Using Knoppix 5.0

OK, I am a complete noob on Linux, and I am currently trying out a Knoppix 5.0 DVD, using it right now to make this post. Near as I can tell everything is being stored on RAM Disk, I haven't figured out how to access my HD at all. My normal OS is XP Pro.

I'm going to break it down a little. How do I see my HD in Knoppix?

Is there a way to store my favorites and configs so I don't start from scratch every time?

Let's assume my HD is totally inaccessable, can I use a USB card to replace my HD?

My computer has removable hard drive bays, so I can configure a hard drive entirely in Knoppix, how would I do this? Transfer the ISO to the hard drive, or what?

Thanks guys.

 

Knoppix is not really intended for a hard drive install.

Go here http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
and download PCLinux, MEPIS and Ubuntu. Mandriva is also good but there are several choices and it can be confusing as to what to get. Those three will all run live but they will also have an icon on the desktop labelled install. If you click that, it will offer a choice of places to install (a second hard drive will be sdb, if it is an IDE) and will format as ext2, ext3 or Reiser and also create a swap partition.

 

I wasn't really interested in hard drive install, at least not in the short term. I was just curious if there was a way to prevent a complete fresh install every time, and save things like bookmarks and whatnot. It is hard to work with an OS on that basis. I would also like to access some of the data off my hard drive, a lot of programs will work better with Linux than XP, so I was wanting to try them out.

I like the look and feel of Knoppix, so for now I'm sticking with it. I may install a Linux on a HD eventually, but that is low priority, I stuck the question in there to see if there was an answer.

 

Only a few live CDs store settings on your hd in a folder so you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time you fire it up. One of those is puppy linux multisession but it doesn't have all the features of Knoppix.
Another one is WinLinux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinLinux I don't know how well it works because I have never tried it. Since the "latest" version is 2003, I don't know how well it will work with newer hardware.

One note about puppy...when I had a folder with my settings, my defragger and CounterSpy hung when it got to that folder. Neither program knew what to do with it because it wasn't windows. If you decide to try puppy, you might have to move the folder when you want to defrag. Scanning shouldn't be a problem if you remember to tell the program to skip that particular folder.

 

hi,

i was going to type how i did it with knoppix, but the link i used is easier

http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/knowing-knoppix/main/index20.html

hope it helps

 

Thanks, it was interesting reading. Whoever posted the article ought to think about how readable a font is, but the info is all good.

 

hi,

there is also this point

boot knoppix up fully and right click on hda1 - just to check its mounted, if not then mount it

then, open home and click on the 'root' section on the left, then mnt,
double click on the hda1 in the right window and you should be in

 

Knoppix was'nt really meant for hdd installation. You may need to configure the desktop to show unmounted drives or storage media. Great distro with incredible amount of info on a CD. Haven't used it in a while, but most nix distros can come in handy when troubleshooting a Microsoft operating system.


PCLinux 2008 MiniMe
6GB hdd
512 MB RAM
Genuine Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.0 GHz x 2

 

Hi Bill,
BTW my exwife's name is Marsden, "people from the Mars" I guess that could be translated as people FROM Mars too. Anyway,

I love Knoppix.

To do most of what you asked, go to the little penguin icon next to the KDE "Start" icon on the left bottom and you'll see a bunch of Knoppix utilities.

They can be found in the menu that comes up when you go to "Start" too.

Anyway, You want to save your settings and you want to create a persistent drive etc. so

click the Penguin icon,
click "Configuration",
click "Create a Persistent ...disk"
follow the prompts etc.

if you want to carry your settings around with you on a USB drive or something, put the drive into a USB port, wait a sec THEN do the above and create the persistent disk on the drive listed as "SDA" or SDwhatever a SCSI drive in other words your USB, instead of the HDA which is "Hard Disks"

AFTER creating a persistent drive,
Go to the penguin icon and
select "Configure"
then select "Save KNoppix Configuration"

This is how you want to save things BEFORE shutting down or whenever you do something significant like setting up your evolution email or browser settings and bookmarks etc.

Let me know if you have any issues with all this.
Late,
Bob Ruby II
lunchlesson.com

 

It's funny, I tried it on some other motherboards, and it did exactly what I had hoped. The hard drive was visable and everything. So the answer to my original question is it was a driver issue, my motherboard (and the hard drive interfaces) weren't supported (yet?).

 

I know it doesnt really answer the question as relates to Knoppix but from your original post you may want to try another Linux flavour, namely Puppy Linux.

Like you I was and in real terms are still a total linux noob. But with the help of the Puppy Linux forums I have been able to create a bootable USB drive that boots into Puppy Linux, allows me to access local drives (after mounting them), surf the web, check email etc etc. Any profile changes, downloaded documents, emails etc can be written back to the thumb drive automatically at the end of your session ready to appear next time you boot to the drive, even if its on a different computer.

For those PC's too old to boot to USB or ones you cant easily change the BIOS on, you can boot to a live CD that checks for existing session files on any present drives before booting. So plug your USB in, put your cd in the drive, boot the machine, it finds your profile and loads it into RAM.

Unless you direct it to nothing is stored on the local machine.

If you dont want to go the thumb drive root you can always boot to a live CD and store your session information on the hard drive of the PC. You can even install it on your HDD if you want to and boot from there.

To me the USB option is a great solution for families who's systems are getting killed by viruses all the time as each family member can have their own USB key and just use the PC hard drive for storage of the stuff they want to download. Fast Virus Free computing.