I have an old 486 computer that I have no use for, until I found Knoppix. I'd like to be able to still boot from the Knoppix CD, since I've heard that doing an HD Install really only makes it Debian. However, I'd still like to be able to save everything, preferences, email, etc. to the hard drive on the computer? Is that what the Home Persistant is? Or how would I do it?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Also I've heard a lot about "remastering" the CD. What does this accomplish? And what can I do with it? Does it let me add programs to Knoppix? If not, how do I do that?

Once again, thanks for helping a Linux newbie, though if I can get these questions answered, I'm never going back to windows, save for some games and maybe photoshop.