Hi Guys,

I apologize for barging in on this thread, ranting and reminiscing, and I'm not too sure that it is the appropriate topic to post here, but I found the thread rather interesting and discovered some unique perspectives in this group. You can skip by my history lesson and other BS (boring stuff) and go directly to the 6th through the last paragraph to get through this quickly, if you feel the need or lack the time to read.

I am rather new to Linux even though I have used it infrequently over a number of years. I remember purchasing a set of the original Corel Linux disks packaged with the manuals. I installed it on a rather new pentium 2 at the time and was amazed how trouble free the install was. I did select linux "compatible" components, but Linux did the rest. There were no conflicts and everything worked without any further configuration or driver installation. It was so unexpected that I almost soiled my undershorts when it all worked the first time around, since I did expect it to act much worse than the latest version of Broken Windows installed over DOS. It was also based on Debian if I remember correctly. It was a great little distro with almost everything you needed to do most everyday tasks. Unfortunately it went the way of the Edsel (Old Ford Junker). I have used a few older Red Hat, Slackware, and other distros and probably still have the retail boxed disks (Some on Floppys) around somewhere. Yes, I purchased the disks since I would still be in the process of downloading them today with the "Cutting Edge" 1200 Baud modem I had back when I started out. Blank CDs back when I started burning them, were well over $30 each and the writeable CD drives were over $5000. You had to configure and master a disk before you could burn it and it required some serious time expended to get it right the first time, since the media was not cheap and systems were slow. It was burned at 1X or less and the entire process could take the better part of a day if you were successful. We used cutting edge systems (I386), loaded with Tons of memory (4 Meg or more), with incredibly huge hard drives (several hundred Meg apiece), capable of holding an entire CD image between an array of several drives. I now mostly use Nero or VSO and rarely give any of it a second thought. It is so easy to burn a disk today, but it was quite an achievement back in it's beginning. It took a lot of expertise and time to do it correctly. It's the same type of learning curve with Linux/Knoppix today. If you have someone that is proficient with it locally and willing to help guide your learning process, you can benefit from their experience. Out here where I live, we just got electricity, paved roads, indoor plumbing, and telephones last year, and it is hard to find someone with enough expertise AND willingness to help me along. For that reason, I rely heavily on these forums for information and insight. I could always travel a few hours to a more Metro-Area and explore the possibility of a Linux Users Group and I might have to consider doing so, but with the price of gas and tolls these days, it would still be only an occasional trip.

My motivation for using and exploring Linux certainly is NOT saving the cost of some other OS. If you look at what is involved in getting proficient with any Linux Distro, most people would rather pay money for something simpler. I just like a challenge and have found another one with Linux. Besides. it beats the heck put of sitting outside and watching the cars rust, the grass grow or fixing broken Windows systems. It keeps your mind sharp and your learning processes working. I'm one of those older, but pretty Tech saavy people, with a lot of experience in many areas. (I'm rather severely over 20 and won't see the half century mark ever again) I also never fail to impress someone when their "Broken" system boots up from my Knoppix disk and runs like it did when new. Their system usually suffers from those self inflicted issues like Kazaa, Search Toolbars, downloaded games, and other invitations for Malware (usually blamed on "the Kids"). I usually almost have to beat them up to get my disk back with me and usually end up making a gift of it, IF I think they won't hurt themselves with it, and some others if I think they will.

I have played with Knoppix for, I would guess, about 3 or 4 years now. I have tried a few of the "Modified" Knoppix distributions. I am certainly impressed with how far it has come in such a short time. Unfortunately, I have not spent the time I should have to become more familiar with it. I refuse to get frustrated with MY inexperience and I find it extremely helpful to go through the posts in this forum. Most of my questions were already answered or addressed somewhere within. I will probably never get to the upper levels of proficiency with Knoppix, but I am satisfied with each small accomplishment and discovery I make. There is a lot to learn and so little time, but I would not think of blaming the OS for my inability to be patient and take the time to learn it. I use whatever tools I have learned to use and do so on some spare systems I have laying around, if I have any reservations. It does a dynamite job of testing and verifying my hardware outside of windows, or before an OS install. It is convenient and does not require extensive set ups or installs to get it running.

