Knoppix Live CD will not boot on my laptop

[redbarono9]

I bought a book called Linux for dummies which came with a liveCD that contains Knoppix. I boot Knoppix from the LiveCD because I only have 1 hard drive. When installing Knoppix it reaches a certain point something about DHCP and IP and does not load any further. I am a newbie and had some spare time so I wanted to learn about Linux and other os than Windows...

I am wondering if it is because I only have 1 hard drive and have not made a partition for Knoppix? I also have some confusion with what exactly and ISO file is... I believe its just a file that can covert something like a file to a cd or dvd ..

Please Please someone respond and help me I have no clue what is wrong!! If you need me to give you specific info about my computer to help me fix the problem my email address is Michelle.Langhorst@us.army.mil

Thanks

[Harry Kuhman]

I am wondering if it is because I only have 1 hard drive and have not made a partition for Knoppix? I also have some confusion with what exactly and ISO file is... I believe its just a file that can covert something like a file to a cd or dvd ..

I don't have the book, so I'm not 100% certain that the disk that comes with it is bootable, but I certainly expect that it should be. As long as it is, you should be able to boot it; what is on your hard disk isn't important, you don't even need a hard disk. Knoppix is intended to run directly from the CD.

If you can't get it to boot, you might need to help the hardware detection along with something called "cheat codes". If you can't get to the boot prompt at all, your BIOS might not be set right to boot a CD, or if your BIOS is very old and does not support booting from CD then you many need a helper progam like Smart Boot Manager. I would start by following the Documentation link near the top of this page and reading the Downloading FAQ and the Cheat Codes section.

The ISO is the way that Knoppix is stored for download over the Internet. It's a standard disk image format that allows the entire files system including the boot information to be stored in one downloadable file. If you have an ISO you need to burn a CD with it. If you have never done this, follow the instructions in the Dowloading FAQ, don't burn a CD without reading this.