Edited Saturday, February 09 2008
This page is mainly about Knoppix V5.1.1DVD-2007-01-04-EN
This page is part of a larger website giving examples of how to install Windows+Ubuntu Linux operating systems 'dual boot' in a computer. Illustrated Dual Boot HomePage
I am giving away DVDs with Knoppix V5.1.1 on them now so I decided I need a new page here for an easy way to help new Linux users to get started.
Page Index
Knoppix is a 'Live' CD or DVD based operating system. That means it can run from your CD or DVD drive without affecting anything on your hard disk at all. (Unless you tell it to).
Before you can boot
In order to boot any Live CD or DVD, you must first prepare your computer's CMOS or BIOS settings. You will need to set your computer's BIOS to look in the CD-ROM drive for a bootable disk before it looks at the hard drive for something to boot.
The way to do that is to set the BIOS boot order, which is quite simple.
This web site's BIOS Page is the easiest way for me to explain to you how to do that. It shows how I do it with my BIOS. Yours will be different, but it should be similar enough for you to be able to work it out.
Free Software
The Knoppix_V5.1.1DVD-2007-01-04-EN DVD contains over 10 GB of free software compressed to around 4 GB to fit on a DVD disk. It has over 2700 packages in it! This software would cost you thousands of dollars if you had to pay for it all.
Using a Knoppix DVD allows you to safely try out a large collection of open source software without any risk to any hard disk installed operating systems or data in your computer.
'Open Source' software is generally safer than commercial software anyway because the source code is not kept secret. It is open to public inspection and able to be scrutinized by other computer programmers. This means it is far less likely to contain any malware or spyware than closed source commercial software that you have to pay for. If you download the .iso files yourself and burn your own CDs or DVDs you should check the MD5sum of any .iso files to make sure they are genuine, unadulterated and intact though. This website's Pre-install Page has information on how to do that.
But why is it free? What is free software? http://www.gnu.org/
What to do if you don't know how to use anything
Knoppix has an instruction book in it already. As soon as you boot Knoppix up, a page will open in the middle of your monitor titled 'Knoppix Info'.
Find the words 'Knowing Knoppix', on that page and click on them for a .pdf book that will help get you started off and tell you most things you might want to know about Knoppix.
I have started an alpabetical listing of some of the software at the bottom of this page with links to the homepages for the software. Click on those and from there you will find more information about the software. Alphabetical Listing
Using Google is another way to find out what strange programs that may never have heard of before will do for you and how to use them. I don't think there would be any programs that wouldn't have their own web page somewhere or at least a review written by someone.
Visit Knoppix Forum and sign up there to become a member. Look around for information there and ask your own questions if you can't find an answer you are looking for.
Other pages of this website are really about 'Ubuntu', which is another Debian based Linux distribution. Many of the same programs found in Knoppix are also part of Ubuntu and/or Kubuntu Linux. You might find tips about one or two of the same programs mentioned in this website's Post-install Page.
Live CD Operating Systems are Slow
You will find it takes a while to boot Knoppix and it runs a mite slow. That's the case with all large Live CD operating systems and it's pretty much unavoidable.
If you have a lot of RAM it will be quite fast.
If you have a small Linux swap area on your hard disk it should help make any Live CD or DVD operating system run faster, especially if our computer doesn't have a lot of RAM.
If you already have another Linux system installed to hard disk, you probably already have a swap area. Knoppix will find it and use it automatically.
If you only have Windows, you can let Knoppix make its own swapfile for you ( just a temporary one) inside your Windows partition.
'K-Menu'-->'KNOPPIX'-->'Configure'-->'SWAP file configuration'
You can safely delete the swap file later if you want to.
No CD or DVD based operating system can be as fast as a hard disk installed system. A typical hard disk has two or three double-sided platters with a read and write head for each side of each platter. A CD or DVD drive only has one read/write head. Think about it...
