I have just installed Knoppix 3.1 as a dual boot on my laptop. While I appreciate that the hard disk howto was probably a voluntary effort, an aspect of Linux that I find appealing, as a newbie I was also irritated once again by what is missing. Everything went fine except for the setting up networking section. I want to wordprocess, access the internet and email. Do I need samba at startup? What is it? What is the default setting?

This is my third go at Linux. The first (Mandrake 7.2 and Running Linux O'Reilly) I gave up because I got fed up searching for answers to simple questions. The second (Mandrake 8.2) ended with Knoppix 3.1 on the DVD of LinuxFormat, the Mandrake manual stating "just load the hotplug module" but no mention of how to do it. Mandrakeonline did not work and there was an updated version but no instructions on how to install it. Loads of complicated webpages.

Knoppix detected most of my hardware and cardmanager and hotplug worked straight away. I know my IP, subnet mask etc but what is ssh? Oh no here come those questions again!