Knoppix 5.2

[tikitikitimbo]

I'm another one of these people who has been using Knoppix as a primary distro for years and prosletyzing it all around so this long silence has been a bit embarrassing for me as well. I'm not here to complain because, hey I'm posting on a Knoppix box this very moment. It would be my distro of choice for years to come even if there was never another release.

But I had the same issues where people were coming to me with newer notebooks and the wireless was a mess. So, I went the Ubuntu/Kubuntu route as well and I would like to add to what I've already seen others say which is that it's not an alternative to Knoppix. Yeah, you can get the wifi going hassle-free with Feisty, but that doesn't make up for all the other bullshit that comes with it. You can't even save your settings if you're using it in LiveCD mode, the technique of labeling your ext2 disk as cow-something is totally hit-and-miss and they even say so in the docs. They don't even include basic utilities like Midnight Commander. While their apt-get config does work off the live-cd, having to do an apt-get every time just to set up simple stuff like that is lame and Kubuntu doesn't even include the CLI versions of bittorrent. The list goes on. In summary, I get the impression that Ubuntu is more like a very watered-down wannabee OSX replacement than a Knoppix replacement. It tries to hide what's going on from the user and goes out of the way to put a lot of goof-proofing into the interface and that's a very different feel from what one gets with Knoppix.

Aside from the whining about Ubuntu as a Live-CD replacement for Knoppix though, I did want to add an observation that I find a bit curious. I use Traditional Chinese (AKA Taiwanese) versions of Knoppix as well as the standard German/English versions. The Chinese versions such as one particularly polished Knoppix cutomization called B2D seem to be getting regular updates and they do have more recent kernels. I thought I recalled an earlier link saying that the reason the updates had stopped was a problem with cloop in kernels past 2.6.21, but I think I just booted a Chinese customization that was packaged with 2.6.24. I'm just tossing a number off the top of my head, but I thought that was the case. Okay, I just went and checked. The latest I can find is 2.6.23. But I'm just curious was the cloop problem solved earlier or how was it that the folks in Taiwan got ahead of Klaus?

Unfortunately, although I've used this customization with the 2.6.23 kernel and found it worked well for most things, it still doesn't handle USB wifi or even Centrino based wifi out of the box and I've still had troubles with some notebook sound cards even with this latest stuff. And when I say that the wifi isn't working, I mean I have five different brands of USB wifi dongles that I test with. Some of them, such as the DLink, work in Knoppix 4.0 with the 2.6.12 kernel, so these are working devices but they haven't worked with any version of Knoppix since then. Reading through the forums you can see this is a common problem.

Anyway, what I've done in these desperate situations rather than hating Knoppix --I couldn't do that because to me Knoppix is the only way to go, I'm a Knoppix fanatic for better or worse-- is when I get into one of these worst-case situations where there were certain areas where running wires was absolutely forbidden and it was wifi or no way was to put in a second wifi router that has a few wired ports. It's a hard sell aesthetically but I can usually tuck it under a table or someplace like that and then just run a short cat5 for the last few feet. In most cases, I find that the desire for wireless isn't really about total portability, since the power cord is more or less always going to be there anyway, but more about avoiding long wire runs for aesthetic reasons. Till something more elegant comes along I might suggest this route to my fellow frustrated Knoppix freaks.

[nalini]

I am really glad to know that there are others using knoppix in a big way.I could also get knoppix based on kernel 2.6.23.14 but nothing after that. Somehow I am able to manage most of the new hardware. Even I had a bad experience with kubuntu, the installer looked exactly like redhat and once installed I could not boot the machine. I will try to avoid going to any other distribution till is is do or die.

I could Talk to Mr. Knoppix during LinuxAsia. He seems to be overworked and his another project Adriane Knoppix is already delayed. He was in fact very helpful and even willing to provide a sample CD of knoppix 5.3 till a new public version based on 2.6.24 comes out.

Mr. Knopper had put a patch for cloop problem on debain forums quite some time back hence that issue got resolved .

All serious users of knoppix should actually help Mr knopper in maintaining knoppix, I actually don't know how to go about it. We are all working in our own realms and redoing the same things, there must be a better way ?

[Eppo]

On heise website

http://www.heise.de/cebit/heise/
(middle of the page)
about Klaus Knopper on heise's stand

.......After the fair it (Knoppix 5.3) will also be available via download.

[1ijack]

i have been using knoppix since version 3.1 came out and upto now i'm still using knoppix. I have to say this but i'm dissapointed with version 5 and up (except 5.3 havent tested it yet). But i'm not ditching knoppix cause its still my favorite linux/live cd. i'm currently running knoppix 4.0.2 at home and 5.1.1 at the office.

i would like to thank ruymbeke for your excellent work on the grub/minirt and keep up the good work.
and of course klaus for giving us knoppix