Knoppix is not designed to be installed to hard disk. If you like Knoppix and you want to install it to hard disk so it'll run faster, you should install 'Kubuntu' instead, which is quite similar to Knoppix, but designed to be installed to hard disk. Kubuntu is a variation of 'Ubuntu', another debian based Linux distribution. Kubuntu has the 'KDE' desktop like Knoppix, but Ubuntu has a 'Gnome' desktop. You can use either of those to replace your existing Windows operating system with, or 'dual boot' and keep the operating system you have already, but add the new one as well, so you'll have both.
Safe, Clean Internet Browsing with Knoppix
You can browse the internet all you want without gathering any unwanted spyware , malware or other internet trash. Very little unwanted stuff like that can stick to a Linux browser anyway. Then when you shut down Knoppix nothing has been written to your hard disk, so if any unwanted stuff like that did manage to get in, it will just be lost anyway, especially if you didn't even mount a dedicated /home when you booted Knoppix.
Knoppix File Rescues
Knoppix is famous for its ability to rescue files from Windows systems that are broken down and even possibly unable to boot because of malware and viruses or other problems. Linux itself doesn't seem to be vulnerable to such things.
When you boot Knoppix it will automatically mount your hard disk partitions and you'll see icons for them on your Knoppix desktop. These will have names like 'Hard Disk [hda1]', or something like that. To access them they need to be 'mounted' first. To do that you right-click on the icon and select 'mount', just below the middle of the right-click menu. You should see a small green triangle in the bottom right-hand corner of your icon when it is mounted. Now you can open your hard disk partition and access your files in Windows.
You can navigate through your Windows file system to find your 'My Documents' folder, that usually is the one that contains the files to be rescued. In my Windows XP it's 'Documents and Settings'-->'Herman F'-->'My Documents'. Your file path should be similar.
Then you just need to find another media to transfer the file to. The easiest would be a large capacity external USB drive if you have one. You will need one with a FAT32 or a Linux filesystem like ext2, ext3 or reiserfs. Knoppix should be able to easily 'read' (or copy from) Windows with NTFS, but it is still not generally recommended to try to force Linux to 'write' (paste anything into) an NTFS filesystem, although Linux can do it these days if you have to. I'm not sure about how well Knoppix can do that yet, it would be best not to.
The next easiest would be to use another running computer, possibly one that's already networked to the one with the sick Windows installation and transfer the files via ethernet connections.
A fast way to do that if you have another computer running Linux would be to click the penguin icon beside the K-Menu button on the bottom bar.
Go 'Services'-->'Start SSH Server'. Enter a password, and make it a good strong one.
A strong password is a mixture of upper and lower case letters and numbers, punctuation marks and spaces too.
Now you can connect from your other computer running Linux, visit this website's SSH Network Page.
If you don't already have a home or office network, just a cat5 crossover cable can be used to connect two computers via their ethernet ports. Maybe you haven't got another Linux computer? Possibly you will know a freind who has Linux, especially if he or she has Linux in a laptop. Linux users generally love to rescue files from broken Windows machines! :)
Links: Computer First Aid Using Knoppix | Using Your Knoppix CD as a Rescue CD
Geek to Live: Rescue Files With A Boot CD- Lifehacker
Make a persistent /home for Knoppix (optional but recommended)
A persistent Knoppix /home is a good idea if you decide you like Knoppix and you'll use it again. Well really it's a bit of a 'chicken and egg' situation, because if you do make a persistent /home you'll be more likely to start liking it since you'll be able to enjoy the convenience of saving all your Knoppix files and settings just as you would with a hard disk installed operating system.
You can make a 'persistent /home' for Knoppix in your computer's hard disk without harming your Windows install, or you can make one in an external USB drive.
I will show you an example here of how I installed a 'persistent home' for Knoppix in a small USB thumb drive.
Even a USB jump drive as small as 128 mb is enough to get started with if you won't need to save too many files.
