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

From: ray (pdqxyz_at_zianet.com)
Date: 07/15/03 

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 20:18:37 -0600

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.
>
>
>
> 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?)

It is easy to do an install to hard disk.Also, I find gnome to be
somewhat faster than kde and xfce is much faster

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

I've had better luck with ogle.

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

try some of the other alternatives. I usually use gnumeric for a
spread***. Abiword and kwriter also work well.

>
> -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.
>
> -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.
>
>
> -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'.

samba is not that difficult to set up. try the samba 'howto'

>
> -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..)
>
>
> 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).
>
> 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..
>
> 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).
>
>
> Thoughts/opinions?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jack