Knoppix
De Musix
Knoppix, or KNOPPIX, is a complete Linux distribution on a CD. This includes a working computer operating system and a powerful suite of graphical user software which can be used as a live CD. It is a Debian-based Linux distribution, developed by Linux consultant Klaus Knopper.
When repairing systems with non-booting hard drives, live CD operating systems like Knoppix are a much more comfortable environment than the previous solution of boot floppies, thanks to the complete graphical environment and networking.
Although Knoppix is primarily designed to be used as a live CD, it can also be installed on a hard disk like a typical operating system. Computers that support booting from USB devices can load Knoppix from a live USB flash drive or memory card.
There are two main editions of Knoppix: the traditional Compact Disc (700 megabytes) edition and the DVD (4.7 gigabytes) "Maxi" edition. Each of these main editions have two language-specific editions: English and German. There is also Tapani Räikkönen's Finnish translation, SuomiKnoppix.
When starting a program it is loaded from the optical disc and decompressed into a RAM drive. The decompression is transparent and on-the-fly.
Knoppix mostly consists of free software, but also includes proprietary software.
Tabla de contenidos |
Usage
Knoppix can be used to back up files easily from hard drives with inaccessible operating systems. For quick needs of Linux software the live CD can be used instead of installing another OS.
Contents
More than 1000 software packages are included on the CD edition and more than 2600 are included on the DVD edition. Up to 9 gigabytes can be stored on the DVD in compressed form. These packages include:
- Part of KDE, the default desktop environment, including the Konqueror web browser and the KMail e-mail client. Knoppix is also packaged with several other window managers, such as Fluxbox, twm, or IceWM. As of Knoppix 5.1.1, the Beryl window manager is also included, which allows access to a 3D desktop environment
- XMMS, with MPEG video, MP3 audio, and Ogg Vorbis audio playback support
- Internet access software, including the KPPP dialer, ISDN utilities and WLAN
- The Mozilla Firefox web browser (now known as Iceweasel on Knoppix)
- K3b, for CD (and DVD) authoring and backup
- The GIMP, an image-manipulation program
- Tools for data rescue and system repair
- Network analysis and administration tools
- OpenOffice.org, a comprehensive office suite
- Many programming and development tools
Requirements
Requirements to run Knoppix:
- Intel-compatible processor (i486 or later)
- 32 MB of RAM for text mode, at least 96 MB for graphics mode with KDE (at least 128 MB of RAM is recommended to use the various office products)
- Bootable CD-ROM drive, or a boot floppy and standard CD-ROM (IDE/ATAPI or SCSI)
- Standard SVGA-compatible graphics card
- Serial or PS/2 standard mouse or IMPS/2-compatible USB-mouse
Saving changes in the environment
Prior to Knoppix 3.8.2, any documents or settings a user created would disappear upon reboot. This lack of permanence made it necessary to save documents explicitly to a hard drive partition, over the network, or to some removable medium, such as a USB flash drive.
It was also possible to set up a "persistent home directory", wherein any documents or settings written to the user's home directory would automatically be redirected to a hard drive or removable medium, which could be automatically mounted on bootup. What is stored there physically is a file called knoppix.img. The file is used to simulate a file system into which files are written for later use. This is transparent for the user. What the user perceives is that it is possible to write files to the home directory.
Since Knoppix 3.8.1, a UnionFS filesystem transparently saves any new or changed files to a writable filesystem – one which can reside either in memory (ramdisk) or on a hard disk, USB flash drive, etc.
This means that the user can modify the software installed on the Knoppix system, such as by using APT to install or update software.
By carrying a Knoppix CD and a USB flash drive, a user can have the same environment, programs, settings, and data available on any computer that is Knoppix compatible.
Boot options
When using Knoppix as a live CD, boot options, also known as 'cheatcodes'[1], can be used to override a default setting or automatic hardware detection when it fails. For example, the user may wish to boot into a plain console, or proceed without SCSI support. For this, Knoppix allows the user to enter one or more cheat codes at the prompt before booting. If the user doesn't enter a cheat code, or if no key is pressed before the timeout, Knoppix will boot with its default options. For example, to set the language to French rather than the default, one would type:
knoppix lang=fr
Popularity
Knoppix is reported to be one of the most popular LiveCD Linux distributions.<ref>DistroWatch has KNOPPIX as the third LiveCD Linux distribution appearing in their Page Hits chart, as of October 4 2006.</ref> There are factors that contribute to the popularity of Knoppix:
- Knoppix was one of the first LiveCDs available, and is known as the "original" Debian-based LiveCD
- Its extensive hardware detection allows most systems to start Knoppix without any configuration
- Its ability to automatically connect to most kinds of networks
- Its utilities for system repair and troubleshooting
Knoppix works on a fairly high number of PCs or laptops, but not all. The automatic hardware detection cannot cope with all hardware, and sometimes the drivers used will not be optimal. Knoppix has difficulty recognizing some cards made before 1998, or motherboards with a BIOS made before 2002. (In some cases, manual configuration with codes entered at boot time can overcome problems with automatic detection.)
