (whether is it a game, a programming language or an OS) I want it to last!
Of course, for the beggining I'll use the Live CD to get accomodated with Linux but after that? I mean in no way to discourage the Knoppix users, I'm asking for myself (actually I think Knoppix is alright for a start).

Thanks in advance!

No such thing as a 'Toy" Linux!

If/when you HDinstall Knoppix, it becomes a customised Debian GNU-Linux system. I think it's fair to classify the 'Knoppix' part as a customisation. Being Knoppix adds in the hardware detection system, a modified startup script which will accept 'cheatcodes', specific user 'knoppix' & no passwords & a few other things. Underneath, it's a Debian system.

The difference is that SuSe is a RedHat based system and does not have Debian's excellent apt-get package management system which is light years ahead of suse's Yast, Mandrake's RPMDrake or the generic RPM system.

Generally, (and this is the reason I use it), Knoppix (or Kanotix..see below) is the easiest way to get a Debian system; Debian's install & setup program used to be pretty daunting; there is an improved version out now but I haven't tried it.

You will also find recommendations to use Kanotix instead of Knoppix for a HD install "because Kanotix was designed for HD install". Having tried both, I agree with the recommendation but I think the reason is bogus. I am currently phasing out my Knoppix 3.4 HD install in favor of Kanotix BH9 because Kanotix has fewer buggy programs than Knoppix. For instance, in Knoppix 3.4, I could not get video acceleration with the 2.4 kernel but the 2.6 kernel gave startup errors, the cdrom support needed to be corrected, I never could get x-screensavers to work, festival made speech at double speed, and finally k3b started acting up & would not write a data cd. I was able to correct some of these but not all. Kanotix had none of these problems although it did have a couple of other odd bugs related to the HD install.

Finally go ahead & install. Don't think that your first Linux distro choice will be your last, Try one, try another, eventually you will decide which one you like & settle on it. So far I've tried Debian Woody, Slackware, Mandrake, Yoper, Knoppix (3 different releases), Kanotix.

I'm back with Knoppix (or Kanotix) because it's the easiest way you get a Debian system and the support through this forum is best anywhere. Kanotix has a good forum, one of the few where the developer himself will answer but it's very small. Kanotix is so close to Knoppix that any recommendations for Knoppix likely apply to Kanotix too.

**harken** · 01-11-2005, 08:18 PM

The idea of trying several versions of Linux untill I'll found what suits me best occured to me even before trying out Knoppix. The problem is that I usually tend to read as many documentation as possible about something before I get started with it. And that's what I'm doing for about 2 weeks now. So far, I've decided Knoppix to be my first "touch" of the Linux world. But, while many say that "Knoppix rocks for a Live CD", the opinions on an HD installable version are very different.

The difference is that SuSe is a RedHat based system and does not have Debian's excellent apt-get package management system which is light years ahead of suse's Yast, Mandrake's RPMDrake or the generic RPM system.

Somewhere else someone said that YaST is some sort of super, great, etc. tool; also, someone else said that Mandrake's update system is by far the best.
Let apart that I've heard that although Knoppix is Debian-based, it's not a "real" Debian, it's just a demo of it, etc.
Some say that SuSE is best for beginners, others say that Mandrake "rules".
Oh, and in a forum I read a 17-replies long topic which discussed which is better: Windows or Linux.

And guess what! It turned out that Windows is at least as good if not better than Linux! (personally, I don't agree to that)

Now, I can't contradict anyone as I'm new to Linux but it really can bend your mind. Even in several polls on what Linux version is the best I always saw different percentages for each.
Well, it looks like I remain with two options: either I'll toss it or I'll try each version of Linux

Of course the second version is less likely (it would take too much time, and I have to think at my sanity after all).

Well, I have to end here this reply because else I'll keep writing untill in the morning.
Thanks, CrashedAgain and all of you who are willing to share knowledge. If you have any other opinions or ideas, feel free to post.
Untill then, it's browsing again (with Mozilla this time).

I edited this because of :

Knoppix is great as a LiveCD, great to play around with but is not a good choice to install to hard drive. It is not easy to patch & update because Knoppix is not intended to be installed to the hard drive (it a neat hack, but still a hack.)

which is written a few topics under this one ("SuSE 9.2 Pro or Knoppix 3.7?")

Second edit:

Originally Posted by rrfish72

cfdisk and qtparted both can do this nondestructivly. That is resize an existing partition. But you still should back up any important data/info.

in another topic.
What are, more exactly, the steps to be followed when resizing/partitioning with those two tools? I currently have a 120G HD with two partitions 75G/45G (C,E; D is the CD-ROM). XP is installed on C: QTParted doesn't have the "Create" option enabled and nor has cfdisk (man cfdisk tells me there's the 'n' command-line option for new partitions but I'm not sure).

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-11-2005, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by harken

Could this be a "subtile" way to say that if I want more than a Linux toy I should use other "flavors" of Linux? ....

