Greetings camarorz28
Welcome to knoppix.
Open a terminal and type
make --help

There are many way to use knoppix but
the live CD or DVD is where it shines.

I have used the live DVD daily for many years
for most of my computing and programming.
The best part is that each time I start out,
I have peace of mind the the computer is
exactly perfectly the same each time.
When I shut it off I know everything
I did not explicitly save to a disk is gone.

But this does not mean you cannot learn
a great deal with other installation.

Best Wishes
paradocs