Re: (?)useful document -- please copy, distribute

From: moma (moma_at_example.net)
Date: 04/04/04 

Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 16:13:15 +0200

hello,

I just read the 1.st part your document.
Yes, the text will be very usefull. Thanks a lot!

Info about boot parameters such as lang= and screen= are important.
Good stuff.

One thing though. (I had to find something to point out -;)

Ref.
> MS-Windows Data
> Even though you run Linux (Knoppix), you can access your data files on
> your MS-Windows hard drive or off a floppy or CDROM drive. Microsoft
> Windows refers to computer drives as “C:” (hard drive), “A:”
> (floppy), perhaps “D:” or “E:” for CD-ROM drives.
>
> Linux does not name drives with letters; instead, your MS-Windows drives
> will be accessed as /mnt/floppy, /mnt/cdrom, /mnt/winxp, or perhaps
> /mnt/hda1 or /mnt/hdb4, etc. (hda refers to your primary hard drive”,
...
...
>

The "MS-Windows Data" section is pretty technical. If your audience is
skilled windows' users then the text is just fine. For them it"s
relevant to learn about drives and /mnt/xxx at the first Linux encounter.

But some end-users may perceive, understand the words like 'document'
and 'folder' better than 'drives'.

So one could write>

..."You will find your existing windows folders and documents in
/mnt/winxp or /mnt/hda directories." 

