Comment Articles

New boots for Linux

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 08 Jan 2004 16:25 GMT

By any standards, this is an impressive achievement. Knoppix does everything you want from a live CD: it doesn't tamper with your existing computer in any way, it doesn't ask difficult questions -- in fact, it doesn't ask any questions. It is fantastically well endowed with utilities, games, applications and, well, stuff: rather too much, if anything. Does anyone need eight text editors? On the other hand, everyone needs OpenOffice.org -- and there it is. All wrapped up on the KDE desktop, running as sweetly as you like on top of Debian GNU/Linux.

I slipped the CD into another PC. Up popped the penguin and a little flashing cursor, and there it stayed. You don't need to know what happened next, nor that it involved commands like "sudo mii-tool -r" and -- yes! -- IRQ issues. Much the same thing happened on a third PC, but this time I was ready. Shame it was a completely different problem.

After much faffery, it became clear that Knoppix is a wonder, just no miracle worker. The more your PC diverges from the mainstream, the less likely it is that the Knoppix autoconfiguration magic will work unaided. It doesn't need much help, and the online support is fast and apt, but those of us with peculiarities will have just a little work to do.

How are people using Knoppix? It's a perfect recovery disk: if your hard disk goes down, you can boot up in Knoppix and fix the problem. It makes a fantastic test disk for high street PCs -- "Does this run Linux, my good man?" "Errr…. ". "Let's find out!" And it's a superlative taster for those who like the idea of Linux but are still chary of the reality. Make as many copies as you like and give them away -- a perfect demonstration of the forces at work that are building Linux' momentum.

It also demonstrates where Linux needs to go next before there really is a granny distro you can shove on a PC and give to your elderly relatives. Printing support, application installation, documentation about how the various software components fit together, sugar-coated diagnostics: these are all things that made me swear by their absence.

But they will be fixed. Knoppix isn't the only live-CD option: there are others, and competition to be the best is hot. Across the board, from big corporates through to your desktop, the time is coming when ditching the Microsoft licence is going to be a serious option. At the beginning of 2004, that time looks closer than ever.