An external USB drive in a caddy would be a lot better. I have a 2.5" laptop hard drive in an external USB2.0 enclosure has room for lots of data and fits in my pocket easily.
You can plug your USB device into any computer in the world and boot the Knoppix disk and you'll have all your files and settings just like if you were on your own computer at home.
When you have a persistent Knoppix /home in a USB drive you can avoid the expense of buying a laptop. Even if you already own a laptop, there may be times when you will want to travel lightly and not expose your laptop to the risks of being stolen or damaged. All you need is your Knoppix disk and your USB disk that fits in your pocket and you're ready to go.
To make a persistent Knoppix /home in a USB device, you'll need a USB device with a spare partition in it. For this example I just emptied some files out of an old 128mb USB thumb drive I already had laying around.
With Knoppix running I went,
'K-Menu'-->'KNOPPIX'-->'Configure'-->'Create a Persistent KNOPPIX disk image'
Here's a series of illustrations of what happened next that you'll be able to immitate these if you like,
A confirmation screen came up, I read it and clicked 'Yes'.Here's a series of illustrations of what happened next that you'll be able to immitate these if you like,
|
Create
persistent KNOPPIX home directory
This script creates a persistent virtual harddisk image for the "knoppix" account on your harddisk or on changeable media like memory sticks, compact flash or zip media. Using these features makes it possible to store personal data and config files permanently over a reboot. The boot option "home=/dev/sda1" for the first partition of a USB memory stick as example, activates the persistent home directory at system startup. You can also let Knoppix scan all autodetected storage devices using the boot option "home=scan". Do you want to create a persistent home directory or system config archive for the "knoppix" user?
|
Then I was given a list of partitions and devices to choose from. Three of these were my laptop's hard disk partitions, one was my USB drive. It looked like this,
|
Create
persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Please select a partition for creating an image:
|
I clicked on the bottom one, because I want to install my Knoppix persistent /home to my USB device.
Now it looks like this,
|
Create
persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Please select a partition for creating an image:
|
|
Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Do you want to save your home directory encrypted with AES256 (Advanced Encryption Standard, see http://csrc.nist.gov/encryption/aes/)? If yes, you will have to specify a very long password at homedir creation and boot time.
|
|
Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Please enter the desired size of your persistent homedir in MB (currently used: 5376 kB, available: 107 MB)
|
|
Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Please enter the desired size of your persistent homedir in MB (currently used: 5376 kB, available: 107 MB)
|
|
Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Preparing the Linux Filesystem
|
|
Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
AES256 encryption password (minimum 20 characters!) Enter:
[ ] Hide typing
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Press the first letter and then press the keys immediately around it in a circle. Press the key you started with again. That gives you eight characters already and you only have to remember the one center key that you begin and end with.
Do the same for two more letters and you'll have a secure 24 character password made of a mixture of letters, numbers, punctuation and maybe even spaces that you'll easily remember because you really only have to remember the three middle letters.
Never use real words or names for a 'password', because it is possible, (I have read), for some people (called 'crackers'), to run special software that uses their computer's dictionary to cycle through every word and automatically try it to see if it's your password. They don't care if it takes all night because they can be off doing something else while the software does all the work.
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Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
Formatting the Linux Filesystem and copying data
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Create persistent KNOPPIX home directory
The Knoppix-Image has been successfully formatted with the Linux ext2 filesystem, and your home directory and system configuration data has been transferred to it. You may now reboot your computer, and KNOPPIX should find the image automatically. Alternatively, type "knoppix home=/dev/sda1" at the KNOPPIX boot: prompt.
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============
And here's what to watch for when I reboot my computer, it will go through a minute or so of regular booting up sequences, with just the black screen with white and colored typing on it, and then,
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KNOPPIX CONFIGURATION
KNOPPIX has found an image file (media/sda1/knoppix.img). This imagecontains the components listed below, which can be activated separately. Please be aware of the potential security risk of such configuration images, because of scripts that can run in admin mode, as opposed to the "normal" start of KNOPPIX. Therefore, if you wish, you have to acknowledge image activation by selecting "OK". If you do nothing, the system will boot normally (without image activation) in 20 seconds.
