Knoppix 3.9 hdinstall - Confused!

[Harry Kuhman]

.... cetainly can give reasons for installing a distro THEY HAVE ALREADY TRIED ON THEIR MACHINE, rather than install one they haven't tried on their machine. I gotta' wonder. When you buy a pair of shoes, do you try on several, then deliberately buy a pair you haven't tried on because someone tells you that is logical? I would be surprised to hear that. But, that is essentially what you are telling them.

By that logic, anyone who ever tries a Live CD version of Linux should never install a version like Debian that is intended for hard disk, because they have tried live CD versions but not tried Debian before installing it. That makes no sense at all. Why should everyone who has used a Live CD suffer the extra bloat of a Live CD even after installed to hard disk, when they could install Debian, the distro that the live CD is based on and reflects, instead?

I do agree not to install Knoppix, but I go farther and also recommend they don't even try Knoppix as a live CD. A lot of people are being attracted to Linux by Live CD's and it is totally logical that after trying a distro and liking it, one would consider installing it. Thus, they should be warned to avoid Knoppix completely. ...

Well, that logic only makes sense if one accepts the first argument and only ever installs live CDs. But with so many Live CD based on Debian, and even other Linux distros based on Debian, I take the opposite approach. I give away Knoppix CDs but tell people it's a great way to try Linux, to learn a little about Linux and see if they like it, but if they want Linux installed to a hard disk they should use the now easy to install Debian installer and install Debian, and get exactly what they want, not a bloat of stuff that was just thrown on the disc to make a Live CD or worse Live DVD for everyone. By that logic Knoppix is a much better choice of a CD to hand out than most, precisely since it is such a bad choice to install to hard disk.

Of course, I also know people who have installed Knoppix and it serves them well. The real problem is the forum dedicated to Knoppix doesn't want to help those who have problems with it, and even discourages those who would be willing to help, and Knopper really did not work on the Install utility as others have, though most problems are fixable on most machines.

The Debian forum certainly doesn't want to hear from anyone who installs Knoppix and calles it Debian. There are plenty of people who help others who are determined to install Knoppix in the Knoppix forum, and I have never seen anyone say anything like "Don't help him, he brought this on himself". But several of us do try to let new users know that Knoppix is not well suited for a hard disk install, particularly by new users, and suggest that they look at a Debian install. I can't understand the logic in fighting with a Live CD install when you have never looked at a modern Debian install. If you are making an informed choice to install a Live Distro over Debian that is one thing, if you are just following the first thing that you saw when you hatched like a baby goose that's not an informed choice. Sure, most problems are fixable on most machines, but they shouldn't even be there and most problems are not fixable by new Linux users. It is ceratinly unfortunate that the Knoppix installer keep having the same problems like the network not working after install year after year after year, but perhaps it is more unfortunate that a buggy installer was included at all.

OP, try pclinuxos and I suspect you will find it actually works better as a Live CD then Knoppix -- unless it fails to work on your specific machine. I realize there is a long download involved, but you can see you will not get anywhere here. pclinuxos has a tremendous amount of help pages on their homepage.

Long downloads don't bother me, my machine can do that while I sleep. I have not tried pclinuxos and perhaps will give it a look. You have not made it clear though what it does better than Knoppix, I would be interested to hear why you prefer it.