I just got an idea that just might be ingenius.
If I took my Knoppix cd and installed that onto my computer and then used apt-get to dist upgrade and get all the newest software availiable (probably sid), would it be considered a debian install or knoppix?

What I'm worried about is having linguring knoppix files that might slow my computer down or just aren't optimized properly to give me all the benifits of using debian over say Redhat.

Any ideas?

can you install from knoppix??
never used, never tried.

knoppix newbie.

yeah, you have the option of booting and installing the distro into your ram or installing it on your harddrive.

Or if your idea is just to upgrade to a version of Debian:
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

I tried that and I couldn't finish the install, my harddrive was having problems or something.

You may want to try out your idea then.
I have done a couple minimal text installs to old Pentium PCs using just the install floppies. Boot, root, and some driver floppies.
http://www.debian.org/distrib/floppyinst
They may present the same problem as with the CD.

You can start with most any Debian system, either the most basic - starting from two floppy disks and install everything else, you can use Live CDs from Knoppix, Mepis, or Morphix (I really like Mepis, personally), you can purchase a really good commercial distribution, such as Libranet (my favorite), Xandros, or even the consumer oriented LindowsOS. You can also purchase Debian CDs from a number of different sources.

I've been using a system built from Libranet for nearly two years.

I also have systems built from Knoppix and Mepis, both are very good.

Of course you can purchase Debian GNU/Linux CDs from a number of places, too, if that's what you're interested in.

I've found that starting with Libranet, a very complete system in itself, then tweaking it when I have time to experiment, works best for ME.
You may have other objectives in mind, but these are just some ideas.