On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 20:09, Robert Storey wrote: > This being the beginning of a new year and lots of people are making > suggestions for the new Knoppix, so I thought I'd throw in my wish list > too: > > 1) Cheat codes. Looking at the file knoppix-cheatcodes.txt, one finds 45 > cheat codes. When you first boot, you are advised to press F2 for a list > of booting options, but only 13 cheat codes are display. My suggestion - > after pressing F2 and seeing 13 cheat codes, how about it says "Press F3 > for more options". And when you press F3, you'll be presented with 13 > more cheat codes and there should be a displayed message "Press F4 for > more options". And of course, finally F5. Using F2 through F5 gives > enough space to display 52 cheat codes, which is more than enough. It would be nice to see all of the cheat codes before bootup. > 2) The hard disk installers. Many newbies would like to install Knoppix > to the hard drive, but it's not immediately obvious how to do this. To > find out about the existence of knx-hdinstall and knoppix-installer, you > have to search on the Internet or ask the mailing list. I know the > possibility of including an "Install Me" button has been discussed, but > I'd like to suggest an even easier way that requires no programming. > When you first boot up the Knoppix CD, you are presented with a splash > screen. How about including the instructions right there in the splash > screen: > > To install Knoppix to the hard disk, type "knx-hdinstall" or > "knoppix-installer" at the root@tty1[/]# prompt. Even better, how about a lilo/syslinux prompt for installation? Like... knoppix init=/usr/bin/knx-hdinstall might work, but what about a cheat code for knoppix hd-install or something? > 4) I have another issue with the Knoppix installers. The most important > feature still lacking is the ability to install the distro across > multiple partitions. It should be possible to create separate > partitions for /, /boot, /home, /tmp, /usr, /var, /opt and swap. This > has important security implications if you are running a server. I agree this would be a good feature, but if I was running a server to expose via the Internet, I wouldn't be installing it via knoppix. If you want more control over your installer, just use the Debian one. It will let you use cfdisk to partition and you can create your mount points before installing. Knoppix can be a great tool for seeing what modules are needed on your particular hardware, or what XF86Config works. If you want to duplicate the Debian packages, you could do `dpkg get-selections > Packages` from the knoppix CD and the do a `dpkg set-selections < Packages` in the Debian installation. But I wouldn't want XFree86 and KDE on my server. > 5) OK, I realize the above suggestions will consume a little bit of > space (especially the firewall), so something has to be removed to make > room. What would I eliminate? How about: /usr/X11R6/bin/xedit which > occupies 476K. There are already plenty of other good editors on Knoppix > (Vi, Vim, Emacs, Nedit and Kedit), and Xedit really isn't that good. > Guarddog occupies only 216K, and there are other firewalls that are even > smaller. That's the reason why so many knoppix-like CDs have joined the fold. Each person has a different use for it. I love knoppix primarily for data recovery (e.g. from friends' Windows computers after they crash) and for experimenting on new hardware. It's really hard to have an all-in-one solution as a general computing platform and system recovery and 'show off CD' and the list goes on. I'm glad that creating one's own custom CD is documented. I'm looking to create my own with XFCE 4, data recovery, and maybe the Debian net-installer on a 180 MB mini-CD. I might even throw 2.6.0 on it. :-) Jeremy -- Jeremy Turner <jeremy@linuxwebguy.com> The LinuxWebGuy
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