Is Knoppix Safe for beginners?

**zentu** · 05-02-2004, 02:44 PM

Hey, Counterzone, if you have an issue with the HDD being possibly written to, just unplug your HDD power cables (easy way) or the ribbon cables that connect them either at the HDD or the Mobo... Personally, as long as you don't activly go through and try to change files you will be fine.

As far as NTFS, the project that my buddy was working on has all but died, since people have found a more stable way of implementing it, albeit much slower, and Klaus had said that he was planning on adding support for this method on 3.4, at release more than likely. How this method works is it emulates all that the NTFS 'driver' needs and then lets it do all of the work like it was in windows, so essentially it is emulation, but it is not a real emulator, since it is more like wine.

**counterzone** · 05-02-2004, 08:14 PM

Back to Cuddles's Point on getting a new system, I have an old one with 64 meg ram, 4 gig hd and a 4 meg matrox mistique video card. Without the harddrive install, would I be able to run knoppix off the CD with the desktop (not sure what its called in linux, KDE??? Gnome???) would this work? i would get more ram for it except It takes 2 types, the old type wich only goes up to 32 meg cards (of which I can fit 2) and cant remeber the name (not sd or ddr) and another type of which is a bit longer (i have none in as i am using the old stuff) and I dont know what goes into it (i know its ram.... I think...), so also if you can help me on guessing what type of ram I have as well (the unknown one).

Thanks again!
Chris!!!!

**Cuddles** · 05-02-2004, 08:45 PM

CounterZone,

It should, you might want the hard drive formatted as FAT, either using Windows to format it, or a DOS, not the NTFS - that way, if you need the swap file added for the memory issue, it is already ready for it. Video sounds good, drive sounds good, and the memory sounds good. If you are just going to use the CD, and not install the Operating System, I would think the hard drive wouldn't be necessary, but it can't hurt to have it, even if it doesn't need it for the swap. Just pop the CD into the drive, boot the system, get into your BIOS settings screen, and ensure the BIOS is going to try and boot from the CD first, possibly floppy second, and if it has a third option, I like to set it to the hard drive, that way you are pretty much covered for having to change your BIOS in the future.

Try it, it has to be a lot safer than having to deal with your mom, and the paranoia of accidently trashing her system

Cuddles

**zentu** · 05-02-2004, 10:06 PM

Aside:You probably have FastPage Ram or EDO (Extended Data Out).

Yes, you can run it, but you may want to use another WM (window Manager) like Flux, or another small one (memory footprint size), but you should have NO problem running it, beyond it being slow... Infact, IMO this is what linux is great for, all of those older machines that are stuck running an old, buggy, unsecure os *cough cough* windows 95, 98 *cough* excuse me, must be sick...

See what most people don't realize, is that if you get good with the command lines in any operating system, is that you are better off, and able to due things faster. (don't belive me, format 2+ a disks in the GUI of windows and time it, then try it in the shell, it is about 1.5 times faster. learned that when I had to format 20 diskettes for a Novell 4.11 class on windows 95 as a teacher's assistant, 2 times in one semester. end rant) So if you really have speed issues, then use knoppix as knoppix 2 for run level 2, then you can boot into a gui as needed, you just need to check your settings first in your Xfree86 Config, but you won't be able to get all of the prettiness unless you are in a X11 (i.e. Xfree86) environment (i.e. KDE, Gnome, Window Maker, Elightenment, BlackBox, FluxBox). The imprortant thing that you need to use a linux box is time, if you screw up, you are just learning, so keep on going.

/that was real long winded

**firebyrd10** · 05-02-2004, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by Cuddles

OErjan,

firebyrd10,
My statement still stands, sorry, but if it still requires any form of Windows to be installed on a hard drive, it isn't a "Live CD", IMHO.

In your deffense though, not even Knoppix's Live CD can do "Windows" as a "Live CD", it still requires "Windows" to be required as installed on your hard drive. But, thats just symantics.

Cuddles

Well in truth nothing has to be installed. YOu just need the i386 files off the disk. be that the install disk or recovery partition. as for running the program. I don't know if wine will run it or not. plan to test that out later. but that aside. why would you want a bootable windows cd with out windows anyway? it mainly a recovery tool. or utility tool.

**counterzone** · 05-03-2004, 03:49 PM

So.... Just putting the disk and booting it runnning a few programs will not touch the hard drive in any way? I am running 2 ntfs partitions and one fat. If I save anything to the fat partition will it affect anything? And... This SWAP DISK file you talk about, does it get deleted when the system shuts down? Does it affect anything while having 2 ntfs partitions and one fat? Please help (again lol)

Thanks,
Chris!!!!!