----
Cheers & Thanks!
// moma
Beowulf wrote:
> I have been working on a document to provide to people I give a copy of
> Knoppix to. Here is the document. Please feel free to copy it,
> distribute it, modify it, put it on webpages, add to it, wrap your
> sandwich in it, whatever! (smile). Pertains to latest distro of Knoppix
> (v3.3).  Second half of document is very general, pertains to linux, unix
> etc.
>   ~Beowulf (Randall Oelerich)
> 
> _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
> 
> Knoppix CD-ROM Usage
> [freely distribute, modify, or add to this document]
> 
> What is Knoppix? http://knoppix.org or http://knoppix.com  Knoppix is a
> “live” version of Linux in that you can boot and run it from your
> computer CDROM drive. You do not need to install it to your computer hard
> drive. Because it runs off your CDROM, realize it runs slower than if it
> were installed on your hard drive.  Knoppix is a full, free, unrestrained
> version of the Linux operating system, complete with a  graphical user
> interface (GUI) and lots of useful software. Linux is an alternative
> operating system to Microsoft Windows, and yet is able to access and use
> your data on your Microsoft Windows hard drive (word processor documents,
> Excel and other spreadsheet data files, image files, etc.).
> 
> Why use Knoppix? It comes with lots of free open source useful software
> (games, word processors, image editors, internet browsers, spreadsheets,
> mp3 music player, command line terminals, and lots more!). Check out the
> game Chromium – a great arcade action game. Check out OpenOffice-- a
> clone of MS-Office with a full-featured word processor, spreadsheet, and
> clone of MS-Powerpoint. Check out the GIMP – a full-featured clone of
> Adobe Photoshop image editor. All this software would cost you thousands
> of dollars, but it is all on the Knoppix CD for free!
> 
> What's the Catch?  None. This is what open source software and the free
> software movement is all about – free software and free operating
> systems for people.
> 
> To Run Knoppix: Insert the CDROM disk into your CD drive and then reboot
> your computer (or shutdown Windows and then turn your computer back on);
> if Knoppix loads, fine. If Knoppix does not load, then your computer is
> not configured to boot an operating system (like Knoppix/Linux) from a CD
> and you will need to reconfigure your computer BIOS (not as hard as it
> might seem).
> 
> If you insert the Knoppix CD into your drive while running Microsoft
> Windows and you may see a screen of instructions appear explaining what
> Knoppix is, how to run it, etc.
> 
> If you need to reconfigure your BIOS to boot a CD (hopefully you will not
> need to do this-- most computers are set up to boot a CD so you can rescue
> your computer if it crashes or if you need to reinstall MS-Windows,
> etc.)-- either get a geek friend to help you, or when you power up your
> computer look at the screen to see if it says something like “Press DEL
> to enter BIOS” (or maybe Press F1... etc). You need to find the key to
> hold down immediately upon turning on your computer that will let you get
> into your computer BIOS menu; usually the key is F1 or DEL or ESC or one
> of the other function keys (F5, F10, F11, etc.).  Once you get into your
> BIOS menu, look for the option to specify the order of Booting (Hard
> Drive, Floppy, CDROM) and make sure that CDROM is first in the order for
> booting. Save your BIOS settings and reboot! That's all!
> 
> 
> Advanced Knoppix usage:  (ignore this if you wish!)
> 
> When you boot (run) Knoppix off the CD, you see “boot:” for a few
> seconds on the screen – this is a command prompt that gives you a chance
> to type some extra information to modify how Knoppix runs. Press the F2
> key when you see “boot:” to see a list of options that you could type
> at the “boot:” prompt.
> 
> One of the options you might try typing is an option to change the default
> GUI that runs. By default, Knoppix boots and displays the KDE graphics
> user interface (GUI, 'desktop'). KDE resembles Microsoft Windows and you
> will likely be most comfortable with this.
> 
> Knoppix can run using any of several different GUI desktops – KDE,
> Fluxbox, Ice, Window Maker, and others.  KDE (looks like MS Windows) loads
> by default. To load the Fluxbox desktop instead of KDE, when you see the
> “Boot:” prompt during booting of the CDROM, type   knoppix
> desktop=fluxbox   (and press the [Enter] key) and Knoppix will boot with
> the Fluxbox desktop graphical user interface.
> 
> At the “boot:” prompt, type knoppix desktop=icewm   (and press the
> [Enter] key) and Knoppix will boot with the Ice desktop graphical user
> interface instead of the KDE gui.
> 
> You can specify a language other than English, for example to use Spanish,
> at the “boot:” prompt you would type   knoppix lang=es  (and press the
> [Enter] key)
> 
> You can specify a screen resolution. For example, at the “boot:”