< OK > <Cancel> |
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AES256 encryption password
Enter:
< OK > <Cancel> |
Check On Your Hard Disks With Smartmontools
Hard disks are probably the most important parts in a computer, because they store all our information. They are also one of the hardest working parts in a computer, and also a part that can fail in various ways. Sometimes they fail suddenly, there's not much we can do about that. Other times though, they deteriorate gradually, and we can tell when it's a good idea to go shopping for a replacement.
Recommended reading: Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. - makes a good 'partner page' for this article.
Also, Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) - Storage Review.com
Would you like to check your hard drive and see if it's fit and healthy and in good condition or on it's last gasp and almost ready to 'kark it' on you?
Are you noticing weird operating system errors but can't find any virus or malware infection?
Are you bothered by file system checking programs like CHKDSK, scandisk, or fsck running at boot time more frequently than you think they should?
Are the file system checking programs reporting a lot of errors that needed to be fixed?
Is it really a brand new hard disk that the computer store fitted for you, or someone else's old second hand one?
You can find out all about the state of your hard disks with smartmontools in Knoppix.
Most Windows users would just look in the K-Menu for programs, not realizing that Knoppix, like most other Linux distributions, is loaded with a bounty of super-useful programs that run from the command line. Because they don't appear in the K-Menu, most people don't know they're there.
Smartmontools is one of those programs. [Note1]
First you will need a list of your devices in Linux terms. There is no such thing as a 'C:\ drive' in Linux. Linux doesn't use the same drive letter system Windows uses at all.
In Linux everything is either a file or a device. Hard disks, CD/DVD drives, floppy drives and USB flash memory sticks are all 'devices'.
For example, if you have three PATA hard disks, in Linux notation they might be called dev/hda, /dev/hdb, /dev/hdc and so on.
If you have SCSI or SATA hard disks, the letter 'h' will be replaced with the letter 's', for example: /dev/sda.
To see what your hard disks are called in Linux, either look at the titles of the icons for them on your Knoppix Desktop, or go: 'K-Menu'-->'System'-->'QTParted', and click 'Discs', and take a look.
Or, even better, open a konsole and use the command 'sudo fdisk -lu' for a list of all your hard disks and partition information.
To open a konsole ( also called a 'shell' or 'terminal', the icon for it looks like an LCD monitor and it's the sixth icon along the bottom panel (Windows users call a panel a 'taskbar' I think). Click on that.
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo fdisk -lu |
When you know what hard discs you have, then you can start testing them.
In your open terminal, after the knoppix@knoppix prompt, type: sudo smartctl -H /dev/hda
For example,
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -H /dev/hda |
Feel free to replace '/dev/hda' with '/dev/sda' for a SATA drive, or '/dev/hdb' for a second PATA or whatever is appropriate for your computer and what drive you are trying to check.
That will check your hard disk's controller card and if it supports S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), you will receive an answer that your hard drive has either 'PASSED' or 'FAILED'.
If it doesn't work, try replacing the '/dev/hda' part of the command with '/dev/sda' instead.
For example, here's what you I got back,
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -H /dev/hda smartctl version 5.36 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED |
It could be possible to have a false alarm though.
If you want to get information about your hard disk, like what kind it is, enter the smartctl command in your konsole with the -i option ( -i for information),
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -i /dev/hda |
Example,
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -i /dev/sda smartctl version 5.37 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Maxtor Fireball 3 family Device Model: Maxtor 2F020L0 Serial Number: F1EKSPDE Firmware Version: VAM51JJ0 User Capacity: 20,847,697,920 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 7 ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0 Local Time is: Mon Dec 24 10:25:36 2007 EST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled |
I would probably try to find Maxtor's home page first, then search for my model and get ahold of the technical details published by the manufacturer about my hard drive.
