Re: Will Knoppix remain relevant?
On Sunday 08 July 2007 18:05, Gilles Pelletier wrote:
> Today, we boot a Live-CD and we find it normal that all the
> paraphernalia is configured automagically. But, a few years ago,
> things wen't so simple. It's Knoppix -- read Klaus Knopper -- that
> brought automatic material recognition to the forefront. IANAP, but
> I do believe it would have taken much longer otherwise.
>
> Knoppix iniatives were pupping up all over the place: KNOPPIX.net *
> Knowing KNOPPIX * klik Live Installer for KNOPPIX * Games KNOPPIX *
> Accelerated KNOPPIX * KNOPPIX Denmark * KNOPPIX France *
> KNOPPIX Italy * KNOPPIX Japan * KNOPPIX Poland * KNOPPIX Spain *
> KNOPPIX Taiwan * Knoppix Thailand * KNOPPIX auf Festplatte
> installieren * LinuxWIKI KNOPPIX
>
An OS supports application programs which in turn support the user's
tasks. This has not changed from the beginning. Whether the
distribution is Debian based, RedHat based or Slackware based the
lingua franca of install methods on Linux is still
gunzip, ./configure, make and make install. Therefore I am
comfortable with Slackware. So long as the source has a tarball I
have a pretty good shot of installing it. The problem I have with
Knoppix and its derivatives, Slax and its derivatives and so on is
the obsolescence of the packages offered. And there is always a
package not offered.
The proliferation of packaging methods, deb, rpm and Slack pkgtool, is
a continuing difficulty. The labor of repackaging the application
software in multiple Linux formats is slowing growth of application
software. Increasingly I ignore the packaging system of a
distribution after initial install, and look for gzipped tarballs for
the Open source programs I use. With self-loading and running systems
such as Knoppix this is not practical today.
I can cite problems but I have no generic solution. Perhaps an
updateable cdr is the solution, or a complete distribution on a
read/write memory stick is the answer. Possibly Linux itself needs to
be reconfigured into a read-only part and a read/write part. I await
other comments.
--
John Culleton
ATTN Publishers/authors:
If you don't read you don't succeed.
Free short list of publishing/marketing books.
http://wexfordpress.com/tex/shortlist.pdf
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