Forgive me. This is my complete first time even doing anything like this, so please be patient.

I downloaded the knoppix torrent off their site, and burned it onto cd. I rebooted, loaded it up, everything was working fine, it started initializing and etcetera, and then when everything was done, I got a SUPER large menu that had view, edit, settings, etc. my thought was maybe i had to set the text to a smaller size so i clicked view, edit, help, and settings, and it opened up a large blank white box.

I went down to the taskbar (i guess) at the bottom of the screen and opened what looked like a menu, and a tiny sized menu opened up with the same options as the large one. I tried clicking one of those and again a large blank box opened up. I even tried shutting down by clicking the icon with the screen, and when i typed shutdown -h now and shutdown -r now, it kept saying something about the root file or something, so I don't even know how to shut the thing off properly. I've just been doing it manually which i know is bad.

As you can see, I'm a COMPLETE newbie throwing myself completely upon the feet of you guys, as I am screwed without your help. I really appreciate whatever tips you could throw me =)

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

You should do a 'testcd' at the 'boot:' prompt to make sure your copy is valid. If not valid you may have to either burn a new copy or download another iso. If you download another iso then be sure to check the .md5 sum.

If the cd is valid then you may need to select other options by pressing F2/F3. You did not state any equipment/system information so I'm shooting in the dark. I would suggest that you boot with the framebuffer option. You will see this option listed under F2 of the boot screen.

In the future please provide system information, errors or whatever is relevant to the problem.