Since 3.3, I have had to use cheat codes to boot my notebook. 3.1 still boots fine with no codes (other than a NIC issue I've discussed elsewhere.) I couldn't even figure out what codes I needed for about 6 months (it took two together to get things working, either by iitself just caused the notebook to hang). I'm apparently not alone in this, reading over the forums, most users seem to expect to need to use cheat codes, even though it must frustrate most new users who expect to just insert and boot the "Live CD".

I have to say I really like the Kanotix boot menu. At least it gives several common cheat codes right in the menu. It is much more user friendly than the Knoppix cheat code approach.

However, I do use Knoppix and I do have to type in a long string of cheat codes every time I boot off of CD. I haven't gotten to the point of remastering. I don't even know if I can remaster without installing to hard disk, and I'm not in a position to install to hard disk. However, I would very much like to get past having to type in the cheat codes every time I boot.

Here's my idea:

I think it would be great if Knoppix included a boot line of default cheat codes that could be edited right in the iso file with a hex editor. This line would start as just knoppix and a string of spaces after it, but any user who knows how to work a hex editor could change the start up string for his own iso to any cheat codes he needed. Sure, hex editing isn't for everyone, but it would be much simpler than what I'm seeing involved in remastering (or even in installing to hard disk). If such a line were available in Knoppix and there were an easy way to find it, then a lot of the burden of using cheat codes would go away. This doesn't solve anything for the new guy who hopes to put a Knoppix CD in his system and see it boot and run without his needing to coach it along, but at least once we figure out how to get Knoppix started on our particular machine we could go back and make a relatively simple edit to the iso and then have a CD that would boot on that system without typing in stuff every time.