Stephen's Linux Page

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LINUX
If you wish to get away from XP but don't fancy the technicalities of Linux and what it might do to your PC, do try Knoppix, an unusual Linux that boots and runs from CD, and does not harm your PC in any way. It has the programs you need on the CD (eg word processor, spread sheet, media player and so on). On the fly compression means the CD has going on for two gig of software etc.
NB: Changes to the Linux kernel have caused severe problems with an important Knoppix component, delaying the release schedule of further versions of Knoppix, however a new version is due in Spring 2008.
Knoppix is at the time of writing up to Vn 5.01.

You have access to your PC Hard drive to read files, and can safely write to any FAT or Linux partitions- writing to NTFS partitions may be hazardous. I have loaded Word 97 documents with Knoppix using OpenOffice, and played Windows 3.1 games with it - it comes with a version of WINE which allows you to use SOME Windows programs. Recommended for the cautiously adventurous!. Knoppix documentation. Most of my old DOS games (including several pinballs) run very well using dosbox.

For greater speed you can boot Knoppix from your CD, but have the Knoppix files, still in compressed form, on your hard disk - no new partitions required, use any FAT or Linux EXT partitions or folders on them. Once booted you can read from existing Reisser partitions. You can also tell Knoppix to use a /home directory on your hard disk which allows any changes you make to carry forward to your next boot (as an image of fixed size, or if you have Linux partitions, as files) (since 3.9 Knoppix has used an image file plus unionfs or branches thereof).

Note that apart from the Home directory, all other disks / partitions will be unmounted at boot (not readable), and once mounted, will be read only unless you tell Knoppix otherwise - it is quite hard to damage a system accidentally with this OS.

It is easier if you can place the CD copy and /Home folders on a separate partition if at all possible - it does not need to be bootable. Knoppix can use some of your dos and Windows programs by use of dosbox or doesemu or Wine. From 3.3 onwards Knoppix has been able to use a lovely download service (Klik) which is free, and easy, and removes all Linux installation problems (problems not unknown in Windows) by putting every available package in its own separate little package. No odd files or hidden registry entries. Of course, some packages will insist on placing files of their own in your /var and /etc directories and may fail if they really need them, as these are both read only and lost on reboot! Differing scripts place packages in various ways (sometimes in /tmp for you to move to /home) - if you are booting from CD just delete the .cmg packages it places on your desktop- you can't easily use them.

More help? I can very strongly recommend the book KNOPPIX HACKS which comes complete with Knoppix 3.4 on CD.(May have been reissued with later version by now). For older machines, Knoppix versions before 3.9 may be faster. Vn 3.4 is nice on my oldest PC.

If you can get a PC with a bare hard drive, preferably formatted for you in FAT32, and equally preferably in several partitions, installing, running and expanding Linux is now much much easier (and more secure) than anything beginning with a W. You will find you can use somewhat older slower systems than that other commercial OS requires, but 128 meg of ram is still a minimum- more is always better. Many other Linux distros now seem to require 512 meg RAM minimum.

I got my Knoppix working on a bare system very quickly, and was on line just as fast (I have always used a manual DUN setting in Windows).

Personal finance? kmymoney or Gnucash. Genealogy? Gramps. CD and DVD burning? k3b. LP to CD? Audacity and GWC. Multimedia? Realplayer (Helix)/ Xine / KPLayer will play more than most applications in another operating system. Text to Speech? Festival. Word documents? OpenOffice. Only using a USB Zip disk caused some problems (soluble).

Although Irfanview is written for Windows, I was surprised to find many parts of Irfanview work fine in Linux using Wine - there may obviously be problems with files that use external viewers which are less receptive to Wine. After version 3.95 most Irfanview downloads were self-extracting executables which rely upon a Microsoft component distributed with XP and later. There ARE standard ZIPped packages available if you look, which unpack and run fine with Wine. I have used Wine issued prior to 2007, but subsequent amendments would require me to reinstall all my Windows programs so I am sticking to the older Wine. I have found quite a number of 8BF filter files to add to the many image changes Irfanview can make.

The apparent disadvantage of Knoppix is that with everything on CD, you could not easily add additional Linux programs (as the CD holds everything and is unwritable). All that is a thing of the past now that Knoppix can, courtesy of unionfs (and later replacements), update, upgrade and add to its software. Or instead of that you can dispense with the CD boot as you are able to install Knoppix to hard disk (requires a bootable partition for that option).

Knoppix is available as an ISO CD (or DVD) image to download- so you need access to broadband and an ISO Image CD/DVD Rom burner or burned Knoppix CDs/DVDs are available at very low cost (but will not be as up to date as the downloads) from Cheeplinux. Or Linux magazines cover disks.

UK residents served by a Janet (academic) server can obtain fast downloads from Mirrorservice.org at the University of Kent, which has many Linux goodies.

A lot of folk are coming here looking for Linux/MAME- well, I created a folder with links to each mame game I like, and I use xmame and the standard mame rom zips, but you may prefer to try Knoppixmame or for another approach check out GXMame instead. Note that Linux versions of MAME just use the usual game ROM ZIP files. The sites offering ROM files for Mame tend to change a great deal- I can only suggest searching! Linux also has software which lets you play those old Infocom text adventures (frotz or xzip).

An unusual source of information on Linux can be found at MSN at The Complete Computer Resource. Scroll down the page about half way and the Linux sub categories are on the left. A few links are dead but there is some very useful material- especially under Linus Links.

New Linux apps listed at Freshmeat and large list at Sourceforge

RPMSeek- or rpmfind - or rpmsearch - search for rpm and deb packages.

Use a special subset of Google to find Linux items. Tux friendly front page at Google Linux or use this form: