My computer is screwed up my dad thinks knoppix is to blame

[bur372]

My computer works now, my dad just said he booted it up and it just worked I can not think of any reason why this would happen execpt apparantly he used lots of bootable floppy's ( Please someone here tell him that a 5 year old bootable anti virus software is about as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm). Well I finally got knoppix burned onto a cd which works took me about 5 attemps and a new version of nero but at least it works. I have just got to say that knoppix is at least 10 times better than windows It looks nicer, You can change anything you do not like and it comes with loads of really good programs , The Gimp is a rival to photoshop and K-star is quite nice as well. Only problem is that I cannot seem to connect to the internet I have tiscali 512 kbps broadband I think that knoppix has not been designed to work with tiscali any ideas?

[fingers99]

AFAIK there's nothing special about Tisicali (but I have dialup, so no practical experience). You might see if Tisicali have a Linux forum (Blueyonder, for example, certainly do). Any Linux solution should work for Knoppix.

Maybe you should -- after you've resolved that one -- get your Dad to buy you your own computer and an old Pentium 133 to serve as a firewall/router for the whole network (running Smoothwall, for example).

[c123]

Only problem is that I cannot seem to connect to the internet I have tiscali 512 kbps broadband I think that knoppix has not been designed to work with tiscali any ideas?

Glad the PC is working again, for whatever reason :)

How are you connecting to broadband? Do you have a modem attached to your computer? If so is the modem USB or ethernet? Are you using PPPoE, if so do you have your login and password?

Or do you have a router that takes care of connecting to the internet?

[mzilikazi]

My computer works now, my dad just said he booted it up and it just worked I can not think of any reason why this would happen execpt apparantly he used lots of bootable floppy's ( Please someone here tell him that a 5 year old bootable anti virus software is about as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm).

That's strange but glad it's working. I'll have to get myself a 5 year old bootable antivirus floppy for just such an occasion.

[j.drake]

fingers99 has a good point. Used computers are pretty cheap. A lot of used computers have "missing" software licenses, including Windows (especially people who build their own tend to "keep" the certificate, so that they don't have to buy a new license for their new machine). Find one for sale, then talk the seller down in price, complaining that the computer really isn't worth much if you have to go out and pay $199 for a full license of Windows and other licenses (you don't have to tell the seller that you really don't GAF whether Windows and the apps are on there or not). Talk about how afraid you are that MS will start acting like the RIAA and wipe out your college fund if you can't prove ownership of a license.

Your post spoke volumes to me. About a month after I started experimenting with Linux and dual booting, my computer went stupid on me, and wouldn't recognize my hard drives. It was in warranty, and HP replaced the mobo for free. My wife, a very practical person who saw no need in my "playing" with Linux when Windows was working fine, blamed me and Linux for messing up the machine ("it was working just fine until you started messing with it"). All of our data was inaccessible, yet I had to return the entire computer to HP, knowing that they would completely wipe and reimage the HD. Thanks to Knoppix (and a lot of help from the folks on this forum) I was able to copy to another HD and save our data. So, I ultimately had the last laugh - Linux not only didn't wreck the computer, but actually saved our data when Windows couldn't. If I hadn't "played" with Linux, we would have been up a creek.

Nevertheless, get a cheap computer if you can at a flea market or garage sale. Use your Knoppix disk to test it before you buy. If you can't do that, and you have to use your Dad's computer, for goodness sake, PLEASE do yourself (and your Dad) a favor and back everything up FIRST. You may never be allowed to touch a computer again if you don't.

As for the antivirus, tell your Dad about AVG. It's free and runs on Windows. Personally, I use Norton AV, but I've heard that AVG is very good. Find it at www.grisoft.com