Well, I certainly didn't use the word toy. And I was thinking that the subtile part was when I suggested that you read the hdd forum. A read through that (as well as many other posts in several other forums) shows a lot of things that worked from CD but stopped working right after an install to HD. Basic stuff like simple networking. It scared the willies out of me, you should at least know what to expect.

Knoppix, as I understand it, is based on a mix of stable and unstable parts. Things have been tested to make the Live CD work to the optimum. This works well for a live CD where everything can be controlled, as seen by the great sucess of Knoppix. But when people "install" it to hard diisk, they sooner or later want to install other things or update what they have. This seems to quickly lead to conflicts between the parts that are based on different versions of Debian.

I use the Knoppix CD. I've played around with installing several different distributions of Linux, but never with great sucess. I did install Debian recently (sarge) and at least the install went OK (although I had less control of things in the disk partitioning that I expected and wanted). But the end result is pretty stark and limited. I certainly see the appeal of getting it done quickly with a fast Knoppix install. But I don't want to give up getting it done right for getting it done fast and pretty.

Yes, it would be very nice if there were some way to install Knoppix that got all of the permissions right and everything that worked from CD still worked on the hard disk, and maybe even went a step further and made sure that all parts were in sync so further updates would not break things. Or if Knoppix itself could be based on just one release of Debian without giving up anything. But that doesn't seem to be likely to happen. It would be nice if Debian or another Linux distro would install with the power of Knoppix's ability to properly configure itself, and could quickly be ussed by a noob right from the point of install. That seems to be happening, but is happening so slowly that it may be another of those things that is always five years away from arriving. So you either do the extra work and install Debian and have a system that was intended for Hdd install, or you install Knoppix (or some other live CD) but realize that the prime focus of the people who made Knoppix was a live CD, not in getting a hard disk install perfectly right.

**harken** · 01-11-2005, 09:27 PM

Thanks again, Mr. Kuhman. Another opinion I have to add to my long long list.

**green1** · 01-12-2005, 03:41 AM

Since you are putting together a "long, long" list of opinions and suggestions, I'll add one to it.

I've been using Knoppix 3.6 as a HD installation since it came out. I played with the LiveCD for a few days, then took the jump and installed it onto the same HD as my XP install. I purposely purged my sytem of anything Bill Gates as a result of playing with different distros of Linux, not due to a borked install of Knoppix. Me thinks Knoppix is grand and won't give it up.

However, (this is the suggestion part) if I had to do it all over again, I would do the following first, instead of last (which I've done now):

If your budget allows, get a separate hard drive for playing around with any flavor of Linux that strikes your fancy.
Hard drives are becoming very cheap these days, as compared to a year ago.
Or, get a used system for less than a new, hot off the presses, fresh from the pouch, system that your local retailer sells.
Most flavors of Linux will run on much less than new systems. I have DSL (the linux distro, not the transport mechanism) running on very old machine that is garbage to most PC users. It is wonderful in it's new found glory.

This is what I am building up to: Just do it. Install it. Play with it. Break it. Do it again.
I would guess that if you really do read up on stuff and have spent two weeks doing so regarding Knoppix, then you'll do fine.
Go for it. Git 'er done!

**firebyrd10** · 01-12-2005, 03:48 AM

If you want a system that you can upgrade, a pure Debian system might be good. I use Sarge (the testing but almost stable release)

Of course this requires more downloading.

**harken** · 01-12-2005, 08:51 AM

I think I'll go with green1's suggestion: I have somewhere in the house an older HDD (10 GB) which I hope it's still working. If so, I'll try several versions of Linux and...what will be will be!
Yet firebyrd10 put up a serious problem. Indeed, I see that Debian has 7 cds. If I think that I've spent three days downloading 1 iso (Knoppix), well, 7 isos would put my patiente to a challenge. Another way to do it would be buying the CDs from my local vendor. Yet I'm not decided with what should I go first. I hear Debian is great but it lacks a user-friendly installer and it's not designed for beginners; Mandrake is said to be good for beginners and has a good update system but it's not so powerful; SuSE would be "so and so" (some say it s*cks); RedHat seems to be nice yet I heard it has some problems regarding hardware support; Slackware is, I hear, definitely not for beginners, etc.

Why on Earth isn't there a board that would decide which is best for each segment of users? After all, we have "the most beautiful women in the world", we have the "Oscars" for movies, Emmy Awards, MTV Awards and so on...but no one knows which Linux is best?

And right now I'm also quite busy to afford myself spending 1-2 weeks for each verison (I think this would be the minimum amount of time in order to decide if you keep it or not).

But I see that here (and in many other places) are persons willing to help out the beginners...I hope there will be other suggestions as well.
Thanks to all of you who already gave their best to "enlight" a noob. Keep it up! (I think I will be the founder of the above mentioned board

).