Cool, Ok, now what...

[howie]

I'm currently running the newest Knoppix from the cd-rom.

Looks awsume! It's fast! I wish the desktop resolution would go higher then 1024 x 768 or atleast that's highest it will go for me.

Ok, now what. This could be my main OS except for the games I play like Counter Strike Source, Battlefield 1942 and so on.

Other then something to tinker with, what would I use this for?

[fingers99]

As a recovery CD, as an easy way of installing Debian to a HD (although Kanotix is, arguably, even better for this), together with a big flash drive as your portable OS. Others are running Internet Cafés on Knoppix, while others are running modified versions for security applications. That way you get to control both the OS and software -- if the OS can't be permanently written to, and if you can control what it'll actually do (say by putting Bastile on it, or by running something like SELinux) it's obviously going to be more secure both at the customer (client) and bank (server) side.

[howie]

So is this what Debian looks like?

There's so many flavors on linux. I'm so confused.

[fingers99]

Well, this is what Debian can look like. Or any other Linux can look like.

Ahem. The appearance of a Linux disto really depends on the Window Manager used: in this case, Kde (there's a port on the way for Windows, I hear). But there are maybe 10 Window Managers in widespread use (of which Kde and Gnome are the best known). In Linux the Window Manager and the server (XWindow) which support the Window Manager are discreet from the rest of the OS. This is initianally confusing to newbies, but means that the system can be easily customised to run a WM which is lighter on system resources, that the whole X session can be exported to a different client over a LAN, and that code can be more easily debugged. It's actually one of the main strengths of a *nix.

The flavours differ mainly in the package management system used. In Debian its .deb through apt -get, in SuSE rpm through YaST, and so on.