Im a new linux user and im tired of dependencies in mandrake and red hat, a debian solution was recomended to me. I have a knoppix cd and i like it but im wondering if i should try installing it to the Hard drive or actually go out and get a deb cd form cheap bytes. I am wondering if there are any serious draw backs to using knoppix on the hard drive. Thanks

Well,

Some german-preconfigured settings, some non-standard debian packages and unability
to customize the partition structure at install are some that comes to my mind. May be others.

ok, any linux recomendations then? just the plain and simple real deal or any other distoros based on it? Thanks for the reply

Hmm.. if you allready have some linux experience (you mentioned about your personal
frustration to the dependency hell in mandrake and redhat), you could install Debian,
and there are plenty of ways to do it.

You could install it from the knoppix, and you have something in your hard-disk that is quite
like debian, but with some details changed. When I evaluated knoppix in my previous post,
I evaluated it as a debian and from the "used linux too long and likes to confiure everything by myself" perspective.

The good sides of knoppix is that it is quite preconfigured, has plenty of software preinstalled and easy to setup; it also has newer software than debian stable. And you can taylor it to a classic debian system with a moderate effort.

You can also use knoppix as a bootstrapping debian installer (You should
see the instrcutions
if you want to do it so.

Or you can get yourself a netboot mini-install cd or 2 boot-floppies to det debian installed from the scratch.

THanks, i have dial up so i want to keep downloading to a mininum, if net install is what i think it is i dont want to do that Does knoppix have Gnome in it or only KDE? Just wondering

I just got rid of a knoppix install on my hard drive. I'll never again go that option. Don't get me wrong knoppix is great as long as you only use it as a live CD to get configurations from. A network install is not as bad as you'd think. I have a dial up and I did it. Just get all the debian CDs and do just a BASE INSTALL ONLY. When the installer asks you whether you want to run tasksel or dselect, say "NO". During the course of the of the install you can scan the CDs to use then as an installation source. Do that. Once the automated installation is over, install most of the basic stuff that you want from the CD (xfree86, your choice of window manager/desktop envirinment) but not too much. The software will be a little old. Then configure the /etc/apt/sources.list file to point to your nearest mirror and select whether you want testing or unstable distros then do an apt-get dist-upgrade. Set that going overnight. In the morning you'll have an upgraded system. From then on, most of your upgrades will be on a per-package (plus dependencies) basis so the downloads wont take that long.

I think Knoppix is great as a Debian installer. It comes with KDE, fluxbox, and icewm. No Gnome though. However, if you prefere Gnome, get a copy of Gnoppix. There are other Knoppix spin offs that have other installation options and software like Mepis, Morphix, or Overclockix.

The install was simple and took about 1 hour using Knoppix v3.3. In addition, I have since removed a lot of the knoppix packages and have mostly a Debian testing/unstable setup. It is a lot easier to start from a working system in my opinion than spending so much time getting your system working using the old Debian installer.

Are they any other Debian based distors that i could try? I know of debian, knoppix and libranet (spelling) any other ones that would be good for a newbie to this? Sounds like Knoppix works well to a certain extent but has some draw backs.

There are Lindows and Xandros, both are supposed to be dead simple to install and use, but I haven't tried them. Lindows and Xandros have no free version. You should go to distrowatch.com to read about all your options.

As for Knoppix, the main limitation that I see is that it only installs to a single partition. I like keeping my /home directory on a second partition. If you choose to install Knoppix, you can easily move the /home directory to a different partition after installation, as described here:

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...-partplan.html

The other limitation that I have found is that you cannot compile KDE applications from source using Knoppix. There is a hack in the Knoppix set up of KDE and Xfree86 that causes dependency problems during compilation. Hover, I had no problems installing KDE binaries using apt-get and have upgraded KDE to version 3.1.4 with no problems.