**Cuddles** · 05-03-2004, 04:18 PM

CounterZone,

Code:

So.... Just putting the disk and booting it runnning a few programs will not touch the hard drive in any way? I am running 2 ntfs partitions and one fat. If I save anything to the fat partition will it affect anything? And... This SWAP DISK file you talk about, does it get deleted when the system shuts down? Does it affect anything while having 2 ntfs partitions and one fat? Please help (again lol)

(1) Running Knoppix (off the CD only) will NOT touch any of your drives.
(2) Saving "something" to the FAT partition will NOT affect anything, unless you save a file that Windows uses, or overwrite a file that is part of Windows. If the file you are saving is a Knoppix file, if it is "stored" on the FAT partition, it should not effect Windows because it was not part of Windows in the first place. Now, this doesn't mean to start "tinkering" with the Windows OS files, like msdos.sys, io.sys, or even command.com, (in Windows that uses FAT, OS specific boot files), this kind of "tinkering is surely going to "effect" Windows.
(3) The SWAP DISK file is just a file, named something like knoppix.swp or something, its just a file, Windows doesn't know about it, nor has a clue what it is, and can easily be deleted when you are in Windows, its just a file in Windows.
(4) No, Knoppix will leave it on the partition, that way, if you reboot Knoppix again, the swap file is still there to be re-used. Knoppix isn't sure if it should delete the file. Knoppix doesn't know if you are going to be booting back into Knoppix again, and if it is, doesn't know if that swap file won't be necessary on the next boot. It's just a regular file to any other OS, only Knoppix knows what to do with it, and if it needs it again, and it has been deleted, it will simply re-create the file from scratch the next time.
(5) Knoppix will not touch any drive on the system, unless you tell it to, period. Everything from the OS, to its settings, configurations, and devices that it auto-detects, are all saved on the memory ram disk - nothing touches the hard drives, unless you tell it to.

Sounds like you are a little concerned about this "corruption" thing, huh??? Just think of it this way, CounterZone, Knoppix will not touch anything on your system, hard drives, CDROM drives, etc... unless YOU tell it to, excluding the CDROM device that you use to boot Knoppix on, thats all.

If you ask Knoppix to open one of your hard drives, it will attempt to open it, but by default, it is in READ ONLY mode. Knoppix will not open your hard drive, unless you tell it to. If you ask Knoppix to save a file, it will ask you were to save it, you can then tell Knoppix where to save it, it won't save the file to someplace you don't tell it to save it, period.

The hardest thing to realize is that when you tell Knoppix to save something, most of the time, that location is going to be the RAM DISK, which is not permanent. If you make a change in how you view your desktop, it is not on a "physical" disk, it is being stored on the RAM DISK, and when you reboot, everything will be like it WAS before (unless you tell Knoppix to save these changes on a "physical" disk, like "Save Configuration", or "Create Persistant Home", in which cases, Knoppix will ask you where you want these things saved to).

Hope this helps,
Cuddles

**counterzone** · 05-03-2004, 04:26 PM

That is amzing help, im really really sorry but one last question the swap file, it saves it to the harddrive, but if it saves it to the ntfs partition wont this mess things up since this can cause curruption. will it ask me where to save it? And finally, will I safely be able to save the config to a floppy? Im really sorry about all the questions, i just wonna be sure im not going to get "Bo*****ed" for messing something up by me mum (ps tis my own pc).

**Cuddles** · 05-03-2004, 04:38 PM

CounterZone,

Knoppix will ask you where you want to save the SWAP file, and yes, if you tell it to save the file to a NTFS drive, I think it would botch things up, so, I would be sure you don't tell it to save to a drive that is in NTFS format. You can save configurations to a floppy drive, they will easily fit on a floppy disk. A persistant home, I don't think will fit on a regular floppy disk, though. If you want to set up a persistant home, that is something that should be stored on something that can contain more data, like a memory stick, ZIP, JAZZ, removable hard drive, or a FAT drive. A persistant home would be where "anything" you change, or save, like the save on the RAM DISK would be, but instead, it stores to this "persistant home" area, and when rebooting to Knoppix, it would search for this "home" area, and use it instead of the RAM DISK, only the OS and its files would be stored on the RAM DISK then.

In fact, a floppy disk for the configuration data is a perfect media for saving onto, if I remember right, when you ask Knoppix to save configuration data to a device, I think the "default" highlighted location, is the floppy drive. So, in this case, not even Knoppix defaults to saving to a hard drive, but to the floppy drive.

Hope this helps,
Cuddles

**counterzone** · 05-03-2004, 04:43 PM

And will the drive letters be the same as windows in knoppix? for example my fat partition is E:\, so when it asks me to save the swap file will I just put E in or something? And if I choose to delete this file, can I delete it from in windows? Finally, will it ask me to save the file every time I boot up, or will it detect in and use the one already there?

Thanks,
Chris!!!