Re: Experiences and trouble with Knoppix --evaluationg converting from Windows to Linux

From: Lee Wei Shun (see.sig_at_pacific.net.sg)
Date: 07/14/03 

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 03:33:32 +0800

jack turer wrote:

> Re: Experiences and trouble with Knoppix --evaluationg converting from
> Windows to Linux
>
> Hello,
>
> I am evaluating converting (at least some) desktops at the office from
> Windows 2000, to some variety of Linux.
>
> It is a 1.2Ghz AMD Athlon with 128Meg of ram, ATI Wonder Graphics card
> (modern) and an 80Gig harddisk, with 100Mbps Lancard. Reasonably
> modern hardware overall.
>
> I evaluated the system, and here is my experience, and problems. Maybe
> someone can help.
>
> Generally, I liked Linux/Knoppix. I have used Linux a lot before for
> servers, but never as a workstation/desktop.
>
>
> Version:
> Knoppix: 2003-06-06 English CD
>
> Good: (ie. What I liked)
>
> -CD could boot and Knoppix started
> -All hardware was recognised and set up correctly. Linux has come very
> far in this regard. Video, Sound, Mouse (3rd scroll button too), Lan,
> CDRom, USB Drive, DVD Drive all got recognized and set up correctly by
> Knoppix. Lan used DHCP to get on the network and Konquerer could see
> webpages right away. FTP and ssh to other linux machines on the Lan
> worked fine. Very very good so far.
>
>

I like knoppix too, very good as a recovery CD as well.

>
> Now the issues. Any ideas how to fix these?
>
> Bad:
>
> -The Desktop (KDE) is slow. I mean *really* slow, almost to be
> unusable. Various windows (like File explorer) take forever to open.
> Far slower than MS W2K on the same hardware. This may have been due to
> the fact it was running from a CD though (can anyone say?)
>

a. It's running entirely off a CD-rom drive with real-time uncompression of
programs, and BTW, you have not stated what your CDROM drive speed is.

b. You *only* have 128M. Remember, knoppix will use some memory for ramdisk,
so you *will* need more RAM if you do not have swap, But remember, it is
not a true indication of memory requirements for a HD install.

> -Csh fails: opening a Csh Shell immediately crashed with some sort of
> exec error
>

Dunno, I use bash.

> -Xine: The Media player:
> -It is very slow to open (strange, as this is a fast PC)
> -It crashes immediately any time I try to play DIVX/XVID AVIs (just
> window closes after saying 'xine')
> -MPGs were ok though, played nicely
> -it Cannot Play DVD's : 'xine Engine Error - input plugin failed to
> open mrl 'dvd:/'
> -also crashed when trying to play VOB's from the DVD file system
> directly
> -it couldn't eject DVDs or CDs (just they get stuck 'input_DVD:
> CDROMEJECT failed: device
> -other random crashes at various time when pushing buttons on xine
> -Generally this was bad, because one use for the machine is to be a
> media playing device
> -Xine looks sexy, but very flakey. No video formats (XVID, DIVX,
> AVI, VOB) worked except MPG.
>

Instability may be caused by how you have connected the two drives, you do
not want the CDrom and DVDrom drive to share the same cable. Knoppix will
not work well in this config.

> -Open Office
> -Takes forever, welcome seagulls screen opens, then crashed on open
> and windows disappeared. Couldn't evaluate...
>

Probably ram issues, remember it takes almost all your ram by the time you
have loaded KDE. You do not have linux swap, by default, as it is a windows
system, so this is expected.

> -File Explorer, opening JPGs
> -Tried to open some JPGs, picture starts to appear in right side
> window, then file manager crashed and shut down. Couldn't see
> pictures.
>

Probably as above, if they are large jpegs.

> -XATV (or whatever the TV card application is that is in Knoppix)
> -Started it, found my TV card (it says), but then searching
> channels
> failed. Asked me if I should start anyways, I said OK. An imagine
> from my webcam appeared instead though..
> Hummm.... seems like it got very very confused. I have a webcam
> and
> TV card in my PC.
>
>

No experience with the aboove.

> -Windows Networking
> -No way (I could find) to browse the windows network (this will be
> a
> reality in most offices where Linux is introduced).. ie the SMB
> windows network, that exists in most offices that run MS Windows
> LANs via 'network neighborhood'.
>

You are most likely not on the same "workgroup" and have not run "lisa".
However, you should be able to use the smb://name/folder method.

> -USB Drive
> -Knoppix found the USB 120Gig drive, and could read it OK (NTFS). I
> decided to make it a linux filesystem, ran Fdisk (ok), rebooted
> (ok),
> ran MK2FS (ran for a while, then the entire OS froze up solid,
> CTRL-ALT_DEL failed and had to pull the power and start over..)
>

Some VIA chipsets had problems with the USB, what model m/b is yours?

>
> Overall impression:
> Good:
> KDE looks nice. Knoppix is a great idea to introduce Linux to MS
> Windows users.
>
> Bad:
> Lots of stuff doesn't work yet. Overall, Knoppix applications, though
> in a controlled environment, was very unstable. Oddly, the hard stuff
> (networking, DVD drive, CDRom, USB hard drive (except formatting),
> graphics card, sound) all worked correctly. Kernel and OS were very
> stable and worked just fine. Rather the issues were that the
> applications were very flaky after the environment was started. This
> would seem to be easier to fix than kernel/hardware issues (which are
> OK in Knoppix).
>

You just have too little RAM to run entirely off the CD. Try it on a 256M
machine, or make some swap space on the drive.

> We use the office machines for web browsing and media (AVI, audio,
> images..etc) and 'Office' word processing/spread*** applications.
> None of this was successful though for the reasons above, which was a
> big disappointment. Are we stuck with MS-W2K I wonder..
>

Browsing is not an issue, and I assure you OO is OK for general use, once
you get it up

> Any thoughts on what I may have done wrong? As I said, all the hard
> stuff like the graphics/audio..etc all started correctly on the PC, so
> I dont think it was due to hardware that the programs kept crashing.
> Funny the kernel and KDE were very stable, but the apps werent stable
> at all. The CDROM is OK, passed MD5 checking, so that wasn't the
> problem.
>
> I would like to get the above to work (in Knoppix, it should really).
> If I can great, I will convert over a few machines, otherwise,
> probably I will need to stick to Windows 2K and check again in a
> couple years to see if things have progressed a bit further.
>
> Knoppix is a great idea BTW (once the applications work better).
>

See above, you should be able to confirm the Ram problem by running "free"
or "top"

>
> Thoughts/opinions?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jack

Regards,
WS 

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