Knoppix on the HDD IS Debian.
I have installed knoppix and found no problems except when I tried a dual boot with the latest version of it and Lilo failed.
Once you install Knoppix you can get any Debian CDROM and add software to it by using the apt system. (You can remove some software too!)
After installing Knoppix you can partition and move your directories around too.
Study the /etc/sources.list file and see that it is set to fetch from stable, unstable or testing distributions. Then do
apt-cdrom add

after that
apt-get gnome etc. from that CD

If you are worried about your slow link for download this is the way to go.

Doesn't knoppix continue to use cloop after the hard-disk installation?

If you do a hd-install knoppix is a copy of a running knoppix live system, which is not a cloop system, you can just copy the knoppix file from the cd and run that as a live cloop from hd.

I've done many, (far too many) knoppix hd installs. They are OK to good, but there are some problems that creep in because knoppix was made to be ran as a live cd distro, and I always end up making them unusable, (BTW I have a libranet 2.0 system that has been up and continually upgraded since 2.0 essentials was first available about 2 years ago, which I have broke and fixed many times).

Knoppix IS a debian system once installed but it has a whole bunch of knoppix specific stuff because of its live cd background. One thing I should add, I haven't tried a current version of knoppix as a hd install, the most recent version I have is from last May, the only hd install I still have is a version of Overclockix (a reMaster of Knoppix 3.2). And I have not tried Fabianx's new hd install script.

Knoppix is the easiest cd install out there, but that was not Klaus' intent when he made knoppix, But please Note: if you do a hd install make sure every piece of hardware you want to use is working and mounted, so mount all cdroms, usb devices, etc. etc. etc. make sure sound, networking, video etc. etc. etc. is correct, then do the hd-install. Then all hardware will work on the hdinstall because you are copying the running system when you do the hd install.

~rock

I am getting my feet wet in Linux with the Live distros and have heard some of what has been said here before about installing Debian through Knoppix. Has anyone tried Gnoppix? They seem to claim their design is to either run live or to do a full install.

I'm another satisfied Knoppix-on-harddrive user, and agree with everything that softgun and rockmumbles posted. Knoppix is an incredibly easy 30 min. installation, and it gives you lots of instant software. If you install from the English language iso, your language will default to English.

Knoppix is on my wife's computer at home, and she uses gnumeric, Mozilla, OpenOffice and frozen bubble (which she is completely addicted to). We also use the Knoppix box as a multimedia station for DVDs (xine), VHS tapes (xawtv).

However, like rockmumbles said, Knoppix requires some manual tweaking post-installation if you wish to customize it, which may limit its usefulness for newbies.

The CD boot options (at boot:, press F2 for a list of options or check http://www.knoppix.net for a complete list of Knoppix "cheat-codes" for booting) determine your settings for a hard-disk installation. The most important boot settings are your default language setting, dma for ide devices, video module (default is vesa), and screen resolution (default is 1024x768). This may also put off newbies from a hard-drive installation.

If you want a separate partition for /home, you have to create the partition before or during installation (the install script brings up cfdisk for partitioning, which can be intimidating for newbies), and then edit /etc/fstab after installation. If you dual-boot, you have to edit /etc/lilo.conf and run lilo, after installation.

Some software, especially xawtv, requires further configuration after installation (notably, you have to run configure_xawtv, and depending on your tv card, edit module files). Wine and Samba require manual editing of config files.

You will also probably want to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file to include North American Debian repositories (if you're North American) rather than the default German ones. If you want multimedia packages such as Mplayer, then you should add 'deb http://marillat.free.fr/ unstable main' to your sources.list

If Knoppix hard-drive installation is too difficult, you might try some of the Knoppix derived distros such as Damn Small Linux, Morphix, or best yet: Mepis. I haven't installed Mepis, but apparently it's more Debian than Knoppix. Also, Mepis uses a gui installer with qtparted as the gui partitioning software (qtparted is similar to Partition Magic).

Mepis wins my vote as being simply the easiest way to get Debian Linux on the HDD hands down! It has gui installation tools right on the KDE Desktop and QT Parted embedded in the installation to resize your drive during installation. Definitely check this one out if you have tried to install Debian, but were discouraged by the installation procedure.