Other important information we gained is the knowledge the S.M.A.R.T. is both supported and also enabled. That means we can proceed to find out more about this particular drive.
In this instance, for example, I found this page with some interesting information on it about mine. You should be able to find some similar technical page about any kind of hard drive you might have.
If S.M.A.R.T. was supported but not enabled, I could try to enable it with the command:
smartctl -s on.
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -s on /dev/hda |
S.M.A.R.T. can (and should), also be turned on (enabled) in your BIOS, if your hard disk supports S.M.A.R.T.
The next command we can try out will give us information about this particular hard drive,
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -A /dev/hda |
'Attributes' is the word that was chosen to mean (roughly translated), the list of factors the hard drive engineers thought was worth keeping an eye on.
The items you'll see listed will vary a bit between makes and models of hard drives.
We can see a lot of information about how our hard drive has been feeling when we look at the output from that command.
It tells us our hard drive's temperature, how much work it has done, (power on minutes & start_Stop count), and lots of other things. Some of those are not too difficult for most people to understand, but you'd need to be an expert to be able to understand all of it.
The best link I have found to put here so far is from the Wikipedia (as usual), Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. The whole page is recommended reading. There's a nice chart further down on that page to refer to explaining more about attributes. Please refer to it.
In a nutshell, here's my best effort to sum up how to interpret this data for the layman, I hope this is all near enough to being correct,
The RAW_VALUE column contains the raw data values, and the disk's firmware converts the raw value to a 'normalized value' ranging from 1 to 254, by whatever formula the hard disk manufacturer deems appropriate, and puts it in the VALUE column.
Figures in the VALUE column can be compared with figures in the WORST and THRESH columns.
The WORST column shows the worst reading you hard disk has ever produced for each attribute.
The TRESH column shows the minimum allowable for each attribute.
If the VALUE falls below the THRESH, your disk is having a 'TEC' (Threshold Exceeded Condition), which is not good, but not necessarily fatal. False alarms are possible, and some attributes are not critical attributes anyway.
The WHEN FAILED column is supposed to show “^ Failed in the past”, if the worst recorded value is less than or equal to the threshold value. (Or so I have read.)
I hope all the information I put here is okay, if in doubt, seek expert advice.
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -l error /dev/hda |
This is located in the hard disk's firmwares own memory and it's read only, so no-one can erase it and sell a faulty hard drive and claim it has never has an error.
Don't be too upset if your hard drive has recorded a few errors.
I have hard disks here that have had a few errors and they still work alright. Some errors are to be expected, hard disks do a lot of hard work.
To the expert, the exact type of errors, whether they re-occur or not, and if they are re-occurring with increasing frequency might all be factors to consider.
I'm not an expert, but for example, I have an old second hand hard drive which has 4356 hours on it now, which divided by 24 comes to 181.5 days.
(To find out how many hours is on your disk right now, run the short test, shown further below).
The Error log has recorded 1010 errors, the last one happened at 175 days and 16 hours.
The previous four errors before that all happened way back at 107 days and 3 hours.
I'm not sure how many hours were on this old disk when it was given to me.
From the information here though, it's easy to deduce that this disk must have had 1009 errors before 107 days and then run error free between then and the 175 day mark.
Apparently something was happening to it a while ago that was causing a lot of problems for this old hard drive and then whatever was causing the trouble was fixed. Maybe the computer it used to be in didn't have enough cool air circulation around the hard drive bay, or some other hardware was faulty in the machine and causing problems for the hard disk.
It looks like I have a good hard drive here. It'll probably last a long time for me.
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -c /dev/hda |
If you're in a hurry but you have a little time, the short test will probably just take a few minutes.
If you have time, you can run the long test, the time that either of those tests can be expected to take will be displayed in the output from the above command.
We can use smartmontools to have the hard disk perform a short or a long offline self-test.
