knoppix question

[D. Joe]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 10:42:38AM -0600, Brian Densmore wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: D. Joe
> > 
> > On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 08:48:20AM -0600, Brian Densmore wrote:
> > > I've booted Knoppix on my laptop which only has 96MB RAM.
> > > I didn't touch any keys to do this. Now to be fair there is
> > > a swap partition on the drive and it may have seen this and
> > > used it. In fact the creators would be foolish not to look
> > > for and use it.
> > 
> > How foolish it is depends on what you use the disk for. 
> 
> Yes, it is all relative, but based on the designed use/audience
> for Knoppix (aka, GUI desktop, Linux newbies, Windows users),
> it would be most desirable to boot using as much power and with 
> as little interaction as possible. Hence I made my comment 
[. . . ]

>From the knoppix.org main page (English version):

"KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue
system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial
software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything
on a hard disk."

So, I guess it depends on how one reads that list--as a set of
design goals in order of decreasing importance to the designer,
or as a simple enumeration of the kinds of uses one might
anticipate.  

I suspect you've conflated the design goals of the disk with the
uses to which you put it.

> as I said before Knoppix isn't the ideal distro for
> troubleshooting broken systems. There are much better choices
> for such tasks.

How many different live CDs have you used to fix broken systems,
and what tools from them have you used?  I've used KNOPPIX since
at least around v 3.1 (its now at 3.7).  I've used several
iterations of the lnx-bbc, as well as its Linuxcare predecessor. 
I've used FeatherLinux.  I've tried Ubuntu's warty live CD.  And
on the floppy side, trinux and tomsrtbt, plus probably others
I've forgotten.  I've used this not only on Linux boxes, but
Windows boxes ranging from at least Windows 95 through 2000
(maybe some XP systems, I don't recall) and even on Macs.

How suited KNOPPIX is depends on the specific task at hand:
Sometimes the combination of tools isn't available on other live
CDs.  For example, the X Windows support and GUI browsers
available on stock lnx-bbc's are pretty minimal, so stock
lnx-bbc is not (yet) the thing if that feature is crucial (eg
for accessing the web-only interface to a consumer-level
firewall/router device) and KNOPPIX may be more suited.  Or if
you need certain drivers.  Or certain other apps: For an example
here, there's only one version of KNOPPIX I've found so far that
both supports X Windows, power management, my wi-fi hardware,
and has a version of kismet I can use for war-walking with my
laptop.

And so on and so forth.  
-- 
Joe