Quote Originally Posted by Dave_Bechtel
--Harry, I have seen you take this position before - and to me it is bad PR for Knoppix. I have 2 machines at home that are Knoppix hdinstalls and have been running well for 2-3 years with constant upgrades. .... That said, you should make frequent backups and NOT do dist-upgrade, instead doing apt-get install on a per-package basis.

--You DO remember that until Debian Sarge revved, Knoppix was one of *the* easier ways of installing (for most intents and purposes) Debian with a no-hassle X server?
Dave,

I certainly don't intend bad PR for Knoppix. Just the opposite, I think it gives Knoppix bad PR for both Knoppix and Linux in general when people try to install it and then have the many problems that they do. I suspect that the bad word of mouth that just one individual doing this can more than offset all of the good will of the free Knoppix CDs and DVDs I've given out. While it's clear that knowledgable people like yourself can and do make a Knoppix install work, I think it is a great disservice to the community to suggest that Knoppix should be installed. My concern is both that updates (and other installs that may trigger updates) can break the Knoppix mix of versions, and also the many many posts I have seen in these forums over the years about things that used to work from the CD but stopped after Knoppix was installed. Networking seems to be the most common of these although there are others. This is just a too common problem to allow me to feel that installing Knoppix is not a source of problems that should not exist.

Yes, I do remember the Debian installer of 4 or more years ago, as well as many other Linux installers. One had to answer many technical questions that most users don't even grasp, and even though I was expecting it and made a lot of notes about my system before I started an install, I had to abort and go back and get the correct answers to some questions before I could do an install. And these installing problems certainly contributed to people advocating quick and dirty Knoppix installs. But things have changed a lot since then, yet installing Knoppix is still advocated. Maybe there is some small fringe group that can benefit from a Knoppix install, but most people who try to install Knoppix are like baby ducks who just follow the first thing that they see. They have never tried to do an install of a modern Debian CD, but rather insist on trying to install Knoppix even though there are issues in doing so. And I believe the over simplification of saying "Once Installed Knoppix is Debian" certainly contributes to this. So I try to correct this misblief; Knoppix when Installed to a hard disk becomes Debian in the same way that if you paint racing stripes on a VW it becomes a Ferrari. You can pretend that you have Debian and you might enjoy doing so, but you don't really have Debian.

I certainly respect youir opnion Dave, and am glad that you have the experties to make Knoppix hard disk installs work for you. I think it's important that new users hear both sides of this discussion. I tend to hold off on responding when I see people who are clearly determined to put Knoppix on the hard disk, hoping that people like you will setp up and guide them. But the statement that triggered this discussion was something I just wanted to respond to beore more new users accepeted it as an unqualified truth.