[Abarbarian]

An before you ask , No I did not choose this distro just because of the name . I spent many hours researching before making my choice .

Kanotix is a linux distro from the Live CD class . This means that it is designed to run from a cd and can be run on any pc without affecting the host operating system . This type of linux distro is an ideal way for a begginer to try out linux for the first time . You can also load Kanotix to your hard drive or usb stick and this has several advantages , more about this later on .


There is not a great deal of information about this distro on the net and a search for a download link only gave me one , ha ha at least thats what I thought . Here is the link I used and the download did not take long , I have no idea how long as I downloaded through the night and next morning the download was complete . I burnt the 717 KB .iso to a cd and it seems to work ok .

http://jauze.blogspot.com/2008/01/ka...-released.html

Kanotix have a very good home site here ,

http://kanotix.com/index.html

and you may wonder why I did not download the .iso from there . Well it is simple , I could not find the link on the page not that it is hard to find as there is a "Download " heading on the left of the page but it has nothing underneath it . There is a "Preview Releases" heading with a link below it which gives you the download . I never bothered to click on this as I wanted a download not a review so I spent an hour looking for an alternative link on the net

So I have the Live CD it is time to try it out . Fingers crossed that I do not mess up me normal os I place the cd in the tray and away we go . Remember you have to set your system to boot from the cd drive which is easy to do from the bios or by pressing one of the "F" keys . Five minutes later after a very colourful loading sequence I have Kanotix running on my pc and it looks pretty darn nice .

I'll post some pics and carry on this tale later , but for now I'm going for a week-end break .

[Abarbarian]

Ok here are some pics showing what happens when you put the disc in your drive and boot up . Sorry about the quality of the pics but me camera does not have a remote firing button and the tripod is a little shaky .



Here you have to do some work I'm afraid . I think I chose ACPI - off and DMA - off . I don't really have a clue what they are at this time , no doubt all will become clear as time goes by .



I really like the way it waits for slow usb stuff



You get some pretty penguins to look at along the way . Thats cute .



Pretty colours make reading easier . Honestly , its true .





You have got to here pretty quickly . Them penguins sure can swim .



I did not time this but you end up on the desktop in about three minutes , see my pc specs in the sig line .
I think that is pretty impressive speed wise and the window you get as a welcome is darn impressive too .You are greeted with a set of mini tutorials that contain a lot of very useful information , just what a technonumptie like me needs . You can minimise this down to the task bar and refer to it as you start to explore .
So how does that stand up to the opposition .

Hmm lets see Kantopix with lots of applications ready to run straight away with internet connection and you have only had to click once on the screen and had to wait about three minutes . Ok ok if you wanted UK keyboard and stuff you had to click the screen another three times , I know its all work work work .

An how long does it take to get a Windows os up and running and connected to the internet an how many times do you have to click on the screen ???? I mean really it takes half an hour or so just to read the Licences and that's if you have a team of crack lawyers around to dumb it down so that you can understand them .

Its one up to Kantonix in my book . Still its one thing to load up quickly , but does it work , does it do what it says on the tin ??

[Abarbarian]

So we have lift of , neat graphics and sounds in the intro lets see what this Kanotix has under the bonnet an more importantly will it go vroom vroom if you push the pedal to the metal .



As you can see there are lots of applications already here to play with . See the icons on the left of the screen , keep an eye on them , they are the Windows partitions of the host pc .



Tv card , nope I don't have a TV card in the pc at the moment , but I may be tempted to instal one . See the little squares marked 1 , 2 ,3 , 4 , in the task bar they are for your four desktops installed as standard out of the box . Neat ain't it .



Just checking if my screenshots were saved ok . I was going to post them here on PC Review from Kantonix but I have no idea what my password is so I'll have to go back to windows to do that . Now should I put these screenshots on a usb stick , hmmmmmmmm, or could I , is it possible , dare I hope that I could just move them over to my documents folder in Windows . Lets looksee and have a go shall we . Whoopee click click and the screen shots are saved to My Documents in Windows XP . Will they be there when I boot into XP ?? Only time will tell .



Now we are going to ask a fairly big question of this CD run OS . Can I access my music files on my XP hdd and will I be able to play them .?
You betcha I will .
Rock on Amy .
So the Amorok music player with the howling wolf icon does its stuff . Four clicks and about ten seconds and we have music . Owwww ow ow ow Oooooooooooo.



As this is a whistle stop tour we don't have time to hang around and look at details . We are just after the bare bones today . The information pane for the song has some good information in it and is easy to read though . You can autohide the start bar which is handy as it is quite large but I am starting to like its layout .



Crunch time !!! Can we play vids from the XP hdd ??

Now I have heard of instant coffe but by 'ek that Kaffeine is even quicker than an expresso .



No magic powers ----------



or Tardis needed to answer that question .

