Just can't figure this out (wireless)...

[Harry Kuhman]

Hmm guess I might just stick with windows. I'll install those drivers and if that doesn't work, oh well.

That's one approach. But if you want an installed Linux that you can install drivers to you might want to look at Debian rather than Knoppix, which is really a Live CD and not recommended for installing or adding drivers. Some other Linux distros are also known to have good wireless support, Mandirva and Ubuntu come to mind.

[marinebro0306]

I thought about Debian. But what if I wanted to revert back to windows if it doesnt work?

[Harry Kuhman]

I thought about Debian. But what if I wanted to revert back to windows if it doesnt work?

I don't understand the problem. If you have the install disc you should be able to revert anytime you want. If you want to keep your Windows system and Install a Linux hard disk distro, if you don't have the disk space, an extra hard drive is pretty cheap now. Knoppix is a great way to get your feet wet with Linux, but it's not the best tool for all users and all problems. The newest version, 5.0.1, seems to be particularly poor at wireless and even previous versions were far from ideal. If you want to try another Live CD, give Mandirva a try, i found that it supports several PCMCIA wifi nics that I have that Knoppix will not recognize. But I still prefer the mix of applications in Knoppix over other Live CDs.

[marinebro0306]

I could revert anytime I want, but wouldn't all my programs and such be erased?
And space isn't an issue; I have 80 gigs left spread about 6 partitions.

[ockham23]

You can have as many operating systems on your hard drive as space permits. That's why people created "GRUB", the GRand Unified Bootloader. Linux is all about choice, Microsoft Windows is not.

[Harry Kuhman]

I could revert anytime I want, but wouldn't all my programs and such be erased?
And space isn't an issue; I have 80 gigs left spread about 6 partitions.

Well, you likely only have 2 physical partitions and then 5 logical drives in the second"extended" partition, as a drive only holds 4 physical partitions. If you have real physical partitions that you can delete then you can easily free up space. If you have all space beyond the first partition assigned to the "extended partition" then just deleting logical drives will not free up that space, it will still be owned by the logical partition, but Debian may be able to create it's partitions in the extended partition. I would suggest that you empty the last one or two (or more) partitions and that way have some free continous space (don't delete the second, foruth and sixth partition, for example). Deleting the files or moving them to another partition isn't enough, you need to delete the empty partitions so the space can be claimed for a Linux partition and a swap partition. Then install Debian and when it gets to the part where it asks about using the disk, tell it to install to availabe disk space.

[marinebro0306]

Makes sense-so I would have to move EVERYTHING in my C: and D: drive into E or others, even all of Windows?

[Harry Kuhman]

Makes sense-so I would have to move EVERYTHING in my C: and D: drive into E or others, even all of Windows?

No, just the other way around. In most cases you'll find that C is a real partition and the first partition on the disk. Then D, E and so on are logical drives in an extended partition, with D in the space closest to C and so on. I know ways to create disks that are structured differently, but in a typical setup that started with a fresh drive this is how the partitions will lay. What you want to do is create as much free space as you can, it should all be together, not segmented across the disk, But moving stuff out of C and D will be hard (and still keep Windows working). And even if you could all the space would not be together, some would be fee on the disk where C was and other space, although right next to it, would be in the extended partition and the space from D could not be simply combined with the other space from C. Better would be to move stuff out of the last partition(s), starting at G in a case of 5 partitions, and put it on C or D if you want to keep it. Then when it is empty delete the G Microsoft partition. Then same for F if you want to free more space.

Of course, if you are talking about getting rid of all of Windows then it becomes very easy, and there is even an option in the Debian installer that will let you use the entire disk (of course, that wipes out what ever was there), but I thought that was what you are trying to avoid.

As I say, I think that Debian is fine with reusing the newly free space within the logical partition and creating the Linux partition and the swap partition there. If not then you would need some tool to shrink the logical partition and get back the free space to create physical partitions, but I'm pretty sure this will not be needed.

[marinebro0306]

Well, I'm getting a new computer in a few days. So, what the heck. I'll probably wipe the drive and use just linux. A few questions though:
1. Can I run Flash 8, AutoCAD 2007 Maya and my other programs I need for school in it (via Wine?)
and 2. I'm going to back up my 15gb of music onto a DVD-that can be imported to Debian, right?

And thanks guys, you have really been a huge help. I think this will finally work.

[Harry Kuhman]

1. Can I run Flash 8, AutoCAD 2007 Maya and my other programs I need for school in it (via Wine?)
and

I don't know. Wine doesn't work for everything. Can't you try the things that you want to know about under Knoppix?

2. I'm going to back up my 15gb of music onto a DVD-that can be imported to Debian, right?

Knoppix reads the standard ISO 9660 file system used for normal data disc writing just fine. I suspect it will read any format that you could write under windows but I'm not 100% sure of that. As long as you stick to the standards though you'll be fine. I expect that you'll want to network your old and new systems together anyway, so you should be able to read anything you write under Windows and then transfer what you want to Linux.