New to linux and knoppix and some newbie question.

[Shaba1]

I downloaded and burned knoppix onto a cd-r last week. I have been in the windows world as sys admin for years now and always intended to give linux a try. I hesitated becasue my home system is a 700mhz celerone, 64Meg,4mb vram,6gb hd, laptop. And I have it about 80% full with windows programs that I could not get remove because of work.

Anyhow knoppix seems perfect for at least testing out linux.

I noted that somewhere in an faq I read it said that if the machine that you boot the cd from has less the 128mb of ram the knoppix will boot up but will stay in the text mode. Ok then no problem.

Imagine my surprise when KDE desktop came up on my laptop.

1)Is this normal?

2)Will it take 30-45 mintutes to boot every time I use the cd, as it did this time?

I could not use my usb mouse on the laptop, I had to use the touchpad that is housed in the laptop case(the mouse is connect to a 4 port usb hub, along with my zip drive,printer, and webcam.)

3) Can someone tell me how I get the usb items recongized?

Thanks in advance.

[rickenbacherus]

Imagine my surprise when KDE desktop came up on my laptop.

1)Is this normal?

2)Will it take 30-45 mintutes to boot every time I use the cd, as it did this time?

Dude! I think you might have a world record! Getting KDE to run w/ only 64M is definitely an accomplishment. You might try creating a linux swap partition if possible. Also try using a lighter desktop like flux. Just tell Knoppix at the boot: knoppix lang=us desktop=fluxbox

3) Can someone tell me how I get the usb items recongized?

Thanks in advance.

See if your devices are recognized n boot:

dmesg|grep usb

This will show your devices:

cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

To see what drivers are loaded:
lsmod

I use a logitech usb cordless mouse and these are the drivers loaded for it.


usbmouse 2008 0 (unused)
keybdev 1828 0 (unused)
mousedev 4084 2
hid 20164 0 (unused)
input 3104 0 [usbmouse keybdev mousedev hid]
usb-ohci 18248 0 (unused)
usbcore 57548 1 [usb-storage usbmouse hid usb-ohci]

[mcaycedo]

Hi

It's pretty normal to get a GUI interface with 64 Mb. I used knoppix in my compaq 1277 with 64 mb and works fine (used in development with java)

You will need 128 if you want to use Open Office. There is no way that OO will run in less than 128. I try in a machine with 512 and still takes all the time of the world to init.

With your machine you will get a lot of fun using knoppix. But if you want some more speed and still want GUI you should try Damm Small Linux or "Feather Linux" (ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/featherlinux/feather-0.3.3.iso) (both stripped versions of knoppix)

[A. Jorge Garcia]

If you don't want to wait so long for KDE and want to try out the command line, use the "knoppix 2" boot string.

Welcome to the world of Linux!

Good Luck,

[rickenbacherus]

Hi

It's pretty normal to get a GUI interface with 64 Mb. I used knoppix in my compaq 1277 with 64 mb and works fine (used in development with java)

Running Xwindows on 64M was not the question but rather getting KDE to run w/ 64M.

[mcaycedo]

No problem. I use the standard knoppix disk in my laptop (k6 2 450, 64 mb ram) and I was able to use the KDE desktop, and after shutdown some of the eyecandy (menu transparency and animations) the system was pretty usable with KDE.

[gowator]

Really it shouldn\t be a problem. Ive done it in other distros and the idea KDE is a memory hog is somewhat over rated. Sure its fatter than flux or waimia but once its loaded then it uses incrementally less memory for pure KDE apps.

Turning off transparancy etc. is good and preloading konqueror etc. but the reason this probably worked was perhaps the lack of other devices that needed loadable modules.

I tried quite a few WMs on my laptop and eventually went back to KDE.... just cos its nice.
Also i tend to use kmail and quite a few KDE apps by preference so it seems to be reasonably efficient.

Today is my day for irony though....
I hosed KDE trying to get k3b 10 working....and as I trye its from ICEWM....

[Shaba1]

Thanks for all the replies. But you need to remember that I am totally new to the *nix world. I started out in the days of the Commodore 64, moved from there to DOS and then on to Windoze. I am very verse with M$ operating systems and should be getting my MCSA in the next three months. But when you guys say "want to try out the command line, use the "knoppix 2" boot string. " I am lost. How do I get to the command line when the CD just gose thru its own boot sequence after I set boot from CD in CMOS. All is a boot: prompt Then I did typed something and the cd ran for about 35 minutes during which a lot of infor passed on the screen I answer no to most of the prompt and yes to a 60mb swap partition set up as a file in the root of the C:\directory.

I guess what I am saying is that somewhere there should be a step by step instruction manual that explains what all those lines are and what they are doing (with screenshots )

Is there such a think that I can read in a pdf format and not from within linux itself, or the I can print out and hold in my hand while I am booting up knoppix?

[arkaine23]

You mean all the messages posted on screen while its booting... That's the initilaization of various services and loading of drivers.

Before all that happens your presented with the inital boot logo and a prompt... probably a message that says press F2 for help. At that prompt or from the F2 menu you can enter cheatcodes which pass options ff to the kernel prior to booting. Many of these diable poertions of hardware detection, select the default desktop window manager, screen resolution, language and key layout, etc. Lists of cheatocdes can be found if you browse the top level of the CD when nopt booted from it. You can also find them in the Docs section of this site.

Using

knoppix 2

would send you to text-only mode, commonly called run level 2.

[Shaba1]

Thanks arkaine23.
I looked up some info on flux(fluxbox) on the web and will study.

I will definately be back with more questions. Right now the only thing that makes me hesitant was the amount of time it took(45 minutes) from when I put the cd in until the time the KDE desktop came up.