> prompt type
>    knoppix screen=1280x1024
> 
> You can specify failsafe startup (almost no hardware detection attempted).
> At the “boot:” prompt type  failsafe
> 
> You can specify text-only (like in the old days before MS-Windows or Mac!)
> mode. At the “boot:” prompt type   knoppix 2
> 
> You can combine boot: options. For example, to boot Knoppix in the german
> language, using the Fluxbox desktop graphical user interface, with a
> screen resolution of 800x600 type
> 
>   knoppix lang=ge desktop=fluxbox screen=800x600
> 
> 
> Desktop Menus
> Unlike Microsoft Windows, some Linux GUIs, like Fluxbox, allow you (and
> sometimes require you) to access the system menu by clicking the mouse
> anywhere on the screen. Generally in such cases you click the mouse's
> right mouse button.  The KDE desktop, however, acts much more like
> Microsoft Windows, in that you utilize a “Start” menu button in the
> lower left (that should have a tiny vertical triangle on it).
> 
> Regardless of which GUI you use, experiment by clicking the right or left
> or even middle mouse buttons – different things will happen depending on
> the GUI you are using.
> 
> 
> Virtual Desktops
> Unline Microsoft Windows, Linux desktops have several virtual desktops.
> Each virtual desktop can have application programs running it. You can
> freely move between the virtual desktops in different ways depending on
> the GUI (KDE, Fluxbox, etc) you are using; with KDE, you will see on the
> taskbar along the bottom of the screen the numbers [1], [2], etc. --
> clicking these numbers will take you to that virtual desktop.
> 
> MS-Windows Data
> Even though you run Linux (Knoppix), you can access your data files on
> your MS-Windows hard drive or off a floppy or CDROM drive.  Microsoft
> Windows refers to computer drives as  “C:” (hard drive), “A:”
> (floppy), perhaps “D:” or “E:” for CD-ROM drives.
> 
> Linux does not name drives with letters; instead, your MS-Windows drives
> will be accessed as /mnt/floppy, /mnt/cdrom, /mnt/winxp, or perhaps
> /mnt/hda1 or /mnt/hdb4, etc. (hda refers to your primary hard drive”,
> hdb refers to your second hard drive if you have one)  So if you want to
> see your drives, use one of the Linux file managers (like Knoppix or
> Nautilus) and look at “/mnt” to see your listed drives (that you can
> then click on to see files on).  Or if you are using OpenOffice Writer (a
> clone of MS-Word) and want to load and edit an MS-Word file off your
> Windows hard drive, you will “open” a file and look for that file off
> a drive named perhaps /mnt/hda (or perhaps /mnt/winxp).
> 
> 
> “Help!”: If you need help, you have several recourses:
> 
> --Find a geek friend and buy her a bag of Cheetos and a 2-Liter of
> caffeinated pop and have her come over and help you out.
> 
> --Post a help message on a linux newsgroup such as alt.os.linux (go to
> Google Groups and you can locate this group and read and post messages).
> 
> --Get thee to a local linux user's group (In Duluth, there is DSLUUG a
> local linux/unix user group-- see http://dsluug.org for more info or to
> sign up on the email discussion list where you can get help).
> 
> --Websites:
>      http://knoppix.org
>      http://www.knoppix-std.org/forum/  (knoppix discussion board)
>      http://linux.org
>      http://dsluug.org  (Duluth user group for open source / linux / unix)
>      http://randalloelerich.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Linux and KDE Desktop (=window manager) Lessons:
> 
> 1. KDE Desktop Window Manager
> * Click lower left icon that looks like a big "K" or maybe an “up
> arrow” -- this is analogous to the Microsoft Windows 'start' menu
> button. Clicking the "K" will cause a popup menu to appear, so you can
> choose software applications by category much like you would after
> clicking the MS-Windows start button.
> 
> *Notice along the bottom of the screen the taskbar has a number of
> shortcut icons, AND notice also something very unique-- four tiny numbered
> panels numbered 1,2,3 and 4; these are the "virtual desktops" of linux.
> Each virtual desktop can contain running applications, have its separate
> color scheme and wallpaper, etc. Just click on a virtual desktop panel
> thumbnail (tiny icon) to go to that virtual desktop. You can configure
> each desktop's color scheme, wallpaper, etc.: Start
> Menu->Configuration->KDE->LookFeel->Background. (you can even configure
> multiple wallpapers that change every few minutes!)
> 
> You can also custom configure your desktop windows style, theme, etc.
> (e.g. make it look like a Mac or MS-Windows, or something more unusual).:
> Start Menu->Configuration->KDE->LookFeel->ThemeManager (or Fonts, etc.)
> 
> *KDE also has a Trashcan, similar to the Trash/Garbage icon of Macintosh,
> or the Recycle bin of MS-Windows. Clicking on the Trash icon accesses
> files that you have "trashed" (but if you "delete" files, they are gone
> forever-- well pretty much-- there are sophisticated file recovery
