Knoppix 2004-08-16

[Bernd Schmitt]

* V3.6-2004-08-16 ("aKademy Release")
- first release after LinuxTag 2004
- Kernel 2.6.7 (as an option) and 2.4.27
- memtest86+ as boot option
- captive-ntfs update
- FreeNX-Server package from Fabian Franz
- hardware detection updates & fixes
- KDE 3.2.3 (which is still more stable than 3.3 in Debian)
- ndiswrapper+GUI (Martin Oehler)
- lots and lots of package updates from Debian/testing and unstable

 

[Roger Johansson]

* V3.6-2004-08-16 ("aKademy Release")
- first release after LinuxTag 2004
- Kernel 2.6.7 (as an option) and 2.4.27

I have spent 10 minutes now trying to find this release, but I cannot
find any Knoppix version later than 2004-05-17

Could you please give us a download location?

 

[Romain Petges]

Could you please give us a download location?

BitTorrent Download : http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/
FTP Download : ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/

Regards, Romain

 

[Roger Johansson]

BitTorrent Download : http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/
FTP Download : ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/

Thanks.

 

[Bernd Schmitt]

Bernd Schmitt wrote:




I have spent 10 minutes now trying to find this release, but I cannot
find any Knoppix version later than 2004-05-17

Could you please give us a download location?

Sure, when finished downloading ;-)
50% completed ...

 

[Roger Johansson]

This ftp server is extremely slow, probably overloaded.
Maybe it is better to wait until this version has been distributed to
the knoppix mirrors all over the world.

While I am waiting, does anybody know if a knoppix distro can be used to
build a more complete linux system?
Is there some good package administration system included in knoppix, or
can one be added later so the user can install other packages of his
choice?

Because knoppix is usually very good at detecting the hardware it could
be the basis for a general linux system, if there is a good system for
administrating packages which can be used in knoppix.

 

[Cousin Stanley]

Roger Johansson wrote ....

| ....
|
| While I am waiting, does anybody know if a knoppix distro
| can be used to build a more complete linux system ?

Roger ....

After 2 Knoppix HDD installis, the impression I have
is not at all that it needs to be more complete ,
but is actually a bit bloated, including many packages
that a user may NOT ultimately be interested in ....

| Is there some good package administration system included in knoppix,
| or can one be added later so the user can install other packages
| of his choice ?

Yes ....

Debian-based Linux distributions have a few different
package-management systems available ....

Some are GUI-based and some are command-line-based ....

The following link to a review of the Kanotix alternate
to Knoppix gives a pretty good overview of the basic
command-line tool called apt-get for package management
under Linux/Debian ....

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/03/153205

I haven't tried Kanotix myself, but have seen
several favorable comments about it and have the
impression that it's a bit leaner than Knoppix,
so might give users a bit of a cleaner base-system
from which to build upon installing only what
the users themselves actually want ....

| Because knoppix is usually very good at detecting the hardware
| it could be the basis for a general linux system, if there
| is a good system for administrating packages which can be used
| in knoppix.

Full GUI-based package managers are KPackage and Synaptic
and there is also a Curses-based package manager called
aptitude that works very well ....

I've done a LOT of package installs with my recent
Linux/Debian distribution using apt-get package-name
from the command line which downloads/installs
in a single step ....

An example that I have actually just done
within the last hour ....

apt-get install gimp1.2

That's it ....

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

Roger Johansson wrote ....

| ....
|
| While I am waiting, does anybody know if a knoppix distro
| can be used to build a more complete linux system ?

Roger ....

After 2 Knoppix HDD installis, the impression I have
is not at all that it needs to be more complete ,
but is actually a bit bloated, including many packages
that a user may NOT ultimately be interested in ....

How much empty hard drive space is required to do a Knoppix hdd
install?

Also, have you come across a pcmcia.img file for Knoppix 3.4 (or a
formula for creating one)? For reasons he doesn't seem willing to
explain, Knopper hasn't provided this image file for any of the recent
releases of Knoppix.

I'd like to try Knoppix on an older P166 notebook that has only a
pcmcia-scsci CD-ROM drive, but can't do it without floppy pcmcia
support. I know it could run on this notebook, because I'm able to run
Knoppix on a desktop P166, even when loading from a 4X CD-ROM.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

After 2 Knoppix HDD installis, the impression I have
is not at all that it needs to be more complete ,
but is actually a bit bloated, including many packages
that a user may NOT ultimately be interested in ....

