Knoppix possibility

[poppe]

I have an assocoate who swears by Gentoo Linux. He's constantly trying to get me to switch even though I've told him more than a dozen times that I like Knoppix-based distros. Well, last September I advised him in the building of a AMD 64-bit dual-core desktop, 500GB total HD space, 4GB RAM total. Well, when he started to install Gentoo, I saw something that I really liked... He was downloading packages for installation, while he was installing. Mind you his install took a total of 4 hours due to bandwidth limitations on a T1 college network, but I thought that this was pretty cool.

My idea (mind you I don't know if anyone else has suggested this) would help users with slower connections, and would probably work best for those already familiar with Knoppix. Anyway, I really like the Knoppix 4.0 DVD, the packages on it blew me away! However, I had to get a copy from a friend who had downloaded his through bittorrent. Now, here's where my idea comes in...

(1): Make a Knoppix version that is substantially smaller than 700 MB, but that still has all the great hardware detection plus installer scripts, network-setup utilities, Bash, web browser, and a CD-burning app... Preferably with a small WM like IceWM, or Fluxbox, or even with no WM at all.

(2): From this live CD the user could then install to HD, setup and connect to the net, then select a Knoppix-package download mirror, and then select which packages he or she wants. Then just simply run a script/utility to download and install the selected packages.

(4): Once the user has all the necessay packages installed, then the user can run the CD-burning application to make the remastered CD.

(4): This way a user can make a simple remaster upfront, as well as not tax bandwidth limitations so much (by downloading smaller packages).

This may not be the 'best' idea, but I think that it could help others to create a simple remaster, also to help out users who don't have a DVD burner or even a high-speed connection.

Cool? Yes? No? Let me know what you think.

[Harry Kuhman]

I'm not clear on what the purpose of this would be. There are lots of good live CDs. Knoppix is nice, it's certainly not the only one that is nice. Knoppix is certainly not yet ready for hard disk install, and changing any packages in Knoppix is risky at best. There is some indicatin that version 5 may address this, but I'm not expecting drastic changes here; Knoppix is what it is. If you want Live CDs that are better suited to installing and adding or changing packages there are better choices. Katonix is Knoppix based but does a lot to address this issue. And Katonix has Klik support built in. The recent release of DSL, also Knoppix based, has a pretty cool package system in it too for downloading packages that integrate cleanly with the Live CD. And there are plenty of other non-Knoppix distros that don't mix versions like Knoppix does and do work when installed to hard disk.

If what you want is to download a Lnux and also download your own selection of packages, with the target to be a hard disk, then I would suggest that you look at Debian testing (etch). It installs cleanly and you can install whatever Knoppix packages that you want without all the bloat of the ones that you do not.

If you want a Build-your-own-live CD system, well that would be interesting, although I doubt that Knoppix is the proper starting ground for it. If you are going to do something like this you may want to look at the DSL system; it's already been stripped down for you, and would give you a good start on a system that lets you pick and choose packages and then burn your own CD, particularly if the packages were in the set of loadable packages for DSL. But there would still be a lot of work to be done to let people add their own selection of packages and produce an ISO suitable for burning. And unless you add some form of cloop logic the end CDs would have far less software on them than a Knoppix CD, although it might still meet an individual's needs better. And, of course, with enough work you could include cloop type logic. If this is what you are thinking of doing good luck with it and please keep us posted on your progress.

[poppe]

I'm not clear on what the purpose of this would be.

Sorry if my post was unclear... I just did a poll to see how many users would be interested. If enough people either were or were not interested then the dev team would have the statistics right here.

I totally agree that Kanotix is a good choice for this, I just thought that maybe Knoppix would do just as well considering all the great packages in 4.0.

If what you want is to download a Lnux and also download your own selection of packages, with the target to be a hard disk, then I would suggest that you look at Debian testing (etch). It installs cleanly and you can install whatever Knoppix packages that you want without all the bloat of the ones that you do not.

Wow, I hadn't seen etch. I'll definitely check this out some more. Thanks for the tip

Out of curiosity, have you played around with Linux from scratch? If you have, I would like to read your take on it.

I would work with DSL, but I actually want to play around with something a bit more robust on hardware detection. So naturally, the predecessor Knoppix seemed like a better choice to me.

Also lastly on my project list is that I am planning to work on a Live CD which can easliy install to HD and possesses some security enhancements. In addition to productivity/development tools. (Admittedly, as I'm studying Linux system administration in college; I'm looking for as many tips as possible).

If this is what you are thinking of doing good luck with it and please keep us posted on your progress.

Thanks, I certainly will keep everyone here posted on my progress as I have gotten a lot of help from this forum.

[Harry Kuhman]

Out of curiosity, have you played around with Linux from scratch? If you have, I would like to read your take on it.

I do not know what you mean by this. I have not built my "own distro". I have not rebuilt a kernel. I have installed debian and selected and installed my own choices of packages, both using Stable (sarge) and testing (etch), rather than try to install any Live CD (even ones intended for install to hard disk). Even the stable installer is a lot smoother than the installers from several years ago, and I see no excuse for fighting with a Knoppix install when a Debian install is so clean now, particularly if you have not even looked at doing a Debian install recently. The testing release, etch, is even better and will give you even newer software. I have tried the net install of Debian sarge on one system where it failed miserably, but etch installed just fine. It may not be the right choice for someone who is doing mission critical software, but then neither is Knoppix, which is a mixture of stable, testing and unstable. The testing release is certainly going to cause people far less problems than installing Knoppix to hard disk.

I would work with DSL, but I actually want to play around with something a bit more robust on hardware detection. So naturally, the predecessor Knoppix seemed like a better choice to me.

DSL had not been updated for quite some while. If you have looked at the newer releases of DSL and still feel that way then it is certainly your choice; I didn't see any hardware detection issues with the DSL that I used but then I didn't try it on more that three or four systems.