> applications but do not count on them to recover deleted files).
> 
> *At the lower right is a clock showing the time. Left click on it to bring
> up a calendar. Left click the clock again to make the calendar disappear.
> 
> *Just to the left of the clock in the lower right is a tiny icon that
> looks like a grid-- left click it once and wait a few seconds-- an
> application called kOrganizer will appear. This application ("app") can be
> used to plan yor schedule, etc. To cause it or any other application to
> close, you can just as in MS-Windows use the titlebar buttons to close,
> minimize, maximize, or dock any application; or you can use options from
> the applications File menu (File->Close, etc.).
> 
> *On the lower taskbar look for an icon that has a tiny "house" or "home"
> as part of the icon. If you click the 'home' icon you will see files and
> folders that are part of your 'home' in linux. In linux, 'home' is a
> folder where all users' reside. If your linux username is 'geek' then your
> userspace and all your files and folders are on the linux hard disk in a
> folder called /home/geek but there is a quicker way to refer to
> /home/geek, that is your userspace, in other words your home directory,
> and that is with the keyboard symbol '~'
> 
> *Along the bottom taskbar, just to the left of the virtual desktop panel
> icons, is an icon of a piece of paper and a fountain pen. Click it to
> activate KWrite, a simple but good word processor ('text editor'). KWrite
> is somewhat like MS-Windows' MS-Word. However KWrite documents can only be
> saved as KWrite documents-- but luckily other word processors of linux can
> open and edit KWrite documents and then save such documents in many
> popular file formats (MS-Word, etc.).
> 
> Type something, anything (if only a few random characters) using Kwrite,
> and save it under the filename 'mydoc' (omit the quote symbols of course).
> Do this, because you will need a sample document to work with later in
> this tutorial. Notice when you save your KWrite document (see top of
> KWrite) it is by default being saved to a folder in your home folder
> (directory) called Documents; you could override this, but let's not for
> now.
> 
> *Along the bottom taskbar look for an icon that looks like a globe with
> some spikes on it-- this is the icon to activate Konqueror, a powerful
> internet browser as well as file manager. If you are connected to the
> internet you can use Konqueror to type in website addresses and surf the
> internet. Or, you can simply use Konqueror to browse files on the hard
> disk(s) of your computer (and cut, copy, paste, delete, trash, move, or
> rename files, and much more). [Remember though, linux is a multiuser
> operating system-- so you can only damage files that are yours, that are
> in your home folder; you can perhaps read files that are not in your home
> folder, but you can not save any of your documents into folders outside of
> your home folder. You can not delete or trash files that are not in your
> home folder. This prevents you from harming important system files, or
> files of other users (and they from harming your files).]
> 
> *So what can linux do? Lots! Need a full-featured word processor on par
> and compatible with Microsoft Word? Then click the K icon, then Office,
> then Wordprocessors, then OpenOffice.org Writer.  Need a full-featured
> spreadsheet on par and compatible with Microsoft Excel? Then click the K
> icon, then Office, then Spreadsheets, then OpenOffice.org Calc. Need a
> full-featured presentation application on par and compatible with
> Microsoft PowerPoint? Then click the K icon, then Office, then
> Presentations, then OpenOffice.org Impress.  By now you should have
> figured out that linux has a powerful opensource (free) application suite
> called OpenOffice.org, on par and compatible with Microsoft Office.
> OpenOffice can read and write files from MS-Word, MS-Excel, and
> Powerpoint!
> 
> *Along the bottom taskbar look for an icon that looks like a TV monitor
> with a clamshell on it-- this is the shortcut icon for a 'terminal', also
> known as a 'console'. You can also access a variety of terminals by click
> the K button, then Terminals. All terminals have the same basic
> functionality, so choose whichever one you prefer. Once you have a
> terminal activated you will see screen showing your username, perhaps the
> date, and some sort of keyboard command prompt (like a $ sign, or perhaps
> # sign). The terminal is keyboard driven, meaning you use the keyboard to
> type commands followed by pressing the [Enter] key.
> 
> *NOTE: CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE key combination will exit you from the Desktop
> back to the login screen. This is useful if the Desktop graphical user
> interface ever freezes up, which is rare, very rare compared to Windows. 
> And if an application every freezes up, you can 'kill it' by first