Once again a few clicks and a few seconds and all my video collection comes to life on screen . The quality looks superb , runs smooth and sounds great . All of this from a CD os . Astonishing .
I wonder if I can play a dvd ? I have two dvd drives . Well the answer to that question will have to come at some other time .
So it seems as though this linux distro really does do what it says on the tin . It's fast I can tell you that . I have not done a great deal with it but what I have tried runs well and I have to say it again , it is fast . I tried Iceweasel and I could surf the net . I can play music and vids . I can read from and write to Xp partitions . All of this straight out of the box . Now that is impressive . Even more so when you consider the price .

Thats enough for me for one day . Hope you enjoyed the tour . More to come in the next few weeks as I explore this new operating system . I am going to try and install it on a 8 GB mini hard drive . Will I be successful , hmmmmmm , guess that depends how difficult its going to be .



Goodnight y'all .



You just got to hear that womans voice as you sign out of Kanotix . Sexy or what , an definitly a tribute to the Halo game . Well thats my humble opinion .



Those screenshots , well they were there when I booted to XP he he .

[Abarbarian]

Well here is an update but no pictures I'm afraid . I'm trying to load Kanotix to a 8GB usb disk drive . Thats like a super mini hard disc drive , not , a usb flash drive . This one in fact ,

http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product....oduct=EMTEC002

So I have spent quite a bit of time trying to get this to work but with no joy yet . I have posted asking for help on the Kanotix home site and have had some replies from a nice chap called Kano who I believe is the person who is developing the distro . Here is a link to the Kanotix English forum where my tale is told .

http://kanotix.org/index.php?name=PN...=160923#160923

As you can read over there I am just hovering on the brink of success . When I have the drive up and running and stable . By that I mean that I have tested it on several pc's . Then I will post a full run through with pics of how it was done .

I have tried to play a movie with the os on the usb drive and it ran very well with excellent picture quality . The movie was in a folder in a windows partition on the host pc . There was no stuttering , sound was good and as I have said before the picture quality was first class .

Got to dash as I want to sqeeze in a couple of Gongs from Joost before the last episode of the Sopranos .

[Abarbarian]

Well I got some more info from the forum at Kanotix ,

http://kanotix.org/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-24839.html

Which has clarified a few things for me . So am going to try a fresh instal on me usb drive and will post me progress . The folks over at Kanotix seem very friendly and helpful and I'm getting the info I need eventualy . Considering that I am a technonumptie and there is a language difference and the subject matter is pretty complex I think that the help offered is excellent .



As an aside , I downloaded the entire last series of the Sopranos some time ago and thought that I had a corupt download as the ending was , or at least I thought it was , cut short . So I treid several times to get the last episode and had the abrupt cut of ending every time .
So I was realy exited when the last episode was broadcast this weekend . Guess what it had that same abrupt cut of ending . Seems like it was how the director wanted to leave the audience with that did it didn't it happen sort of feeling . Worked on me I've had that feeling for a couple of months waiting to see the ending even though I'd already seen it .

[Ian]

Cracking walkthrough there Abarbarian

I'd not heard of this Linux distro before, but as my Knoppix live CD is a couple of years old now this gives me a chance to try it out

I couldn't use Linux all the time on my desktop, but I find it invaluable to have a Live CD to hand

[Abarbarian]

Thanks Ian . Reading up on the Kanotix forums it looks like this is the best build of that distro . Its only my second look at a version of linux and I am quietly impressed . I'll be posting the results of me usb drive install shortly .

[crazylegs]

Great stuff Ab

I been keeping my eye on this thread nice and quiet like for a week to see if you gonna come up with the goods on how that distro works on a USB stick..

Great little preview of what looks like an interesting Linux disc...May have to give it a go sometime...

[Abarbarian]

Originally Posted by crazylegs

Great stuff Ab

I been keeping my eye on this thread nice and quiet like for a week to see if you gonna come up with the goods on how that distro works on a USB stick..

Great little preview of what looks like an interesting Linux disc...May have to give it a go sometime...

Thanks crazylegs , untill you and Ian replied today I was begining to think that I was posting to meself

There are several ways of putting this distro on to removable media . You can instal to a USB flash drive or a USB disc drive (like a hard drive) as a full instal or as an .iso with expansion qualities and a optional /home partition . As I only have a mini hard drive free at the moment and I'm already part way along the way I'm going for that option . If things work out I'll do a guide to all the different methods over time .

If its not going to put too much of a strain on the site rescources I'm hoping to carry on doing an idiots guide with lots of pics on various aspects of this linux build . If any one else wants to chip in that would be great too .

[Ian]

A USB install would be even better, so I might give that a go - I guess it means it would let you save to the drive too? That would be fantastic!

Originally Posted by Abarbarian

If its not going to put too much of a strain on the site rescources I'm hoping to carry on doing an idiots guide with lots of pics on various aspects of this linux build.

Go for it, that sounds great The new server has plenty of free space at the moment, so no worries about the resources