To perform the SMART short self-test in off-line mode,
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -t short /dev/hda |
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/hda |
To perform the SMART long self-test in offline mode,
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -t long /dev/hda |
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/hda |
You won't see anything happening during either of those tests, there's no progress bar or meter so you can't keep an eye on how far along the process is from time to time. It does let you know what time the test should be finished though.
This has been my effort at a layman's introduction to the expert field of diagnosing hard drive problems. I hope it's all correct. If you enjoyed that you might also be interested in my memtest86+ on my GRUB Page, about running tests on your computer's memory modules.
Wake up to music with KAlarm
Find it at 'K-Menu'-->'Utilities'-->'KAlarm Personal Alarm Scheduler'
KAlarm can be set to play a sound for you when it's time for you to wake up or to remind you when it's lunchtime or any other time you want to set.
This will work for once-of alarms just from the DVD, but it works a lot better if you use a persistent /home unless you want to be repeating this procedure every night.
The best kind of sound file to use would be a music file. Make sure it's a type of Music file that Knoppix can play. Try to play it with Amarock Music Player to make sure.
You can set KAlarm by clicking 'Actions', 'New'. This opens a Window titled 'New Alarm', which has two tabs, one called 'Alarm, and the other called 'Recurrence'.
In the Alarm tab, click checkbox for 'Sound'.
Then click the radio button for 'file'.
In the 'Sound file Window, click the envelope icon at the end of the first field to browse for a sound file. Hopefully you'll have a sound file somewhere on your hard drive you can use, you can get there by clicking the triangle at the end of the top field in the 'choose sound file' window. That will cause a drop-down menu to appear, and you can click '/' or 'root folder'.
Then you click 'media', where you'll find your hda1 folder and maybe other folders that you can click on to open your hard drive installed file systems and navigate to a music file.
After you have your sound file set, click 'Try', the middle button at the bottom of your KAlarm Window, to test it. Make sure it plays okay and it will be loud enough.
Make sure your computer's clock and calendar is correct, click on the clock in the lower right corner of your monitor for your calendar to pop up.
Set the date for your alarm to begin today, and set the time for your alarm.
In the 'recurrence' tab click the radio button for 'daily' recurrence, and if you want to sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays, deselect those in the checkboxes the next field.
In the 'Recurrence End field, be sure to click the radio button for 'no end'.
If you don't have a music file and you really want to make sure you do wake up, I recommend /UNIONFS/usr/share/sounds/linphone/rings/oldphone.wav And be sure set it to repeat too. That will wake you up!
Click 'Try', the middle button at the bottom of your KAlarm Window.
Another good one would be /UNIONFS/usr/share/sounds/linphone/rings/rock.wav
A less annoying one is /UNIONFS/usr/share/sounds/linphone/rings/bigben.wav
Try a few others for yourself and pick out one you like.
Now click 'Try' again just to make sure.
When you are finished fiddling with your KAlarm settings, click OK for the KAlarm Window to disappear. You can close the other Windows too.
You should see an alarm clock icon over on the left of your bottom bar. Hoover your mouse over it to check how many hours before the alarm is set to go off. You can't be too careful, I wouldn't like anyone to be late! I have found KAlarm to be 100% reliable, I use it or Ubuntu's crontab to wake me up every morning and it always works except for human errors, but you get those with any kind of alarm clock. (Make sure your persistent /home is mounted).
Alphabetical Listing of just some of the great software, with links
This is just a random selection of a few items of the software you can find on your Knoppix DVD. I'll add to this list as I get time.
I have only tried a few of these out myself, but this list with links to the software's homepages will save you a lot of googling. You'll be able to click on these links to see what each item is for and find out how to use it.
Is there something you always wished you could get your computer to do but you don't know where to find the software to do it?
Well shop here for all your software needs, and best of all, it's free!