I think they make it their mission to cram as much as will fit onto
the CD.

For a lighter LiveCD which allows installing a basic Debian system,
I see Morphix recommended often, though I have not tried it in a
long time. It's a derivative of Knoppix. The LightGUI version
comes with XFce, but not a full desktop environment. After install,
it's possible to use apt-get or the other standard Debianish ways of
getting software.

<http://www.morphix.org/modules/xoopsfaq/>

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

This ftp server is extremely slow, probably overloaded.
Maybe it is better to wait until this version has been distributed to
the knoppix mirrors all over the world.

If past experience holds, you're probably better off to wait a week or
ten days, as new releases of Knoppix are usually followed by a minor
bug fix revision within that time span.

 

[Roger Johansson]

After 2 Knoppix HDD installis, the impression I have
is not at all that it needs to be more complete ,
but is actually a bit bloated, including many packages
that a user may NOT ultimately be interested in ....

I want a good package administration system as much for removing stuff
as for adding stuff. I simply want full control of what to include and
not.

Debian-based Linux distributions have a few different
package-management systems available ....

Some are GUI-based and some are command-line-based ....

I would prefer a GUI system, this apt-get command line system seems very
old and DOS-like. There should be a list of already installed packages
and possibilities to remove and add packages graphically.

The following link to a review of the Kanotix alternate
to Knoppix gives a pretty good overview of the basic
command-line tool called apt-get for package management
under Linux/Debian ....

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/03/153205

I haven't tried Kanotix myself, but have seen
several favorable comments about it and have the
impression that it's a bit leaner than Knoppix,
so might give users a bit of a cleaner base-system
from which to build upon installing only what
the users themselves actually want ....

Sounds interesting, I will try Kanotix and see how it works.

| Because knoppix is usually very good at detecting the hardware
| it could be the basis for a general linux system, if there
| is a good system for administrating packages which can be used
| in knoppix.

Full GUI-based package managers are KPackage and Synaptic

This is probably what I am looking for.

Thanks for the information you and the others in this thread are
supplying, very useful.

 

[Gabriele Neukam]

On that special day, Cousin Stanley, ([email protected]) said...

I haven't tried Kanotix myself, but have seen
several favorable comments about it and have the
impression that it's a bit leaner than Knoppix,
so might give users a bit of a cleaner base-system
from which to build upon installing only what
the users themselves actually want ....

I haven't seen it yet, but the replies of several readers of a German
computer mag that had published an article about notebooks being run
under Linux, mentioned this Kanotix, and according to their
descriptions, Kanotix is a Knoppix version designed to run on notebooks.

I don't know if this was a misunderstandig, but one of the letters does
describe Kanotix as a "rebuilt Knoppix", and another calls it a "Knoppix
derivate which is designed explicitly to install Debian Sid. This
distribution is very hardware-friendly when recognizing components"
(well, this translation was a bit liberal, forgive me)

Homepage is

www.kanotix.com (what else)


Gabriele Neukam

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Cousin Stanley]

Achim Nolcken Lohse wrote ....

| How much empty hard drive space is required
| to do a Knoppix hdd install ?

Fresh Knoppix installs are a bit less than 2.5 GB ....

However, if available, partition for a bit more
to allow for growth, maybe 4 to 5 GB , or
if you have space, as much as desired/practical ....


| Also, have you come across a pcmcia.img file
| for Knoppix 3.4 (or a formula for creating one )?
| ....

I'm not a laptop user, so I'm mostly clueless
about pcmcia except to know that it exists ....


| I'd like to try Knoppix on an older P166 notebook
| that has only a pcmcia-scsci CD-ROM drive,
| but can't do it without floppy pcmcia support.
| ....

If you can boot from the CD-ROM drive
you might consider ....

o An alternate distribution like Morphix

o A pure Debian install from a downloaded .iso
[ 700 MB ]

If you can boot from the CD-ROM drive
AND have a fast net connection ....

o Download the Debian Net-Installer image [ 110 MB ]
which installs the base system and gets the rest
from the net ....

