Three simple questions!

[nick47]

Hello,

1. How do you close a program which won't close? (The Knoppix equivalent of "End Task")

2. How do you Log out/off/whatever you call it and log back on without losing all your stuff!?

3. How the hell do you make the sound work? Seriously, I mean, can anyone answer this?

I realise that this seems rude but I am one of those people who thinks Linux/Unix is rubbish. But I always try to give it a go! I really want to like it, but I can not get anywhere! Well I can get quite far, but I am finding the whole thing a huge uphill battle. The wiki website's not working, the FAQ is a bit lacking in info and the forum replies are all the same: "A quick search on the forum's will find that answer fo you!" It's NOT TRUE!! I have been looking all over the place!

If you are annoyed or think I am a dick, that's cool. I am an annoying dick.

[Dave_Bechtel]

0. If you really want help, don't be an annoying dick. Just some helpful advice there.

1. You have two options:
a. ' ps ax ', find the process number of the program in question, and ' kill -9 ' the process number;

b. If it's a window in X, you can run ' xkill ' from a terminal prompt and just click on the window you want to kill. See ' man xkill '

2. Save whatever you're working on before logging off. Personally I don't use Knoppix from the live-cd much unless I'm troubleshooting a box; and even then I use console mode, no GUI. If you want persistent sessions, where the windows come back the way you want, you should install to HD.

3. I wish I could help with this one, but there are just some motherboards and sound chipsets that the Linux kernel does not support. Others may be able to step in and give you advice here though; post the results of ' lspci -v '.

Hello,

1. How do you close a program which won't close? (The Knoppix equivalent of "End Task")

2. How do you Log out/off/whatever you call it and log back on without losing all your stuff!?

3. How the hell do you make the sound work? Seriously, I mean, can anyone answer this?

I realise that this seems rude but I am one of those people who thinks Linux/Unix is rubbish. But I always try to give it a go! I really want to like it, but I can not get anywhere! Well I can get quite far, but I am finding the whole thing a huge uphill battle. The wiki website's not working, the FAQ is a bit lacking in info and the forum replies are all the same: "A quick search on the forum's will find that answer fo you!" It's NOT TRUE!! I have been looking all over the place!

If you are annoyed or think I am a dick, that's cool. I am an annoying dick.

[nick47]

Thanks for your advice! You say that you only use it in console mode. I hate to sound stupid, but why? What can you do with it? And why do you bother typing when you can just point and click!?

[rwcitek]

Dave gave some good feedback. But because there's more than one right answer, here's my take:

1. How do you close a program which won't close? (The Knoppix equivalent of "End Task")

What versions of Knoppix are you running? Like Windows, the program will be in a different part of the menu depending on the version. The version-independent way is to click on "K > Run Command", type "xkill" in the text box, and the click on the offending window. Just be careful as there is no confirmation. Once you click on the window, that process is gone.

Another way, which is more like the task manager, is to press Ctrl+ESC. This brings up a the ProcessTable window. Select the process you want to kill by clicking on it and then click "kill." BTW, you can only kill processes you own.

2. How do you Log out/off/whatever you call it and log back on without losing all your stuff!?

Again, this depends on what version of Knoppix you are using. If you are using version 3.8.1 or later, my personal favorite is to use the Persistent Disk Image. To create one, "K > KNOPPIX > Configure > Create persistent Knoppix disk image" and answer the questions. Of course, you'll need some kind of writable medium, like a USB stick, with either a linux partition or a FAT partition. BTW, floppy is not big enough.

There are many other ways. Post back if you want to know about those.

3. How the hell do you make the sound work? Seriously, I mean, can anyone answer this?

In all honesty, I don't know. For me on my machine, it just works. Repost to the Hardware&Booting forum with your sound card question. In particular you may want to run this code from a root terminal window first and include the contents of post.txt in your post:

(set -x
lspci
lsmod
) >& post.txt

To start a root terminal, "K > KNOPPIX > Root Shell", if you are using Knoppix 3.8.2.

Also keep in mind that the Knoppix LiveCD was not designed to run as an optimized version of Linux. Rather, it was designed to demo Linux and work on "average" hardware.

I realise that this seems rude but I am one of those people who thinks Linux/Unix is rubbish. But I always try to give it a go! I really want to like it, but I can not get anywhere! Well I can get quite far, but I am finding the whole thing a huge uphill battle.

