Knoppix Operating System :-)

[Physfitfreak]

I recently installed Linux Mint on an old computer. After going through
issues with needed graphics card drivers and mouse issues that partially
disabled it I fetched my old CD and floppies box to get my Knoppix CD
that I had made I think 15 years back. I had made that CD as a back up
tool to access my files on a Windows machine (probably WinXP) in case it
wouldn't boot in Windows, cause it had started to give me issues.

What I feared happened eventually, and that CD saved my ass. The
computer had in it many newly-worked-on program files that I was
developing for inventory control for some Chinese electronics company.
Weeks of extremely careful work was saved in that way. I simply booted
the computer from DVD driver and Knoppix version of linux came up right
away, able to see, and copy any program on the hard drive to a USB flash
drive.

This type of Windows failure happened one more time a few years later,
but when I used that Knoppix CD, this time it could not see the files on
hard drive. That old version could only see a certain type of file
system, and my new computer had a different type of file system on it.

So it failed me the second time.

I got that same CD last night to try and see how it compares with the
Linux Mint that I had installed on the hard drive. The knoppix came on
fast but again, although could sense the existence of a storage device
that was my hard drive, could not see the contents. The file system was
different.

So I got online and download the iso file for the latest version (9.1)
and using one of the preinstalled Linux Mint apps ("USB Image Writer")
created a bootable Knoppix on a 16 gb flash drive. In Windows also the
process is as easy and similar. Then booted the computer via USB and a
much faster and nicer and extremely more tailor-made Knoppix jumped on
my screen, able to see and access everything on my hard drive and other
flash drives inserted.

The amount of preinstalled apps on it, and the ease with which it
installed, without giving any problems, made me aware that it was indeed
an OS targeting the general public.

Knoppix is very fast because after boot up the whole OS will exist
inside RAM memory.

Then after messing with it, while wondering how headache-less it was
compared to Windows (and macOS) it occurred to me that with a large
enough capacity flash drive you don't even have to have an HDD or SSD on
your system anymore! Computers become cheaper, coming without such
drives. Only the RAM must be high enough to contain the entire OS inside
itself to run from there, probably as fast as SSDs. And the flash drive
should have large capacity in case RAM capacity isn't large enough on
the computer.

I don't know how reliable a flash drive is, but you can always back up
your files in another flash drive :)

Knoppix has impressed me, cause it has important potentials. It might
eventually destroy the general public market for Windows and macOS. Bye
bye perpetual "update" headaches that general public go through in their
homes. Bye bye "activation" pile of crap. Bye bye "sudo this and sudo
that" type of nonsensical nitty gritty done at command level Linux,
stuff that only minions with a "computer science" degree should concern
themselves with, not the general public who've got better things to do
in their lives.

With Knoppix you will never need to go to a terminal, although it's
there if you're adventurous or have the skills. And it can use DOS
software as well in its included DOS emulation.

Free, fast, and very simple and quick installation, and packed with
already installed apps for everything you might need. It even has Maxima
and Step ready to use for you (Linux Mint can have them too of course,
but they don't come preinstalled); these two apps are pure gold for
scientists and students alike. High school as well as university level
workhorses.

All Microsoft Office products have equivalents in the free LibreOffice
collection of software which come preinstalled in Knoppix. There are
apps already installed that teach you various languages, anatomy, bones,
history, vocabularies in various languages, all in the form of flash
cards that you can practice with. Also installed are a few apps for
programming. A member of general public will almost never need to
install anything else on it.

It was developed in Germany by Klaus Knopper. So the big tech could not
harass (or perhaps outright threaten) him for an OS that would make
Windows and macOS, together with HDD and SSD's in computers, obsolete
and unnecessary to have for the general public.

I intend to gradually migrate to totally doing away with Windows and
hard drives for my computers at home, and simply use Knoppix from then
on. If it turns out it's not made for compiling and executing computer
programs, then I always have my old powerful S20 ThinkStation to go to
:) A couple of years back I tried installing Linux Mint on that one, but
turned out it wouldn't work. I switched back to Windows, and I think for
heavy programming and compiling and running, Windows is still the best
if you do that at home. At work, a Unix machine could handle that easily
(they're really made with doing just that in mind). But Linux and
certainly Knoppix would not work well in that area. At least this is
what I suspect at this point. I have to try it myself to see.

