I've been using Debian for a couple of months now, but there are things I just can't seem to get working or configured properly. I'm about to make a major hardware change, and in the process I'll be formatting to change and remove a Windoze OS, and change the partitioning for 2 hard drives.

I've checked out the Knoppix Live CD, and it detects all my hardware, and has some applications I really like - even from unstable they work great on my system.

To have a good working Debian system, would I be better off installing Debian from the Woody CD, recompiling the kernel, and adding the packages I want with APT? Or would I be more productive installing Debian via Knoppix 3.3, recompiling the kernel, and then removing packages I don't want?

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You are better off installing Debian then using the Knoppix CD to see what modules get loaded and how they are configured and use this information for your normal install configuration. This way you only have the packages you will need on the system also Knoppix can be really tricky to upgrade once you get it on the HD.
If you are mainly interested in the newer KDE you may want to look at Bonzai it's based on woody had KDE 3.1.? and kernel 2.4.20 last time I used it.

Thanks for the reply, Stephen. I had Debian with a 2.4.22-3 kernel. However, someone started helping me via email from another country with kernel configuration, then other things, and we went down too many sidetracks. After 3 months I was still just setting up things via console, and the instructions he gave were too esoteric for someone just starting to use open source software. He disappeared, so I was left "hanging."

I decided to start over and really like the way Knoppix ran on my laptop. It just seemed like an easy way to get a Debian system "up and running" with all my hardware recongnized and everything working.

I'm more interested in performance than looks, but I really do like the icons on the desktop of Knoppix that allow you to mount a drive, and when I plugged my USB flash disk in, an icon popped up for it. That was nice. I have a P4 2.4 GHz CPU and 1GB of DDR333 so my system can handle some strain. I guess I'll just reinstall the base Woody system and go from there.

You may want to look at re-mastering get rid of all the excess packages in Knoppix make a new image and use that to install you would have the best of both worlds a small install and everything setup. If your interested there are instructions on the Knoppix site.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Actually, I think I have it bookmarked already.