Knoppix 3.8.1 CD boot, problems installing Limewire...

[Joelsbass]

I'm trying to install the Linux version of Limewire using Kpackage, I'm pretty new to Linux and feeling kinda lost at the moment.

Here's the error message I'm getting from Kpackage...

rpm -U -replacepkgs '//home/knoppix/limewirelinux.rpm';echo RESULT=$?
rpm: To install rpm packages on Debian systems, use alien. See README.Debian.
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - No suck file or directory (2)
error: cannot open packages database in /var/lib/rpm
RESULT=1

Any sugestions on how to get this to work? Like I said, I'm pretty new to this OS so i may very well be overlooking something rather basic...

If this program typically has problems, can anyone reccomend a different P2P program for Knoppix 3.8.1? I've been having problems getting bittorent and apollon to work too...

[mr_ed]

Yeah, getting into Linux can be like getting into the Army. The recruiter leaves out some of the details!

The first problem, the one that's generating the error messages, is that there are two widespread systems for packaging Linux software - and your limewire package is for the other kind.

Some distros use their own system, and some don't have a user-friendly-type package at all, but the two main varieties are "deb"s, for the Debian apt system, and "rpm"s, for the Red Hat Package Manager.

Knoppix is Debian-based, so it uses packages that end with the extension .deb. But the error messages are telling you that the program alien can (usually) convert from one kind to another.

In a terminal window, the command would be something like $ alien --to-deb limewire.rpm (or whatever the actual name of the file is). To read the manual page for alien, type $ man alien.

It's likely that your trouble with bittorrent, though, is part of a bigger problem with Knoppix. It's not intended to be installed to hard drive - it's finely tuned to run as a live CD.

In assembling Knoppix, Klaus Knopper and friends put together software from three branches of Debian. That's okay on the CD because they test it all and make sure everything behaves before they release it.

If you install Knoppix to hard drive and leave everything just as it is, it will (probably) still work very well. And when one of the pieces gets outdated, well, another version of the CD is just a few months away!

But when you install something new, or update this piece or that piece, all bets are off. The collection may play together nicely, or it may not.

That's why many of us recommend using a different Linux distro on your hard drive. Knoppix is still a fantastic tool - you can use the CD to repair all kinds of problems on your system - but we think it's best used only as a CD.

Many of us recommend a single-version Debian - sarge (from debian.org) is very good, and Progeny Debian (an almost pure sarge) is also right up there. Kanotix is also suggested, and it was inspired by Knoppix but is an almost-pure Debian sid distro.

Another snag you'll run into with Knoppix is that it mainly looks to software repositories in Germany. This is easy to fix, but it's one of those things that can be frustrating if nobody tips you off about it.

Finally, there are some other bittorrent clients for Linux - qtorrent is one that I noticed, but I know there are others.

I hope this helps! If you have more questions - no, make it when you have more questions, because all of us do - please do ask!

-- Ed