Abiword word processing........................................................http://www.abisource.com/
Amarok - Rediscover Your Music...................................................http://amarok.kde.org/
Blender 3D Modeller.....................................................................http://www.blender.org/
Digicam Photo Management.........................................................http://www.digikam.org/
Efax-gtk faxing with Linux..................................................http://efax-gtk.sourceforge.net/
Ekiga Softphone................................................................................http://www.ekiga.org/
Evolution Email, Addressbook, Calendar, and personal organizer
Gambit game theory software..........................................http://econweb.tamu.edu/gambit/
GIMP Image Editor...............................................................................http://www.gimp.org/
and an extra link,
Gnumeric Spreadsheet.............................................http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/
GpsDrive GPS navigation software....................................................http://www.gpsdrive.cc/
Grace -make graphs.................................................http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace/
Iceweasel Web Browser.................................................http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Jokosher ...audio production made simple.........................................http://www.jokosher.org/
J-Pilot desktop organizer for palm OS devices.........................................http://www.jpilot.org/
K3b CD & DVD Burning.............................................................................http://www.k3b.org/
Kino Video Editor...................................................................................http://www.kinodv.org/
Additional link:
KBear FTP client................................................................http://www.kde.org.uk/apps/kbear/
Kcron task scheduler..........................................................................[pdf] The Kcron Handbook
Kile LaTex Frontend..........................................................................http://kile.sourceforge.net/
additional links,
Kinfo Center (for information about your computer, detect your hardware).....(no link yet)
KOrganizer Personal Organizer............................................http://kontact.kde.org/korganizer/ Konqueror Web Browser..................................................................http://www.konqueror.org/ Konversation IRC Client..................................................................http://konversation.kde.org/ KThesaurus......................................http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/koffice/thesaurus/index.html KTip - Useful (Linux) Tips...................................http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/ktip LyX document processor...........................................................................http://www.lyx.org/
Nessus Network Vulnerability Scanner..............................................http://www.nessus.org/
PARI/GP maths, algebra.............................................................http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/
Planner Project Management.......................................................http://live.gnome.org/Planner Pybliographic Bibliography Manager..................................................http://pybliographer.org/ GParted partition editor.............................................................http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ Qcad create technical drawings (drafting).....................http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html QTParted partition editor..........................................................http://qtparted.sourceforge.net/ Ruby (programming)............................................http://www2.ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html KStars Desktop Planetarium................................................................http://edu.kde.org/kstars/ Scribus desktop publishing....................................................................http://www.scribus.net/ Stellarium...........................................................................................http://www.stellarium.org/ Totem Movie Player.........................................................http://www.gnome.org/projects/totem/ TOra..................................................................................................http://tora.sourceforge.net/ Wireshark Network Analyser...........................................................http://www.wireshark.org/ wxmaxima computer algebra.....http://wxmaxima.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Xchat.........................................................................................................http://www.xchat.org/ Xgnokii Mobile Phone Tool...................http://www.developershome.com/sms/smsXGnokii.asp xppaut..................................................................http://www.math.pitt.edu/~bard/xpp/xpp.html Xine.....................................................................................................................http://xinehq.de/ yacas computer algebra system......................................................http://yacas.sourceforge.net/ yorick programming language......................................http://yorick.sourceforge.net/index.php |
Note1
You can use the following command to get a list of all the software packages installed in Knoppix.
| knoppix@knoppix:~$ dpkg --get-selections | less |
You can unlock the secret magical powers of Linux by typing 'man' (short for 'manual'), into a konsole and pasting in the name of any program. The man pages tell you how to use each program but you need a lot of practice with Linux before you will be able to understand the man pages.
It takes time, patience and practice to become good with Linux. But you can do it, and the rewards are great!
Links to other helpful websites about more great things you can do with Knoppix,
| Scanning for Viruses with Knoppix Troubleshooters.com (contains a lot of Knoppix related information plus Knoppix Knowhow) |
That's all for now, I hope you enjoy using Knoppix.
"I'll be back," (Herman) :)