If you can boot from the Floppy drive
AND have a fast net connection ....

o Download 4 Floppy-Disk images
o Get the rest from the net

This Floppy-Disk/Net-Instll is the method I used,
since my CD-RW drive was un-cooperative at the time ....

If you're interested, I could provide some details
that might help ....

 

[Cousin Stanley]

Roger Johansson wrote ....

I want a good package administration system as much for removing stuff
as for adding stuff. I simply want full control of what to include and
not.

The Debian package managers provide a fairly wide range
of functionality for installing, updating, and removing
packages ....

$ apt-get --help

Usage: apt-get [options] command
apt-get [options] install|remove pkg1 [pkg2 ...]
apt-get [options] source pkg1 [pkg2 ...]

apt-get is a simple command line interface for downloading
and installing packages.

The most frequently used commands
are update and install.

Commands:
update ............. Retrieve new lists of packages
upgrade ............ Perform an upgrade
install ............ Install new packages
remove ............. Remove packages
source ............. Download source archives
build-dep .......... Configure build-dependencies for source packages
dist-upgrade ....... Distribution upgrade, see apt-get(8)
dselect-upgrade .... Follow dselect selections
clean .............. Erase downloaded archive files
autoclean .......... Erase old downloaded archive files
check .............. Verify that there are no broken dependencies

I would prefer a GUI system, this apt-get command line system
seems very old and DOS-like.

I referenced the apt-get mechanism and included
a bit of its help info here only to try and show
that diverse basic functionality is readily available ....

Using command-line interfaces for me has always
seemed to be an asset rather than a liability ....

Consider the example that I posted yesterday ....

apt-get install gimp1.2

That string of 23 characters comprises
the ENTIRE download/install procedure
and I can open a shell and type it very quickly ....

Relative to the ease of usage of getting
gimp installed under Windows using every
point and click available, I would consider
the apt-get mechanism in Debian/Linux
as new, innovative, and efficient ....

Consider another useful command-line example
from DOS that is hard to match ease-of-use-wise
compared to a similar GUI mechanism ....

xxcopy C:\ D:\ /clone

Also consider that my package manager in Win98
is ....

Start .... Control Panel .... Add/Remove Programs

There should be a list of already installed packages
and possibilities to remove and add packages graphically.

The aptitude, KPackage, and Synaptic package managers
wrap this basic functionality very well ....

Sounds interesting, I will try Kanotix and see how it works.

And I would be interested to know how it works for you
as I haven't seen it at all ....

Thanks for the information you and the others in this thread
are supplying, very useful.

You're welcome ....

 

[Roger Johansson]

The Debian package managers provide a fairly wide range
of functionality for installing, updating, and removing
packages ....

$ apt-get --help

I am saving your messages about this for later use.

I still would prefer a graphical GUI package manager, but it is good to
know how to handle the command line interface too.

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

Achim Nolcken Lohse wrote ....

| How much empty hard drive space is required
| to do a Knoppix hdd install ?

Fresh Knoppix installs are a bit less than 2.5 GB ....

Thanks.
However, if available, partition for a bit more
to allow for growth, maybe 4 to 5 GB , or
if you have space, as much as desired/practical ....

Alas, my laptop's hdd is only 6GB total...

| Also, have you come across a pcmcia.img file
| for Knoppix 3.4 (or a formula for creating one )?
| ....

I'm not a laptop user, so I'm mostly clueless
about pcmcia except to know that it exists ....


| I'd like to try Knoppix on an older P166 notebook
| that has only a pcmcia-scsci CD-ROM drive,
| but can't do it without floppy pcmcia support.
| ....

If you can boot from the CD-ROM drive
you might consider ....

No can do

If you can boot from the Floppy drive
AND have a fast net connection ....

o Download 4 Floppy-Disk images
o Get the rest from the net

This Floppy-Disk/Net-Instll is the method I used,
since my CD-RW drive was un-cooperative at the time ....

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not adventurous enough to do a net
install. I want a Live-CD distro of Linux for my laptop precisely
because I want to be able to check hardware compatibility before I do
a hard drive install.