If a PC does not have enough RAM to run KDE and other included programs, Knoppix boots up a very limited TWM session instead. The only window running in the TWM session by default is xterm.
Versions
Starting from version 4.0, Knoppix has been split into a DVD "maxi" edition (with over 9GB of software), and a CD "light" edition, both developed in parallel.
| Knoppix version | Release date |
| 3.1 | 19 January 2003 |
| 3.2 | 26 July 2003 |
| 3.3 | 16 February 2004 |
| 3.4 | 17 May 2004 |
| 3.6 | 16 August 2004 |
| 3.7 | 9 December 2004 |
| 3.8.2 | 12 May 2005 |
| 3.9 | 1 June 2005 |
| 4.0 | 22 June 2005 |
| 4.0 updated | 16 August 2005 |
| 4.0.2 | 23 September 2005 |
| 5.0 | 25 February 2006 |
| 5.0.1 | 2 June 2006 |
| 5.1.0 | 30 December 2006 |
| 5.1.1 | 4 January 2007 |
Variations
Adriane Knoppix
Adriane Knoppix is a variation that is intended for blind and visually impaired people, which can be used entirely without vision oriented output devices. It is due for release in the third quarter of 2007 as a Live CD. Adriane Knoppix is named after Adriane Knopper, the wife of Klaus Knopper, the developer of Knoppix. Adriane has a visual impairment, and has been assisting Klaus with the development of the software.<ref>Swapnil Bhartiya, EFY News, Free Operating System For Blind: Adriane Knoppix accessed 2 February 2007</ref> The name Adriane is also an acronym for "Audio Desktop Reference Implementation and Networking Environment".
Adriane Knoppix is intended not only for the blind but also for beginners who don’t know much about computers. It is simple to use since the user does not have to search through many applications to find what they need. Since Adriane Knoppix is voice based it is much easier to use than other complicated operating systems, especially if you are not a power user. It uses the SUSE-Blind-Linux (SBL) Screenreader with a phoneme generator and speech engine for normal output.
Other variations
- All In One USB Knoppix - USB portable pocket version.
- Accelerated-KNOPPIX - takes only 60 seconds or less for a boot up from CD (depending on the hardware used)
- Arabbix, an old project tasked with bringing forth a fully Arabized LiveCD distribution.
- ASork, which provides tools for music production.
- Auditor Security Collection, intended to test the security of networks.
- BioKnoppix, targeted for molecular biologists.
- Buildix is oriented on an agile development infrastructure with Trac, Subversion and CruiseControl.
- ClusterKnoppix, which uses openMosix
- Quantian is a variation of clusterKnoppix which adds numerous scientific and quantitative applications.
- Damn Small Linux, 50MB image file with a 2.4 kernel. Works as Live CD and Live USB
- eduKnoppix is aimed at Italian primary schools. It focuses on children aged between 8-15, and thus contains a lot of educational software.
- Feather Linux, 128MB image with a 2.4 kernel, works as a Live CD and Live USB.
- Flonix USB Edition, an old liveCD
- Games Knoppix, which contains a lot of games.
- Gnoware, Gnoware is Gnowledge GNU/Linux Distribution. It contains Science based Applications.
- GNUstep, including GNUstep
- grml, targeted at sysadmins, texttool-users and geeks.
- Guadalinex, Spanish
- Helix, Focuses on the computer security areas of forensics, data discovery and incident response.
- Hikarunix, which provides a full study/play environment for Go.
- INSERT, which is an acronym for INside SEcurity Rescue Toolkit. It fits on a Mini-Live CD and is focused on security and system repairs.
- Jux, which is a German version aimed at children and contains the Flash Player and the Squeak graphical programming environment.
- Kanotix, which is partially based on Knoppix, but mostly based on Debian Sid.
- Knoppel, a Greek LiveCD port of Knoppix.
- KnopILS, an excellent Italian version.
- Knoppix STD (Security Tools Distribution), which focuses on computer security tools.
- KNOPPIX/Math :Portable and distributable collection of mathematical software and free documents.
- KnoppMyth is a distro that attempts to make the Linux and MythTV installation as trivial as possible.
- Kurumin, in Brazilian Portuguese
- LEARNIX contains building simulations tools Radiance and ESP-r.
- Mediainlinux, a multimedia production platform.
- MeNTOPPIX, which looks more like Windows XP.
- Morphix is a modular distribution with four basic variations and the ability to construct more variations easily using a module system.
- Musix GNU+Linux, specifically for musicians
- Oralux, for visually impaired persons
- OtterOS, a customized distribution for California State University Monterey Bay
- ParallelKnoppix, with support for netbooting (via PXE) and Message Passing Interface cluster off a single master node.
- Snal Linux is non-graphical and uses openMosix.
- VigyaanCD, which contains Vigyaan, an electronic workbench for bioinformatics, computational biology and computational chemistry.
- Xarnoppix
- ZoneCD
References
<references/>
Further reading
Books
News articles
- Cameron Laird: Knoppix gives bootable, one-disk Linux (IBM developer works)
- Distrowatch.com interview with Klaus Knopper
- System recovery with Knoppix (IBM developer works)