> double-clicking and running the Xkill application (see icon on desktop)
> and then clicking your mouse on the title bar of the frozen application
> you want to 'kill'.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> TERMINAL COMMAND LINE FUN!
> 
> Let's do a few simple terminal commands so you can see an alternative way
> of working with linux other than using the mouse and graphical user
> interface. Click the left mouse button in the terminal window to be sure
> linux knows you want to use the terminal window. Then start typing the
> following commands (comments are in parentheses-- do not type them, nor
> the command prompt which we will symbolize here by the '#' symbol):
> 
>   #ls  (you will then see a list of files and folders in your home folder,
>   that is your linux userspace; notice a folder called Documents/, which
>   likely contains mydoc, the KWrite document you created earlier.
> 
>   #cd Documents  ('c'hanges to 'd'irectory called Documents)
> 
>   #ls  (do you see mydoc in the listing, you should)
> 
>   #clear (cleans up the screen, clears the terminal display)
> 
>   #ls -l (shows 'l'ong listing, i.e. detailed listing, including file
>   sizes, owership of files, date of file creation, etc.)
> 
>   #less mydoc (shows contents of mydoc; IMPORTANT: you will need to press
>   the 'q' key to exit the display of the file contents and return to the
>   command prompt. less is a very powerful and common terminal command)
> 
>   #cp mydoc mydoc.backup  (copies mydoc to a new file 'mydoc.backup')
> 
>   #ls (do you see mydoc and mydoc.backup?)
> 
>   #rm mydoc.backup  (removes mydoc.backup, that is deletes it)
> 
>   #mv mydoc somedoc (renames mydoc to somedoc, i.e. moves contents of
>   mydoc to a new file called somedoc)
> 
>   #ls (mydoc is gone! it is now called somedoc)
> 
>   #cp somedoc anotherdoc (makes a copy of somedoc, called anotherdoc)
> 
> (Ok, you may be thinking "This terminal stuff is geeky, but is it useful?
> And it seems like you have to type a lot!"  Linux has a very cool gizmo
> for eliminating lots of typing in the command mode-- it is the [TAB] key
> on your keyboard... try this:)
> 
>   #cp an[TAB] mydoc (notice how linux figured out the rest of the filename
>   once you type just 'an' and pressed the [TAB] key? Pretty cool!)
> 
>   #cd ~ (changes directories to your home folder, your userspace)
> 
>   #pwd  (shows where you are, 'prints working director')
> 
>   #ls  (do you see the folder called Documents?)
> 
>   #cd Docu[TAB] (use that cool [TAB] key shortcut!)
> 
> 
>   #ls *doc  (wow! the power of the 'wildcard' feature! Using the '*'
>   symbol is like a wildcard in a card game; here, we are telling linux to
>   list all files in the current folder with a filename ending in doc, so
>   we will see files listed such as somedoc, anotherdoc)
> 
>   #mv *doc ~ (moves all files ending in doc to home space; this is a
>   powerful command, the ability to mass move large numbers of files
>   matching certain filename criteria!)
> 
>   #cd ~
> 
>   #ls  (notice the new location of the files you moved?)
> 
>   #mkdir mydocs (create a new directory folder called mydoc in the current
>   directory which is currently home)
> 
>   #mv *doc mydocs (moves sampledoc and anotherdoc to mydocs folder)
> 
>   #cd mydocs
> 
>   #ls
> 
>   #rm * (deletes all files in current directory! This is a very powerful
>   but very dangerous command! Be careful! It permanently deletes all files
>   in current folder. However, linux has a safeguard-- for each file you
>   will be asked if you want to delete it-- this safeguard can be
>   overridden easily, but for now it is best not to know how to do this. In
>   fact, you might be better off answering 'n' when asked whether to delete
>   these files, at least for now. Alternatively, try something new-- when
>   you do the 'rm *' command, cancel it by pressing the key sequence
>   [Ctrl][c]. Ctrl+c is the keyboard shortcut to cancel a linux command
>   that is currently runnin-- very useful to know.).
> 
> (Whew! Give youself a pat on the back if you made it this far-- you
> learned how to use quite a few of the most common linux terminal mode
> commands! You learned to use cd, ls, mv, cp, pwd, [TAB], rm, clear, and
> the powerful wildcard symbol '*').
> 
> 
> 
> ADVANCED (MORE) TERMINAL COMMAND LINE FUN!
>   #xmms & (runs application called xmms in background mode, that is
>   multitasking mode, as a process; xmms is a common mp3 music player;
>   notice you will need to click your mouse again in the terminal window
>   because linux things you want to use xmms as your current application.
>   This examples shows you how you can activate applications from the
>   terminal command line in addition to using the graphical interface menu
>   system!)
> 
>   #mozilla & (runs application called mozilla; mozilla is basically
>   Netscape, a powerful browser).
> 
> 
>

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