Running on an Dell Inspiron 8100 with a dvd connected over usb (no bios support for booting an over the usb) I was able to achieve a partial boot by means of transfering the linux file and the minirt.gz file from the isolinux directory of the dvd to an existing grub.conf file and then guess at the content and format of the paragraph content to initiated the boot from hard drive. The aspect of the boot process that did not complete were :
1) the browser wiith presentation of the introduction to knoppix did not present of the desk top
2) the wall paper did not present
3) most of the desktop icons did not present. I expected to see icons for recogized partitions and an icon for the home directory. There may others that I missed.
Aside from that I seem to have a fully functional system, as far as I can determine, I would like to change my install so that it would reflect the standard distribution. Thank you for any assistance.