[linux-help] Re: Kool download complete linux off of CD Works

["James O. Harms" <joharms@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

bruce wrote:

> It may not be a fair test, trying it on such a minimal machine,
> but I loaded it on to my 133MHz, 32MB, 40X CDROM server machine
> and It does most of what it should.  But very, very, very
> slowly.  It is doing something with the hard disk, I suppose it
> uses it for a swap file.

Actually, you should be surprised it ran at all, since the docs state quite
plainly not to even TRY to run Knoppix and X with less than 90 megs of
memory.  Please consider that a lot of this distro is running out of memory -
and with 32megs you mostly don't have any.  Several weeks ago I put put the 8
november version on a Compaq (180 megs memory, 900 meg chip).  Once the
desktop was loaded, you could bring up OpenOffice - from the cd to the
desktop, ready to rock and roll - in 35 seconds.  Not too shabby.  The reason
it could do this was the 180 meg ramdisk the installer set up.

I have put knoppix on (maybe) a dozen machines, and the hardware detection and
setup of this distro is pretty phemonenal.  Once it missed an AWE32
daughterboard, but it did find the SB16 it was attached to.  Once it did not
find the Linux driver for a winmodem.  With these exceptions, it found
EVERYTHING.

For all you Debian fans - Knoppix is Debian, straight up.  For KDE fans, this
is the default desktop.  There are others if you want Gnome, Ice, whatever. 
There is a whole "community" growing around Knoppix, and thanks to this
community you can now put the cd on your HD for an instant Debian install
(knx-hdinstall has even been included in later versions), run it from the cd
and save the data or configuration to HD, use a swapfile on the HD but run
from the cd.  However you want to do it, limited only by your imagination.

--joh

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