At workplace, i.e., the business market, big tech rules because the
former need capabilities that only Windows and macOS (and Unix) have.
But at home, no matter who you are, Knoppix is all you need to use with
your computer. You will buy lots of cheap high capacity USB flash drives
and will max the RAM your computer can handle, and then you will remove
your obsolete HDD and SSD from your computer and keep them as curiosity
items from years gone by :)

Large capacity flash drives and RAM, and Knoppix OS, will free you from
paying for and having Windows and macOS forever.

[Physfit Freak]

Right now, I am using knoppix to post this message, after disconnecting
my hard drive cables in my computer and booting into flash drive. Bios
let me know no HDD was detected but gave me option to continue ("F1").
And right away knoppix came on like King!

And I only have 4 g of RAM. The flash drive is 16 g. I will keep testing
various programs on it to see if all of them are working for this
minimal arrangement.

No hard drives! :-)) It's a first for me.

[Physfitfreak]

On 11/9/2023 1:41 PM, Esparquy Dobroserdov wrote:

> Physfit Freak wrote:
>
>> And I only have 4 g of RAM. The flash drive is 16 g. I will keep testing
>> various programs on it to see if all of them are working for this

>> minimal arrangement. No hard drives! ) It's a first for me.
>
> idiot, the kernel upgrades every week. Also, to load all the image into
> ram from slow usb, thereafter you can't run serious shit in physics, the
> swapping process would take decades, if used. You are an idiot. Piss off.

Booting my computer via Knoppix flash drive takes less than 1/10th of
the time compared to booting time in Windows 10 on the same computer.

[Tyrone]

On 11/9/23 11:36 AM, Physfit Freak wrote:

> And I only have 4 g of RAM. The flash drive is 16 g.
>

> No hard drives! :-)) It's a first for me.

Except that the flash drive IS the hard drive.

Welcome to the world of SSDs. Some of us have been here for years.

[Physfitfreak]

And you can have the flash drive or the external SSD in your pocket and
stick it into any computer in your house and boot in no time. None of
the computers require Windows and any internal hard drives or SSDs.

External SSD's the size of a flash drive, which use USB interface, are
ideal for Knoppix :) I don't have one (yet) but it looks ideal to me.
Here is a 1 tb one from eBay for $60, free shipping:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166396756668


Make it bootable with Knoppix, and you can forget Windows. Then McGuinn
here in sci.physics can tell Microsoft, "You got nothing!" :)

[Physfitfreak]

On 11/10/23 04:53, Regino Bauer wrote:

> yes true, windows is another crap. It won't even boot from USB. But
> compare it with a M2 interface nvme SSD hard disk, ie 1.5 GB/s
> (gigabytes).

So you are saying Windows 10 on a machine with SSD internal hard disk
boots faster than Knoppix on flash drive on a machine without internal
SSD or any other internal hard drives?

[Physfitfreak]

Ok, with a bit of more experimentation with Knoppix I have started to
see its limits for computers with minimal resources.

One is that, when I insert an additional USB drive, some of the file
managers provided don't see it, only Thunar file manager sees and
accesses it.

Second is (on a 4 GB RAM machine), in Thunar, when I attempt to copy a
file from the HDD to a second USB drive, it goes through as if it wants
to do it as usual, but as soon as I click "paste" in the second drive,
Thunar closes down. When I bring Thunar back up, sometimes nothing is
pasted in the second drive and sometimes stuff are partially pasted.
Never a complete copy. And this happens silently without any error messages.

But that is with a 4 gb RAM machine. I tried it just a few minutes ago
with another old computer that has 8 GB RAM and the copying with Thunar
worked flawlessly. So 4 gb definitely is not enough RAM for Knoppix.

[Physfitfreak]

On 11/10/23 18:18, Joel wrote:

> This seems meaningless, having a modern (2021 purchased) SSD/
> motherboard, with fully up to date Win11. The amount of time, even on
> a cold boot, that it takes to load, is trivial. And PCI-e4 is
> standard, today, so I don't have the absolute best example to offer.
> That's how fast these things move, literally as a storage device, and
> in progress in tech.
>


(sci.physics and portable linux added)

It should not matter, I think. On your machine, compare the time it
takes for Knoppix on a flash drive to boot, to that of Windows 11 on
your internal SSD. The Knoppix I think should boot faster.

[Physfitfreak]

I meant to say Knoppix on an external SSD using USB interface, not a
flash drive.

The difference should be machine-independent. I think on any machine,
Knoppix boots faster than Windows.