My last linux hard drive install on the laptop in question was
Mandrake 9.1. I spent hours on it, and when it was done, I found that
I had no support for my sound card or for my pcmcia ethernet adapter.
Without the adapter, I couldn't get the updates and bugfixes, and
there seemed to lots of bugs to fix. The system crashed repeatedly
until I finally removed it.

The install before that was of Red Hat 7.2, and that one took the
better part of three days, due to errors in the documentation and in
the installer. When I finally got the system installed, I found that
it wouldn't reboot. I found out this was due to a bug in the kernel,
and so I had to download the revised kernel, reinstall from CD, and
upgrade the kernel before rebooting. And after all that, the sound
card didn't work.

Entirely too much fun.

 

[Vrodok the Troll]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 05:57:07 GMT, in Newsgroup--> alt.comp.freeware, the
personage of (e-mail address removed) (Achim Nolcken Lohse), courtesy of Message-id

Alas, my laptop's hdd is only 6GB total...

No can do


Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not adventurous enough to do a net
install. I want a Live-CD distro of Linux for my laptop precisely
because I want to be able to check hardware compatibility before I do
a hard drive install.

My last linux hard drive install on the laptop in question was
Mandrake 9.1. I spent hours on it, and when it was done, I found that
I had no support for my sound card or for my pcmcia ethernet adapter.
Without the adapter, I couldn't get the updates and bugfixes, and
there seemed to lots of bugs to fix. The system crashed repeatedly
until I finally removed it.

The install before that was of Red Hat 7.2, and that one took the
better part of three days, due to errors in the documentation and in
the installer. When I finally got the system installed, I found that
it wouldn't reboot. I found out this was due to a bug in the kernel,
and so I had to download the revised kernel, reinstall from CD, and
upgrade the kernel before rebooting. And after all that, the sound
card didn't work.

Entirely too much fun.

Have you considered/visited http://www.bootdisk.com/linux.htm ?

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

Have you considered/visited http://www.bootdisk.com/linux.htm ?

I have now, thanks. However, after downloading and searching all of
the text there, and that of some of the more promising links, I was
unable to get a single hit on "pcmcia". Am about to read through the
PCMCIA HOW-TO as well, but a cursory scan was not promising.

 

[Cousin Stanley]

Achim Nolcken Lohse wrote ....

| I'd like to try Knoppix on an older P166 notebook
| that has only a pcmcia-scsci CD-ROM drive,
| but can't do it without floppy pcmcia support.

Cousin Achim ....

I noticed the following as a boot option
in the Knoppix 3.4 Cheatcodes list ....

knoppix ide2=0x180 nopcmcia

Boot from PCMCIA-CD-Rom (some notebooks) ....

Easy to test ....

If you haven't tried it yet,
it might be worth a shot ....

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

Achim Nolcken Lohse wrote ....

| I'd like to try Knoppix on an older P166 notebook
| that has only a pcmcia-scsci CD-ROM drive,
| but can't do it without floppy pcmcia support.

Cousin Achim ....

I noticed the following as a boot option
in the Knoppix 3.4 Cheatcodes list ....

knoppix ide2=0x180 nopcmcia

Boot from PCMCIA-CD-Rom (some notebooks) ....

Easy to test ....

If you haven't tried it yet,
it might be worth a shot ....

Thanks Stanley.

I've already discussed that option with Klaus Knopper. His explanation
is that there are some Sony notebooks that provide IDE emulation on an
external CD-ROM, if I understood him correctly. This is why pcmcia has
to be disabled (otherwise IDE support is disabled). Here are his words
from an e-mail of May 8:

The Small Vaio Noteboks have a bootable PCMCIA CD-Rom
(!), which acts as a regular IDE CD-Rom as long as no pcmcia drivers
are
loaded.

It seems confusing and contradictory, but I believe the problem has to
do with the point in the boot process where pcmcia and scsi support
are provided. Normally, they're provided at some point after the
CD-ROM is accessed. Obviously, that can't work if the CD-ROM itself
requires pcmcia support.

So far I haven't found any Live-CD distro that supports running off a
pcmcia_SCSI CD-ROM. Nor have I found any explanation of this. If you
can install a full distro off a pcmcia_SCSI CD-ROM, as I've done
several times with Red Hat and Mandrake, you should be able to run a
Live-CD off one too, it seems to me.