Re: Yet Another Recommendation Request: Noob, user (not server), just to fool around...

"(PeteCresswell)" <x@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The PC booted from the CD, has a web browser and MP3 player all ready
> to go, and file system seems tb reading NTFS. As soon as I figure
> out how to restrict access to a directory via XP, I'm going to protect
> a test directory, boot KNOPPIX, and see if it can read it.... my money
> is on it's being able to...

Knoppix is a hell of an effective advertisement for Linux to core
MS-Windows desktop users, isn't it? Have fun with it, Pete. A couple
of observations, though:

1. Pity about the 128MB RAM on that Presario: If you can possibly
justify lavishing some of that (US?) $200 budget on beefing that up to
256 MB, you won't regret it. Although we crusty old-timers know just
how to be happy with a mere 128MB RAM in a graphical Linux desktop
environment[1], you'll notice that KDE is pretty cramped with that
hardware limitation. With twice the RAM, it would be happy.

> Is there any reason I shouldn't fire up Windows XP, delete my NTFS
> work partition and replace it with two FAT32 partitions: one bootable
> and one work... and then just copy the KNOPPIX CD to the bootable
> partition?

2. Knoppix has many points of excellence, and the world owes Klaus
Knopper a real debt of gratitude -- but one of its flaws (or, really,
design limitations) is that it isn't a great choice for an installable
system. Yes, you can install it: There's an extremely easy and
painless installation routine. (No, don't cripple Linux by trying to
install it onto FAT32. Let your Linux distribution's installer have
some free space to allocate _its_ way.[2]) However, installed Knoppix
installations can be a little rocky to maintain, thereafter. There are
other Knoppix-derived distributions that are much better at that. A
few:

o Kanotix
o MEPIS (referring to the main, "SimplyMEPIS" variant).
o Kubuntu

Visit http://distrowatch.com/ for more details, including download
links.

All three of these, like Knoppix, default to KDE desktop suites, but all
are designed to be smoothly maintainable over time. Kanotix
(especially) and MEPIS (usually) are particularly good at automatic
hardware recognition and support on laptops. Kanotix and MEPIS run
as "live CDs" (not touching your hard disk) by default: You can try
them out in that mode, and decide whether or not you like them well
enough to run their installer programs, to load them onto the hard disk.

Kubuntu (the KDE variant of Ubuntu), by contrast, is available in two
slightly different CDs for each supported CPU architecture (i386, AMD64,
PowerPC): one is live-CD only, the other is install-to-HD-only.

Although you already have Knoppix in hand, and appear to be liking it, I
also urge you to try one or more of those other distributions, too.


[1] One of my trusty Linux machines, to this day, is a Sony VAIO
PCG-505TX (Pentium 266 MMX with 128MB RAM) running Debian 3.1 "sarge",
and it's still quite zippy, _but_ that's because I run a very spare set
of processes on it, and particularly because I eschew KDE and GNOME on
it. Instead, I prefer Window Maker, which is a modest window manager
resembling the old NeXTStep desktop.

[2] Almost all Linux installers, these days, include quite reliable
routines to nondestructively resize, e.g., shrink, your existing NTFS
and FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 partitions. (You will more commonly hear the word
"filesystem" from Unix people, instead of "partition".) When installing
a Linux distribution onto a dual-boot setup of some sort, it's very
common to just shrink the existing "C: drive" filesystem to free up
about a gig or so, then allow the remainder of the Linux distribution's
installer free rein to use that as it pleases. Absent immensely bad
luck, cosmic rays, gross malware damage, etc., your NTFS-based files
should be pretty safe.

FAT32 partitions are not a suitable place to host Linux distributions,
but are often used as places to store data files intended to be shared
between OSes.

--
Cheers,
Rick Moen "Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor."
rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- Elizabeth Tudor
.

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