Knoppix Linux 3.2

Knoppix Linux 3.2 Filesystem runs "Live" from CD

Knoppix, as noted in our review of the 3.0 release, is a version of Linux capable of running its filesystem "live" from CD. For a detailed look at how to download the ISO image of the free release, burn it to a blank CD-R disk and boot the operating system, refer to our review of v3.0. In this review, we'll look at the new features in the 3.2 version of this Debian Linux-based system released at CeBIT in March 2003, and in subsequent beta releases.

New Features
As with the 3.0 release, you don't need to install anything on your hard drive -- by default, the Knoppix installer doesn't even touch your hard drive, and it requires no manual configuration at all. This makes Knoppix Linux ideal for experimentation by Windows users. In its default configuration, Knoppix 3.2 sets all of your Windows hard drive partitions as "read only," so it is an exceptionally safe Linux distribution for the absolute beginner. The drives can easily be set to allow writing (to FAT, FAT32 or Linux-standard drives only) after you get to know the system a bit and wish to save your work.

However, version 3.2 improves upon this by providing the option to save your home directory and user configuration data to any drive available. This can be an image on a hard drive partition, a volume, a memory stick, zip drive, etc. For our tests, we created a 30MB "virtual volume" image (formatted as a Linux standard ext2 volume) without erasing the data on our Windows C: drive.

Knoppix 3.2 also uses space on any available Linux 'swap' volume it finds on the system for temporary storage, on systems with limited amounts of 'real' RAM. For those with plenty of RAM, the command "knoppix toram" entered at the splashscreen allows the program disc to be ejected and other discs used.

The ability to easily configure non-volatile storage options makes Knoppix far more useful than most other "Live CD" Linux distros, many of which are aimed at Linux demo applications. If, for example, you set up an email address in Ximian Evolution, Mozilla or Kmail and customize your desktop theme or make other changes, Knoppix normally would not save these configuration changes when the machine is rebooted. In Knoppix 3.2, a simple Save Settings option is provided that saves your custom configuration to any available storage device or volume. Then, when you reboot, you simply type "knoppix home=scan" at the (graphical) boot prompt, and everything is restored just as you left it. (The MandrakeMove Bootable Linux CD announced in Dec. 2003 uses -- and ships with -- a USB memory key, to yield similar results.)

KDE 3.1
The default desktop environment is KDE 3.1, configured to use the elegant Keramik style and window decoration. As is usual for Linux distributions, there are several other windows managers and themes available, ranging from utilitarian to fanciful. (A list of "cheat codes" reveals how to boot into Gnome, Fluxbox, Ice, etc.) Keramik is one of the most lavish, with alpha-blended icons, translucent menus, drop-shadows on text and menus, animated tooltips and comboboxes, and other goodies. And if that's not Mac OS X-like enough, you can set the menubar on top of the screen in the style of Mac OS.

Remote Desktop
Another of the new features leveraging the enhancements in KDE 3.1 is called Desktop Sharing. Based on VNC screen-sharing technology, this feature allows you to share -- and optionally control -- your Knoppix screen with any other computer on your network. To test this feature, we ran "Chicken of the VNC" client on Mac OS X and used it to connect to and control our Knoppix system. To reduce the potential for remote exploits, Desktop Sharing uses a randomly-generated password that, by default, expires after three hours. There's also the option to email invitations to others -- although, of course, such an option should be used with extreme caution, as anyone reading the email could connect to the system until the session expires.

Going in the other direction, Knoppix also provides a VNC client for Remote Desktop Connection to other machines running a VNC-compatible server. This, too, worked flawlessly. We used this feature to remotely administer a "headless" (i.e., sans monitor) server elsewhere on our network. In practice, it works almost exactly like Microsoft's proprietary Windows XP "remote assistance" feature.

Ximian Evolution 1.2.2
Evolution is a task and contact manager, email client, and appointment calendar utility from Ximian. It roughly resembles Microsoft Outlook. The system also displays weather forecasts and news headlines. By default, it lists RSS-compatible feeds from Salon and LinuxToday; you can, however, change these streams to any one of dozens of news feeds, including Slashdot, The Register, The Motley Fool, Kuro5hin, Internet.com and many others.

The email client supports the usual variety of protocols, including IMAP and POP and, when in use, strongly resembles Outlook. It's serviceable but a bit feature-poor, compared to Microsoft's latest offering on the Windows side, or the feature-rich Mozilla 1.3, also included here. Mozilla 1.3, for example, includes extensive, automated junk-mail handling features not provided by Ximian's offering.

As with the 3.0 release, he Knoppix disc includes a dizzying array of packages, including CD burning software, multimedia players for audio and video, web browsers, even a full version of the OpenOffice.org suite -- a free competitor to Microsoft's pricy Office XP. Thanks to an innovative method of transparently compressing the data on the CD, you'll find nearly 2000 programs on the CD, none of which look as though they are compressed at all.

Other highlights for those booting Knoppix on a system with a windows hard drive installed include WINE, an application that allows you to run many Windows program from within Knoppix and a wide array of disk repair tools, which can help fix Windows drive problems.

Refer to our Knoppix 3.0 review for details on how to kill an errant task (briefly: press Ctrl+Alt+Esc, then click on the window of the program you want to kill) and take advantage of powerful Linux commands such as "top" and "killall."

Conclusion
Knoppix is one of the most user-friendly Linux distributions for owners of Windows PCs who, for whatever reason, want to see how life looks from the Linux side of the fence. Knoppix is a perfect introduction for these users, but also provides enough advanced disk-repair tools and useful applications to make it a worthy addition to almost any computer user's toolkit. Recommended.

Comments?

For Further Reading

• Visit www.knopper.net/knoppix/
• Slashdot readers provide commentary on Knoppix and a list of other live-from-CD  distributions.

More like this . . .

How many search commands do you have in your PC?

How many search commands do you have in your PC? asked Bill Gates during his keynote introduction at Forum 2000, where he unveiled a set of next...

Linux News

2003 Aug. 7: Noted at News.com: This week, KooBox.com started selling what it calls the first complete Linux computer. US$449 gets you a 1.2 GHz...

A Mac OS X Overview

Server and Client At the 1999 Worldwide Developers Conference, Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO, and Avie Tevanian, Apple's senior vice president of...

Editorial: MS World Domination Scorecard

Microsoft is often accused of -- and has been convicted of -- anticompetitive behavior in the technology marketplace. In this article, I'll look at...

Windows Server 2003

Introduction Microsoft's next server platform is known as Windows Server 2003. It will be offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, designed for...

Alternative GUIs for Windows XP

As we've noted in our earlier features on Alternative Graphical User Interface (GUI) options for Windows PCs, there are a number of products that can...

Codename: Whistler

Codename: Whistler This preview examines the feature-set in the Professional version of Windows XP, code-named "Whistler." There were...