I have found that quite a few people have some sort of instant gratification expectation. In other words, it should automatically install in less than 1/2 hour on any configuration and they should be an instant expert with it! It just does not happen like that in the real world. There is a rather steep learning curve with Linux, but it appears to be worth it. I have downloaded the 4.0 LinuxTag DVD and am thoroughly hooked and impressed. Even though there are some bugs mentioned, it works well enough to do what I need it to do, most of the time. There is so much included on the DVD and most of which I know little or nothing about. It is an adventure discovering what is there and what it does. You get out of it what you are willing to invest in it regarding the time and effort expended. There really are no short cuts, except to rely on the more experienced users and the limited written documentation to help you through the rough spots. Not to complain about a lack of up-to-date written documentation, but it is difficult to produce a "Current" users guide since Linux is a moving target.

Now for my main reason for posting here. I might have a little little insight for some of the previous posters regarding disks that will not boot, prompting MD5 checks, etc. One thing I have experienced that can cause a disk to fail is BAD MEDIA. You know the stuff that was on sale for under $10.00 a hundred at the local Geek shop. I used to buy loads of it and I still have most of it hanging around collecting dust, since it is usually pretty worthless for use with applications like a Knoppix CD. On these El Cheapo CDs, you can hold them up at an angle to a light source and actually see the defects. There are usually some defects in the middle of the disks and some near the outer edges. DVDs are harder to see the defects on and they are most often near the outside of the disk, so a 4 Gig burn such as Knoppix 4.0 may not be affected, but you would notice issues with a full length video near the very end. I use a disk inspector program to check the occasional disk, but I stay away from the no-name cheap stuff. I also do not really bother to do an MD5 test unless I have a failure of some sort or am investigating some issue. I know I really should, but I have run into very few problems with the later downloads. Bittorrent seems to do an incredible job of downloading a correct image file. I have also had a few suspect downloads early on, but not lately. I can only offer my experience with poor media as another possibility to think about. I now use only the Premium disks, or more precisely, a brand/type that is known and proven to work well in my drives, to burn Knoppix onto, because it's worth it. I save the cheap stuff for audio CDs that I might leave in extreme heat or sunlight inside a car or something like that. You know, the disposables that double for frisbees at the beach or found hanging from the rear view mirror, or used to graphically test a microwave oven for proper function!

Another issue that I have seen is the failure of some CD and DVD drives to read some brands of media well AND that some Writeable drives have difficulty writing to some media. Not that the media is actually defective, it's just that the media does not work well with that particular drive, for whatever reason. Sometimes a firmware upgrade takes care of the issue. I'm not sure if all of this applies to your situations, but it has driven me nuts in the past and I do check my Media and drive compatibility before I pull out what's left of my hair. I recently had a DVD drive that did not read DVD-R well and seemed to prefer DVD+R media when I first tried the 4.0 LinuxTag DVD. The system hung at inconsistent points, sometimes failed to boot completely, failed to shut down properly, locked up a few times, and just did not work well with the DVD-R. A switch to DVD+R solved the issue and now the system works as it should.

I also boot a newly burned "Official" Knoppix disk with the "Knoppix testcd" cheatcode for the first time and am satisfied that if it passes all checks, with no failures, the disk is reasonably accurate. That tells me that the download was probably good and the burn to disk and media is most probably good. At least it proved out for what was tested. Some re-mastered disks will not always pass the "testcd" cheat on start up. I believe I know what the issues are and it does not appear to mean that the disk is not good, only that it is NOT the "original" disk as configured before the modifications. The "testcd" cheatcode also appears to work for the DVD version, it just takes a while to run the test.

I have also encountered faulty memory or bios memory settings in some systems causing hangs and other failures. It may be worth the effort to test the system memory with one of the "Memtest" programs. It makes sense simply because Knoppix runs on a "Ramdisk" and bad ram could spell trouble that might not always show up consistently in Windows or other hard drive based OS. It is sometimes bad enough that it could prevent Windows or other OS from installing properly. I would also guess that Knoppix may not boot successfully either. On occasion, simply changing some memory settings to more conservative values in the bios will take care of the issues.

Thank you all again for participating in these forums and helping us learn and use Knoppix. Without dedicated individuals who sacrifice their time to help others, something as great as Knoppix or other similar projects would struggle even harder to exist. I would hope that I sometime reach a level of proficiency that would enable me to be on the "Helping" side rather than the "Need Help" side of it in order to repay those who had helped me get there. In the meantime, I will endeavor to ask good questions so that others may benefit from my lack of knowledge and experience with Knoppix/Linux.