In a recent post 'knx hd install is not just debian', a few of us were going to try kanotix.

So here's the first report back:

1) Very much like Knoppix, cleaner startup, better 2.6 kernel setup.

2) HD installer is buggy. Crashes when run from crtl-alt-f1 login. Insists on reiserfs no matter what you specify& has to be corrected by manually editing .knofig. No option to select lilo instead of grub from the gui. Installation seems slower than Knoppix but this is not a big deal.

3) Upgrading. Sad to say, but it's pretty much the same story as Knoppix....upgrading breaks it. So far I've tried twice, first time was a Knoppix style install, it tripped over trying to upgrade sed. Once I got past that the system was messed up beyond repair & a reinstall was in order. Next try was a debian style install. Upgrade 'seemed' to go OK but post upgrade system refuses to log in as user, has no sound and sound module in control center crashes kcontrol. Kdm login pops up a 'system boot in progress-wait' error which changes to a similar message in what appears to be a twm shell if you are root.OK'ing that message finally results in logon.

4) As expected, upgrade results in every conceivable service starting up at boot...including nis which takes about 2 minutes to get through the boot. Only solution appears to be manually sys-V-init remove all these services immediately following upgrading. Upgrade really should be revised to leave your runlevel service settings alone.

Doesn't look promising so far...

Oh yes: one more minor item: Net connection is gone. Seems to have found the pcmcia netcard but cannot ping anything.

And another: After crtl-alt-f2 console, cannot resartx, cannot login as user and cannot shutdown. No response from 'shutdown -h now' as root. Big red button time.