1.2.1 Knoppix

The Knoppix live-CD is a bootable CD that allows practically any PC to run Linux without installation! All you have to do is to pop in the CD, reboot the computer, and it will run Linux! Best of all, Knoppix includes a GUI and all the tools that you need for this class. You do need a bit of RAM (512MB) and a fairly fast machine (Pentium class) to use the GUI.

The Knoppix distribution includes drivers to read/write FAT and FAT32 partitions. This means that if you have a FAT or FAT32 partition on your hard disk, you can save files to those partitions from Knoppix.

If you want to use Knoppix, please give me a blank 700MB CD (CD-R or CD-RW). I'll burn the latest Knoppix distribution and return it to you.

Note: the PCs in the lab (room 152) cannot boot from CD. This option is disabled due to security reasons. As a result, the Knoppix CD is a good solution only for doing the homework assignments off-campus, or on your own notebook computer.

One of the main drawback of using Knoppix is that the default account directory is in a RAM drive. This means you lose all the files saved in this directory as soon as you reset the computer. You can access a FAT or FAT32 partition (floppy disk, hard disk, USB drive, etc.) and save/restore your files, but that is an extra step to forget and mess up. Knoppix does offer options to save and restore system configurations and user data using an existing hard disk partition or removable partitions (such as USB flash drives).