Kanotix 2007 Thorhammer Rc7

[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/kanotix-2007-thorhammer-rc7-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.php?product=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=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=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]

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!

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

 

[Abarbarian]

http://kanotix.org/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-24154.html

A bit of relevant info here , 3rd post down , its a thread for the last build which is not realy relevant for the majority of stuff . Finding info on this build is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack . Now if only we spoke or read german .

 

[crazylegs]

There you have a green light from Ian so go for it mate..

You should know that although not many may reply to posts they still get read by a lot of people..
And with the amount of work that goes into posting a walkthrough with pics, I would always acknowledge the authors effort as I know how much work goes into posting topics on here..Keep up the good work Ab..

We'll be watching and reading don't you worry..

 

[Abarbarian]

Installing to a USB HDD with a /home partition .

I ought to mention this as it is a bit odd . I gave away the two copies of the live cd I had made so I burnt another one . When I tried to use it it would not load . Drat I thought mebees I'll give it another try . This time it loaded but the graphics were not quite right . Still convinced I had a bad burn I gave it another try . This time it worked just fine . Why did I bother to tell you this ? All will be revealed .

Now on with the show .

First of all plug in your usb hard disk .

Well I did say this was a guide for muppets , didn't I ?

Load up the Live CD .

You will see or not as the case may be , that the usb drive does not show up on the desktop . Ah ha !

Launch the AcritoxInstaller .

Highlight Install and click "Next".

Now there is a couple of pics missing and I'm too tired to re-do them .

Not the only thing missing , notice the usb drive icons , course you didn't , they are missing . Ah ha !

You should get a window with lots of options for PARTITIONING . Choose the "MANUAL" option .

You should get to a window with options like "Already Partitioned " or "GParted" and a couple of other choices. Go for the "GParted" I think its the second one down .

This is where you hopefully will end up but its not where you need to be . The drive /dev/sda1 is my main hard drive . You need to be .......................

here . The "unallocated partition" is /dev/sdb which is the usb hard drive .

Here you can see that I have created four partitions . I'm sure you can work out how to do this . I could have made the partitions smaller but I wanted to make sure that they would be big enough for future needs .
Click on Close after the operations have completed.

Got something like this showing and you can close down GParted .

I have a feeling that another screen shot when missing . Anyways keep clicking "Next" till you get to here .
An then guess what ? Yep , that's right click on "Next".

 

[Abarbarian]

Highlight /dev/sdb1 and then click on the tab "advanced partition options".

Yep , click "Next" .

Here you can alter the last entry to read " /home" in the Mount Point column and set it format as "ext3" . Another missing screenshot . I'm beginning to suspect a serial killer is at work .

Better click next and move on quickly .

Do not choose this option .

This is a better one . Cick "Next" .

Now the difficult bit . Finding a pesky password and remembering it . Click "Next".

Even more difficult . Pesky passwords .

Click "Next" .

This is harder than writing a book .

Click "Next" .

 

[Abarbarian]

Nearly done . Check the details are correct . Thats " /dev/sdb1 will be used as " the partition to where the Kanotix OS will be installed . Also that " /dev/sdb4 will be used as /home " that is a permanent partition for your /home folders . These /home folders should be safe if the os becomes corrupted and need a install , this should save some time and heartache if I have understood correctly . I'm still a bit hazy on this point so we will have to see as time goes by .
A change here . Scroll down .

An make sure that the Bootloader is going to be installed in " /dev/sdb "
Now click on , wait for it , the "install now" box . Which will un-grey the "Next" box which you then click on . They say a good writer will find many different ways of describing the same thing . That's my free tip of the day .

You should end up here .

Well done . you are now the operator of a fully installed Kanotix OS installed on your usb hard drive .

You'll see that " /dev/sdb2 " and " /dev/sdb3 " are unknown volume types . That is because we did not format them as we do not need them for this exercise . I created them so that I can install different linux distros to them and hopefully they will be able to share the " /home " partition , like I said before I have to fully understand and explore this idea , but from what I have read it works . You could have just had two partitions instead of the four I created or you could have just had one partition . It seems safer to have at least two partitions so thats the way I have gone .

Now before we go on to the last few screenshots , do you remember the tale I told at the beginning of this guide ? You do , good as it is quite relevant .

You see I clicked on the "Finish " button and was sent to the desktop but it had not changed . No extra drives were showing just the 31 GB drive that was part of "/dev/sda" which is my main hard drive with Windows on it . I could not find any sign of the USB Drive at all . So I shut down the pc , convinced that something was amiss .
Tried to fire up the pc and booted from the usb drive . The os started to load and then seemed to stick . I gave it plenty of time and shutdown , convinced that something had gone wrong with the install.
I gave it one last try . fired up the pc , booted from the usb drive , and, bingo , Kanotix was alive and well on the usb drive . Now what was that pesky password .

As you can see the USB Drives are showing up . Here is the Kanotix OS .

Here is the " /dev/sdb4 " as a "/home" partition .

