Using Kn as recovery/boot, total newbie. Need help!

[Harry Kuhman]

Kathi,

On things like md5 and BitTorrent: I have provided links that should give helpful information. You can choose to look at what was typed and as soon as you see something unformilliar like md5 say "oh, I don't know what that is, I'll ignore it", or you can say "I don't what that is, but no one else here did at some point either. They learned it, and they are willing to help me learn. I'll read the links and even try working with it, it might not be as cryptic as I think". One technique will work much better for you than the other, and help you get more in control of your own systems.

Yes, you do have some ram disk space, so you can put a limited amount of data in ram disk and then e-mail that to your gmail account. It would be much faster if you would transfer files to another computer on your network. I didn't try to talk you into this when I first started because I didn't even know if you had a local network. Some people get file sharing working between Linux and Windows, but to be honest there are some issues that crop up there. Sometimes I can do it with no problems, some times it fights me. Last time I had to transfer a lot of files from a computer running Knoppix to one running Windows it fought me; rather than waste a lot of time with it I installed an FTP server on the windows machine (I already had the download and the install and set-up took less than a minute) and then transfered files by FTP . And if you have a server at your ISP or anywhere else on the Internet that you can access by FTP then you could put files there just by typing the FTP address in the Konquerer browser that is open when Knoppix boots and dragging them into Konquerer.

I still don't even know what brand and model of router you have, so I don't know where to point you for information. You should have received a manual with it, and almost all router manuals are available on-line at the manufacturer's websites. I'm completely confused by your statement of fast virus infection if you were behind a router firewall at the time though. Would likely have to see it happen, check the machine myself before the start of the test, and watch what you did in that time before I cimpletely understood and believed it though. The general rule in Windows with a high speed connection is: Without a hardware filewall you will get a rapid infection on a high speed connection, even if you are running firewall software. A software filewall may stop some things, but Windows itself exposes a lot of itself to the internet before the packets ever get to the software firewall. With a router you have NAT and a true hardware firewall protecting you. Attacks never get to the Windows system, so they can't infect it. The main ways to get infected here are opening e-mail attachments, running known vulnerable network software like Outlook and IE, and downloading and running programs that contain viruses.

I'll leave you to your IRC group and hope you get your issues resolved. If you want to get more control of your system and have more questions for me, just ask.

[KathiSharpe]

Harry, I don't quite understand.

I told you in my third post that I have a linksys router:

I couldn't get my linksys wireless card to work.

Then, in my last post, I told you that I was willing to learn this stuff (but you DO have to understand that you've been at it for years and I ONLY HEARD OF YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM YESTERDAY. HAVE ONLY BEEN MARGINALLY AWARE THAT **LINUX** exists for a couple of years.

What on earth have I done, to warrant this?

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry, I don't quite understand.

I told you in my third post that I have a linksys router:

I couldn't get my linksys wireless card to work.

No, actually that post told me that you had a Linksys wireless network card. It told me nothing about the make or model of router you have. You can use about any brand router with any network card, as long as they all use the same transmission mode (such as 802.11b or 802.11g). And there are many Linksys network card models, and even multiple ways they can interface (PCMCIA, PCI, USB), as well as many different models of Linksys routers. So I still don't know what model of router you have or what model of card. My best advice at this point is to start at the manuals, then perhaps read some of the links in the NAT search I gave before, including what should be the 2nd article in the list, the How Stuff Works article on NAT by Jeff Tyson.

What on earth have I done, to warrant this?

You've done nothing, I'm not quite sure what you think I've done to you. I though I was giving helpful feedback, not critisim.

[foamrotreturns]

Quick advice about the mouse problem: touchpad mice are supported, but not always bug-free in linux. If you have a PS/2 or USB mouse, you should plug that into your laptop brior to booting. This will be much better for you than the touchpad.
Secondly, a local form of storage is definitely the solution for you to pursue in terms of copying your files off the crippled machine. First, do you have a thumb drive? An external hard drive? If you do, please reply as such. If not, turn on your other machine and make sure it's connected to the network.
On the other machine, click Start -> Run and type in "cmd"
This will bring up the windows command prompt.
Type in "ipconfig" into the command prompt and hit "enter"
this will tell you the IP address that is assigned to your machine. It should be in the form of 192.168.X.X
Now in your machine that is booted with Knoppix, get the Konsole open as you did before and type "ifconfig"
**note the difference between ipconfig for windows and ifconfig for linux**
press enter to get a similar readout to that which you have already seen on your windows box.
This is where my experience ends because I am not running Knoppix at the moment, so I cannot give you exact instructions about how to set up your Samba server. The Samba server is a network sharing program that will allow you to "share" your windows hard drive on your local network. All you have to do is type in the IP address of the Knoppix machine into Windows Explorer's address bar once you have Samba running on the Linux machine, and then any directories (folders) that are shared from the Linux machine will be visible and readable from the network.

Somewhere in the knoppix tools that show up in one of the quick launch icons, you should find a program that will allow you to add directories to the Samba share. Find that program and when it asks you for a directory, give it "/mnt/hda1"
Now try browsing to the Linux machine's IP address from the windows box as I described earlier.
If it works, you should be able to get into your windows files and just click and drag them onto the non-broken machine's hard drive. as soon as it's done copying, burn all those files to a CD-R, or multiple CD-Rs.