The install required the foreknowledge that you are supposed to install at least a 2.5 gig / partition and a 256 k swap (and understand what that means.) Those instructions still remain fuzzy due to the residual Unix-priests who never wrote an instruction lesson for real people. The installer is dumped to an Fdisk screen to figure out with no hints what is needed to format the disk for Linux. Luckily I had tried to install Debian from a Debian disk pack, Red Hat Linux and Mandrake on several machines, so I understood what was happening. The Unix-world programmers are still caught in the engineer world where verbose means give almost enough info to give a hint to look elsewhere for where the information might be.

I installed Knoppix/Debian to my 4 gig hard drive. The only hitch during install was the 'percent loaded' screen being partially overwritten by notices of the scsi being ignored, but I ignored that and the install completed. The install was the smoothest of any of them and actually the only way to get a good first-time install of the desktop on my new machines. Debian and Mandrake installed OK on an older 400 speed HP server, but would not install on my new faster machines due to the video drivers bringing up a quarter-screen on the monitor so I couldn't read or access the necessary screen buttons to finish installs.

I am very happy to see that Linux programmers are beginning to understand the attractiveness of the ease of Wiindows set-up. This 3.2 version is as good as the Windows 98 installer; but nowhere near the sophistication of the XP installs - yet. The result of the installation is a very attractive and functional desktop. It is a giant step up from hundreds of 2-letter commands on a blank screen that were 'powerful' - meaning dangerous and destructive with no warnings.