An here is "/dev/sda1" with the Windows OS on it .

Its interesting to note that the Windows XP Pro installed takes up 3.2 GB of space with very few installed programs or uninstalled program files and I recon it took a noticeable while longer to install . That was to a SATA II main HDD .
The Kanotix was installed to a usb drive so you would have thought it would have taken longer to install and it seems to have a shedfull of programs or program files included so you would assume that it would be a bigger footprint . That is not the case . It took a noticeably shorter time to install to a slower drive and it filled 2.1 GB of the partition that's a thirty percent smaller footprint .
There is a down side to the Kanotix install and its a pretty big one . You do have to think of two new passwords . Now that could put a lot of folk of using the os .

So that is this guide concluded . I still have to give this install a real good run through to see if it all works but I am confident it will .


That as they say is all for now folks .

 

[Abarbarian]

Updating The Kanotix

As with all fresh installs the first thing you should do is update .

So lets do just that .

Open up the KPackage Package Manager .

Next on to "HELP" and the "KPackage Handbook" .

Find the sub section "Specila Menu" . This will give you some information about our next actions .

Onwards to "Special" , "APT Debian" , "UPDATE" .

Here you are asked for your ROOT password . Also here we have some more missing steps . I had already done some of the updates befor I statrted this walkthrough . They are very much the same as the steps for "UPGRADE" . So read on and then backtrack . Just like a pc game really .

Now we need "Special" , "APT Debian" , "UPGRADE" .

You arrive at a information window . This tells you what will be and how many updates there are . Also information on the type of upgrade . Type a " Y " if you want to upgrade , then "ENTER" .

Packages are downloading and you are informed as to progress as the window scrolls .

It took about an hour on my slow connection to arrive at the end . As you can see my download shows an error . So I had to run through the sequence again but this time it only took 4 minutes as there were only the error modules to be obtained .
That is the end of updating .
As you can see it did not take very long . It would be unfair to compare the process with a Windows full update . As this distro is only several months old wheras XP has been around for about seven years so you would expect more updates for XP . Still even if you had XP and SP3 it would take a bit longer I think and you would still have to connect to the Microsoft site for a few more updates on top of XP and SP3 . One more slight swing in Kanotix's favour is that not only is the main OS smaller in size , the updates are much smaller than XP's also .

Lastly it may help some slower systems if the temporary Package Folder Cache is cleared .

You can clean up individual files but I have highlighted the Package Folder Cache as this will clean up all the temporarily downloaded folders and files . Once you have clicked on this highlighted link nothing seems to happen , I'm reliably informed something does happen .

So you can close the window if you like or leave it open for the next exiting instalment .

 

[Abarbarian]

Installing A New Program In Kanotix

While the KPackage Manager is open why not install a new program . It won't take long . Wink wink .

Wink that's the name of the program I'll install . See its highlighted and a description shows on the right hand side . Notice the Large green "N" remember it .Click on "Install"

The download begins .

Download complete and the instillation starts and quickly finishes . Click on "DONE" .

You can see that you have a new program installed as the little icon on the left in the highlighted box has changed from a large green "N" denoting "NOT INSTALLED" to a hmmmmmmm my eyesight is not good enough to see what the icons is meant to be . Mind you it might be a not so clear screenshot .

Now I can not remember if the program will show up in the main menu or if you have to run the "MENU UPDATING TOOL" . That is another tale for another walkthrough or you could work it out yourself .

 

[Abarbarian]

Kanotix Hdd Install Needs Sound Installing

All the boring bits over and done with . Lets play with this OS . Hmmm a video or a tune . Kaffeine wins out and the movie plays . what's this I here , the sound of silence . No sound .
A quick post on the Kanotix forum , they reply pretty darn quickly . We need to install the sound drivers . Oh no ! I hear you cry .
Don't worry it will be painless ,
I promise .

I like the penguins .

Open the "KONSOLE TERMINAL PROGRAM" .

Type " su " and then press ENTER.

Here you need your ROOT password .

Type " alsaconf " then press ENTER .

Click " OK " .

Highlight your choice and click " OK " .

Click " YES " here . Don't ask me how to configure the whatsit as I don't have a clue . I may need to figure it out at some point .

Click " OK " . Did you notice that OS uses the phrase " Now I will load the " its that use of the " I " that gets me . I think this OS maybe has a mind of its own developing , shades of HAL an all that .

All done ! With a very cheery " Have a lot of FUN " as a parting message from our friendly OS . This is where I will say toodle pip too .

The sound works just fine though maybe a little gravelly . Could just be Tom Waits though .

 

[Taffycat]

I read through this whole thread last night and thoroughly enjoyed it You explained things well and in such an entertaining manner that I just kept reading - and even learning something Your pics are a big help too, enabling one to see exactly what was going on at each step

Hmmm... it wouldn't surprise me to hear that quite a few folk will be trying out Kanotix for themselves after this

Take a bow Abarbarian, that's super piece of work.

 

[Abarbarian]

Thanks Taffycat , its always nice to get some feedback .