i am new to lynux

hello i am new to lynux and my friend sugested to get knoppix to get my feet wet and see if i like it. being over caution i have decided to do some resarch first and i found this forum exstremly helpful but i do have a few question if someone dont mind helping out.
1. i am currently stealing internet contetcion of my dad cable line through a local network with out him knowing about it is this still possible?
2. i will be using this for my school work and was worried about what kind of word process and spread sheet program that is in cluded with lynux
3. i also was wondering if it suported dvd-RW?
3b if it does can one add more software and boot form dvd :)
3c if this is possibly could one boot without closing the cd so it can be chaged and personlised a little more at each boot
4. this is probly a dumb question but like i said i new what kind of programing lang. does lynux use

thanks for you help
Paul Isbill

To answer your questions:

#1 Yes it should automatically detect your network connection.
#2 For info on software included see here.
#3 Yes
#3b Boot from dvd not sure.
#3c You have to close the session to make any disk bootable. You would have to remaster the ISO image to make changes so you should do a HD install if you want to add more software.
#4 C, C++, perl, java, and numerous others.

BTW it is spelled linux. :)

1,3,4 see above

2. See above, but also, if you find that you like open office (I do) you can download and install it to windows and the price is the same as almost all linux software. FREE. I think it is right on par with Office XP and well above previous versions of office. See http://www.openoffice.org

3b and 3c As stated above, you must close the disk to boot on "most" systems. Go ahead and try, but I don't think there's any point. The reason I say this is that there is about 2gig of software on that disk. you can't just add something because it's all highly compressed. Not to mention the fact that it's 699MB. Last time a checked, a standard CDR was 700MB. So there's no where to put it. Making changes to what software comes on the disk require "remastering the disk. THis is probably a litle advanced to begin with.

My advice would be this. Play with the CD for a while and see if you feel up to it or totaly overwhelmed. Once you think you are ready, just backup all you windows info (I'm assuming you have a DRDrw drive from you comments, so this should be easy) and go ahead and dive in with a hard drive install. Knoppix is one of, if not the easiest to install version of linux I've ever seen.

Also, If you decide you like linux, but feel that knoppix debian is too much for you there's a couple other distros I'd reccomend. If you want one that hides all the system processes from you the way windows does and is VERY easy to configure, I'd go with lindows or Lycoris. Both are very easy, though you loose a litle of the power of linux by using them. Next up would be mandrake, easy to install and configure, but not as easy as Lycoris, but you don't realy loose anything and it's more "linuxy" if that makes any sense to you. I'd put RedHat in the same category, maybe a litle higher. Form there the sky is the limit, all the way to building your own distro from scratch.

Please, when ever you have question you couldn't answer with the search button a the top of the page, feal free to ask.

thanks for you quick response
Paul isbill