Hello. I am wanting to do a hard disk install of knoppix 5 on a separate partion. My question is what is the diffrence of 'debian like' or 'CD like' on the hard drive install? if I did a 'CD like' installation, would it act just like the Live dvd? If I made changes to the settings or installed any packages would knoppix load everything the next time its started up, or would i have to manually install everything each time i used it?

The CD-like installation puts a copy of the CD image on yout disk, with all the files compressed. When you boot form this image, it is the same as booting from CD, except you get the added speed of your hard drive, over the speed of your CD derive. It will load fasted, and you have access to the CD drive once booted.

The Debain like install de-compresses the files, so you get an install more like a regular system. This will load faster than the CD like install.

A lot depends on the hardware you load it on. A fast system, you won't see a huge improvemnt in boot speed or application load speed. On an older slower box, the Debain like install will show better speed.

As far as settings, you have to save the settings, and re-load them on the next boot. You save them to a file called knoppix.sh. Have a look at the cheat codes. They are on the knoppix site, and I think there is a copy on your knoppix CD.

I know if you do a debain like install, there are issues around package management. That is why you will see recomdations to go get debain ( or some other full distro) rather than use a debain-like install. Your choice.

So if I install packages like libdvdcss, or win32 codecs, they will be part of the 'disk image' on the hard drive?

If you do a Debain like install, any installed apps will be used. The biggest issue is around updates to those packages. They will not get updated unless you do it. Also the dependencies are not looked after by the package manager. You may want to look into this link for further discussion.

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/