Damon L. Chesser wrote:
Now I understand. This did flit across my mind, but I couldn't
conceive why I should want
to install Debian when I already have both Woody and Sarge on this
box. Thanks for
replying.
John.
What are you trying to do? Knoppix is Debian, but in a mix of
woody, testing, unstable. You can do all of that with your Sarge
install. What do you want to accomplish? Learn Linux, install
Debian. Learn of different distros? Then use the live-cd feature of
Knoppix. Your response to S. Keeling has me very confused over what
you hope to get done.
My wife runs Windoze and frequently gets into difficulty with freezes
and so forth.
I've convinced her to have a Linux install in a separate partition so
that she will
always have a solid setup to fall back on. I often refer to Knoppix
when I want
to try to understand something, and I thought I could do a hard disk
install and
prune it to down to leave only what she would need. Before attempting
this I
decided to do an install on one of my boxes just to see if there would
be any
problems and confirm it would be suitable for her.
Right, there are now three ways of doing a hard disk install - one I
don't
understand, the second is David McNab's 'knx-hdinstall' and the third
using
'knoppix-installer' a new approach employing a GUI. I used
'knoppix-installer'
and everything seemed fine at first until I started re-writing some
files and
found the these were being rewritten on the next boot ( the most
obvious case
was with /etc/fstab -the knoppix-autoconfig script ran and all 22
partitions
I have on this box were scanned, /etc/fstab overwritten and icons
placed on
the Desktop). I stopped the /etc/fstab problem with chattr -i, but then I
discovered that the rcx.d files contained virtually nothing compared
to Woody
or Sarge. At this point I asked for assistance (on a local list ) and
one reply
suggested I used the new Debian Installer. As I didn't understand what
was
involved I posted to this list.
Now, I'm well into my seventies and did not have any Computer until I was
long retired. After a few months wrestling with Windoze I switched to
Debian and since then I have always had a solid fully working System
(never a crash). I've learned a lot - by trial and asking on this
list (I've been
subscribed continuosly for almost six years), but there are still
areas into
which I have not so far ventured. My wife is also long retired, but does
not have my inquiring mind - I swear she feels her Computer should also
cook the meals.
I'm sorry if I caused your confusion. I know I can try a new install
using
'knx-hdinstall' which worked for me a couple of years ago when I was
checking Knoppix out, but I wondered why 'knoppix-installer' didn't
seem to do the complete job and then the red herring of the Debian
Installer made me very confused.
Regards, John.