yes i've tried knoppix at work. It's a big corporation and after thinking for a while, could be a big security threat to anyplace, but i think it goes bothways all the time learning to patch some threat. anyway, it was connected to the internet at work fine, i can never get a debian distrub to work with my cable, mandrake detects it auto, i keep trying to read lots of info to make sure when i try to install onto this laptop it'll work. does work great off cd