[Joel]

Physfitfreak <physfi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>> Booting my computer via Knoppix flash drive takes less than 1/10th of
>>>> the time compared to booting time in Windows 10 on the same computer.
>>>
>>> This seems meaningless, having a modern (2021 purchased) SSD/
>>> motherboard, with fully up to date Win11.  The amount of time, even on
>>> a cold boot, that it takes to load, is trivial.  And PCI-e4 is
>>> standard, today, so I don't have the absolute best example to offer.
>>> That's how fast these things move, literally as a storage device, and
>>> in progress in tech.
>>
>> (sci.physics and portable linux added)
>>
>> It should not matter, I think. On your machine, compare the time it
>> takes for Knoppix on a flash drive to boot, to that of Windows 11 on
>> your internal SSD. The Knoppix I think should boot faster.

The post above refers to Win10, which is gigantic, as is 11, I see 11
in current builds as merely the natural progression of bloat by M$.
So, given that one has to run up to date builds of either version, the
system requirements are in reality the same, 1 GHz 2-core 8th gen in
Intel terms, 4 GB RAM, realistically a SATA SSD is required for
adequate performance, NVMe preferred.

So, yeah, Linux will definitely boot faster on something that *isn't*
maximized for performance today, which is PCI-e-based NVMe.

>I meant to say Knoppix on an external SSD using USB interface, not a
>flash drive.
>
>The difference should be machine-independent. I think on any machine,
>Knoppix boots faster than Windows.

Correct.

--
Joel Crump

[Physfitfreak]

Anything I blabber in this thread is with the general public in mind.
And generally I don't research beforehand, what I'm going to blabber
about in a usenet forum. So this is all lounge talk for me.

I don't think the general public has the newest best computers at home.
Their computers are like their cars. In the streets, most cars are not
new. And only once in a while you notice a Ferrari among them. Much more
often than seeing Ferraris, you see cars 15 or even 20 years old. I
think their computers at home are also like that.

And I began this thread because I think Windows is kind of a
cantankerous OS for the general public.

Example. Last weekend, I installed Windows from scratch on an empty HDD
in one of my computers to test a graphics card in Windows. I swear, by
the time it was relatively ready for me, I had grown at least an extra
1/8th of an inch of beard on my face, and it'd gone way past my bed
time. Next morning, it still wouldn't let me comfortably use it under
bombardments of a hundred different non-essential features that it
wanted to impose on me. It's the craziest computer experience that a
member of general public has to go through at home. So Windows is not
for the general public.

Right now, I am testing Knoppix to see if that suffices. And if it does,
then under what conditions and resources.

[Joel]

Physfitfreak <physfi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't think the general public has the newest best computers at home.
>Their computers are like their cars. In the streets, most cars are not
>new. And only once in a while you notice a Ferrari among them. Much more
>often than seeing Ferraris, you see cars 15 or even 20 years old. I
>think their computers at home are also like that.

This is why Linux is poised to gain market share on the desktop,
Microsoft is requiring a frantic pace of hardware upgrades.

>And I began this thread because I think Windows is kind of a
>cantankerous OS for the general public.

Definitely.

>Example. Last weekend, I installed Windows from scratch on an empty HDD
>in one of my computers to test a graphics card in Windows. I swear, by
>the time it was relatively ready for me, I had grown at least an extra
>1/8th of an inch of beard on my face, and it'd gone way past my bed
>time. Next morning, it still wouldn't let me comfortably use it under
>bombardments of a hundred different non-essential features that it
>wanted to impose on me. It's the craziest computer experience that a
>member of general public has to go through at home. So Windows is not
>for the general public.
>
>Right now, I am testing Knoppix to see if that suffices. And if it does,
>then under what conditions and resources.

Phones seem to have supplanted the PC as the device of choice.

--
Joel Crump

[Physfitfreak]

Computer makers should begin making a distinction between their business
market and their general public market. They're still leaving this
needed demand to the big tech, not themselves. And big tech can only
make various flavors of the same cantankerous product, "Home", "Pro",
"Enterpirse", ... because they're not interested in removing their
product from general market no matter what it's doing to people's
nerves. They pack the "Home" version with literally hundreds of features
that amount to making the computer just another medium for incessant
advertising.

So it is the responsibility of the computer maker to meet that need,
creating two lines of computers, one for business and one for the public.