As I wrote above, Knoppix is a demo. To really make it work for your system you'd probably want to install Linux to a harddrive. While Knoppix runs OK installed to a harddrive, other distros are better designed for a full install, e.g. Ubuntu, Red Hat, Mandriva, SuSE, Xandros, etc.

I'd also recommend seeking out a local Linux Users Group (LUG). Sometimes live, in-person help can resolve issues much faster than watching the forums. You may also get to see some really customized systems running linux.

The wiki website's not working, the FAQ is a bit lacking in info and the forum replies are all the same: "A quick search on the forum's will find that answer fo you!" It's NOT TRUE!! I have been looking all over the place!

First, don't panic. I agree. The wiki doesn't work sometimes. It's a work in progress. Second, I'd like to encourage you to help, afterall it's a wiki. Anyone can edit it. So, create a username on the wiki and edit your own page. If you think something is unclear in the docs, ask your question in an appropriate forum. Then summarize and post it in the wiki, referencing the forum. As for searching the wiki and forums, I've had very good results with using google: "site:knoppix.net/forum rwcitek" or "site:knoppix.net/wiki rwcitek"

Sure Linux is frustrating at times. But nothing worthwhile comes easy. Part of it is just learning the culture.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org

[tdjokic]

You say that you only use it in console mode.

No. This is not what he says. He says: "Personally I don't use Knoppix from the live-cd much unless I'm troubleshooting a box; and even then I use console mode, no GUI." For me, this is not the same.

[CrashedAgain]

Hello,

1. How do you close a program which won't close? (The Knoppix equivalent of "End Task")

2. How do you Log out/off/whatever you call it and log back on without losing all your stuff!?

3. How the hell do you make the sound work? Seriously, I mean, can anyone answer this?

I realise that this seems rude but I am one of those people who thinks Linux/Unix is rubbish. But I always try to give it a go! I really want to like it, but I can not get anywhere! Well I can get quite far, but I am finding the whole thing a huge uphill battle. The wiki website's not working, the FAQ is a bit lacking in info and the forum replies are all the same: "A quick search on the forum's will find that answer fo you!" It's NOT TRUE!! I have been looking all over the place!

If you are annoyed or think I am a dick, that's cool. I am an annoying dick.

1: The easiest way to close sometime which is not responding is ctrl-alt-esc. The cursor will tirn into a skull & crossbones, then just click on the non-responsive window.

2: Logging off/shutting down from live CD...you will always lose whatever you were working on (and all your settings) unless you have saved your work somewhere because you cannot write to the read-only live CD and knoppix will not write anything to your HD unless you deliberately set up to do it. This is a safeguard so that you cannot accidentally screw up your normal O/S while running from Knoppix CD.
There is a really good reason for this. Linux cannot properly write to an NTFS filesystem (used with Windows XP, NT & win2000). You must use 'captive ntfs' to do this & that requires some setup as it grabs & uses the system drivers from the windows system. Knoppix cannot just build in this capability because that would require distributing the windows drivers which would upset microsoft. The most reliable way to have a drive accessible to both windows & linux is to use a vfat (win95) filesystem, which means either partitioning the hard drive or use a usb drive (or a floppy disk). Obviously you cannot use a CD unless you have two CD drives.

3: Sound. First, check kmix to make sure your sound volumes are turned up. I think they are turned off by default. Second, it is possible that your sound card is not set up. Check the tools under the "Knoppix" menu item, there is a sound card configure toll there. It is also possible that there is no Linux support available for your particular sound card. Hardware support is another linux 'problem area' as most manufacturers do not supply linux drivers for their hardware, drivers must be written by 3rd parties ie linux 'hackers' who usually must figure out how to make the damn thing work without any assistance (and sometimes with active resistance) from the manufacturers.

"Rubbish...": Linux is one of the three big computer operating systems out there (the others of course being MS & Mac) and is almost the only practical alternative if you are using PC hardware and do not want to use MS for whatever reason. It has some very good points in it's favor (like almost total freedom from viruses) but it also takes some learning. Because it is an open source system developed in large part by volunteers without any support from manufacturers it will always take more setting up than the alternatives and users will always have to accept this. It is however a very real and practical alternative O/S. Don't dismiss it as rubbish just because it is not Windows.