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

[Harry Kuhman]

Problem # 1 - I spent the afternoon DLing knoppix (even on dsl, it's slow!). I have a 700mb disk, and it won't fit.

Assuming that you downloaded the CD version and not the new unauthorized DVD version, and that you either got it from BitTorrent, or from one of the official mirrors found by the Get Knoppix link above and then checked it's md5 sum and confirmed the download was good, you are wrong about the size. If you have not or will not checked the md5 sum you are likely still wrong, but I'm not going to spend any time on that. Follow the Documentation link at the top of this page and read the Downloading faq.

#2 - I don't get what to do with the other two files. PGP has always seemed rather mysterious.... yipes.

Sounds like you did use a mirror (BitTorrent delivers more that just 2 additional files). If you downloaded a pgp signature you can use it to verify that the file was posted by who you think it was posted by. If you don't use PGP then you can skip this step if you wish. But do not skip the md5 step above. If one of the "other 2 files" you got was not an md5 file go back and get it, then read item 3 in the faq mentioned above.

#3 - I've been reading this article (Computer First Aid) and I think I get most of it (Surprising. Maybe dangerous. :P ) I think that I understand, from the knoppix documentation and the article, that Kn comes WITH the web browsers and free email programs? I'm thinking that will be the easiest way to take care of things, zip and send to my gmail account.

Can you think of anything else I will need to know? Is there anything I haven't told you, that you need to know?

You need to know to burn the ISO files (after that all important md5 check) as an image, not to just drag and drop it into the file area, not to select any option in your burning software that makes the CD bootable, and to burn it slowly (4x or as slow as your burner will let you if you can't do 4x). How to burn as an image depends on your burning software, which you did not mention.

(aside: looking for good AV/firewall recommendations, please pm)

I generally don't give advice over pm since it will help only one person rather than others who might read it in the forums. And it doesn't give anyone a chance to point out if I'm wrong. For a virus scanner I use and like AVG free. On occasion the newest viruses do take a little while to get to it, but they seem to do updates almost daily lately and it does a nice job. I only use it to scan files I don't trust, or to scan my entire system now and then, and never let any scanner insert itself to read all my mail or intercept all of my downloads, so I can't comment on those features, but they are they if anyone actually wants them.

For a Spyware scanner I like Ad-Aware Personal.

For a firewall I like Kerio. I don't really like the newer versions of Kerio, I think they have too many supposedly user friendly features that have nothing to do with being a firewall, like scanning all exes when you run them to verify the checksum, even if the exe does not access the network. I stick with an older version of Kerio that scans only files after they attempt to get past the firewall, or even with versions 2.14 or 2.15 of Tiny Personal Firewall (by the same team that did Kerio). You might like the new version of Kerio, some people do, but the scan of all applications in my mind makes things less secure because it's less apparent to the average user if any particular application acceses the network.

Never trust the firewall that is built into XP. Disable it.

All of the above are free. You may have problems finding an older version of Kerio, if you want one and can't find it, send me a pm.

Harry