The ones for business market can have anything under the sky in them,
including 3 days of installations and updates till computer is ready to
serve. "IT guys" of businesses do that over the weekends for them. But
the ones for the public should come without even internal storage
devices. It should be high in RAM capacity, and the package would
include a high capacity high speed external SSD using the USB interface,
with Knoppix on it! This is what serves best for the public. And it
would perhaps be even much cheaper both for the computer maker and for
the public. They wouldn't have to pay big tech anything for each
computer they sell, and they wouldn't need to equip it with expensive
internal storage.

Either Knoppix or something similar (tens of them around) should be on
that external SSD that comes with the computer, complete with just one
page of cheatsheet to use it.

I don't trust the portable ones that are developed inside USA. I may be
a bit paranoid about it, but I think there is a distinct probability
that such an OS is insidiously designed to frustrate the user, so they'd
bounce back to machines with internal storage and Windows and other
"cantankerous" OS's on them. That's why I suggest Knoppix. Big tech, or
any of your "Putin"s around the world, couldn't touch its development.

[candycanearter07]

On 11/11/23 10:57, Joel wrote:
> Phones seem to have supplanted the PC as the device of choice.

Funny enough, some companies have tried to combine them (Samsung DeX and
kinda the steam deck come to mind here)
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

[Joel]

candycanearter07 <n...@thanks.net> wrote:

>> Phones seem to have supplanted the PC as the device of choice.
>
>Funny enough, some companies have tried to combine them (Samsung DeX and
>kinda the steam deck come to mind here)

I combine them because I can jump between my computer and phone, even
utilizing different apps for IRC on each (I have IRCCloud on both, but
I use a native Windows client on my computer, primarily), many things
are doable on both devices, whichever i have at my disposal.
Incredible blessing from technology and innovative software
development, Apple gets a lot of credit for it, as well as Google,
Samsung and others.

--
Joel Crump

[Physfit Freak]

On 11/11/23 7:03 AM, Leonel Balakleevsky wrote:

> Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>>>> Booting my computer via Knoppix flash drive takes less than 1/10th of
>>>> the time compared to booting time in Windows 10 on the same computer.
>>>
>>> yes true, windows is another crap. It won't even boot from USB. But
>>> compare it with a M2 interface nvme SSD hard disk, ie 1.5 GB/s
>>> (gigabytes).
>>
>> So you are saying Windows 10 on a machine with SSD internal hard disk
>> boots faster than Knoppix on flash drive on a machine without internal
>> SSD or any other internal hard drives?
>

> I would say yes. Said above, a windows takes about 2 sec to boot. But it
> depends on how much driver it loads helping your system. Old knoppix, alot
> of drivers are not there, ie for partition types, as f2fs, exfat etc. So
> you are wasting your time.
>
>


Knoppix is not old. Last version came out in 2021.

You are speaking about new high performing computers. The average public
doesn't care about them. The public is still using computers that are
about 10 years old and want to get the best out of them.

[Physfitfreak]

Another issue. I tested Knoppix on my other computer (24 gb RAM). This
one has enough "resources."

It works without issues, but if you, in the middle of using an
application, leave the computer for like 10 minutes without touching it,
when you come back, everything on the screen is frozen. Clicks and
keyboard inputs won't work, so the task manager cannot be brought up to
force the application closed. So you'd have to just shut the computer
down manually.

Is this the same problem some of you mentioned in relation to Linux not
coming back up from sleep? If so, then why do I have stuff on the screen
as I left it, and not just a blank screen? It looks like computer
doesn't go to "sleep", but into a sudden, silent, and eternal freeze :)

Very Linux like.

But this computer is the one on which Linux Mint did the same two years
back, except with the latter it only took less than one minute to go
into that state even while you were interacting with it. With Knoppix,
it looks like, as long as you are active and are interacting with it, it
runs and runs, but when you don't interact with it, it goes into that
state. I've tested this three times so far!

Is it the computer or Knoppix?

[The Starmaker]

It's called....Crash.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=Knoppix+crash


--
The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable,
to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable,
and challenge the unchallengeable.

[Physfitfreak]

On 11/17/2023 2:11 AM, The Starmaker wrote:
> It's called....Crash.
>
> https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=Knoppix+crash

That assumes the culprit is Knoppix. I'm not sure of that.

[Physfitfreak]

On 11/16/2023 11:12 PM, DFS wrote:
> Look into "Alt-SysRq REISUB"


Alt-SysRq h is supposed to give a list of commands, but nothing comes
up. I don't want to try other letters without knowing what they do.