Art,

7 CD's is if you want "Debian's" tested, tried, and true - certified by Debian to be (close to perfect) - What you get with Knoppix IS debian, but at least a few revisions ahead of the Debian CD's.

Debian releases in three versions: Stable, Testing, and Unstable.

Knoppix is based on the Debian "Unstable" version, but has far more advancements, and additions since then.

Debian considers Stable to be tested, and (most, if not all) bug ridden, Testing is just that, the code has gone through Unstable and is being tested to becoming Stable. Now, Unstable, thats the one everyone gets so "wierded" out about. Unstable is not the literary word, but rather, the most "cutting edge" additions and code, awaiting Debian's "testing".

From what I heard, Knoppix too Debian's Unstable (way back when), and began working with it, adding more features, etc... and then released Knoppix. In either case, Knoppix is a working, valid, and far more advanced, than its Debian counterpart, which is not yet released by Debian.

I hope I got some of this right, some of it is from memory, and some of it, I have pieced together from bits and pieces of other information. By the way, "7" CD's would only be used if you wanted "everything", which, even in a Windows Install, you don't want "everything" that is on the CD's. Some of the data on CD's is (in the case of Windows) some videos, some audio, and some tips/tricks - I am sure in the Debian "7" CD set, some of the data is documentation, etc...

Cuddles