What Linux variant to replace Knoppix 3.6?

Tim

I have a CD of Knoppix 3.6 I made several years ago. All I ever use it for is testing computers that need fixed due to hardware or software problems. (Are there other types of problems?) Never even really learned how to use any of the programs on 3.6, I just got on the internet briefly with Konqueror and Mozilla, and that was about it. Just to see if the computer would run when its own hard drive had problems.

Only thing is that Knoppix 3.6 doesn't like the NTFS file system very much, or so I read when I was getting ready to download and burn the ISO image on the CD for it. Can't do much in the way of booting a computer off the CD and seeing and accessing everything on the hard drive.

So is there a better version of Knoppix or some other -ix OS out now that will boot and run entirely from the CD, and can read & write to the hard drive?

If there's something that can read files off the hard drive and copy then to a USB flash drive, that would be great.

Thrax

Ubuntu is pretty good, but everyone suggests ubuntu.

GrayFox

Knoppix can read ntfs fine.

ubuntu if you need to write to the drive.

drasnor

OP requires a LiveCD distro with hard drive r/w access. I always use Knoppix but SuSE and a few others also have LiveCD distros. Knoppix (and everything else) will always default to mounting NTFS volumes in read-only mode using the kernel's built-in driver. If you want to mount in read/write mode you'll need to open up a command prompt and run:

mkdir /mnt/drive_c
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/hda1 /mnt/drive_c

after which you'll have a new icon on your desktop that you can open like any other mounted volume. This code assumes your Windows volume is the first partition on the Primary IDE Master hard drive. If you're using SATA try /dev/sda1. If that doesn't work, check the output of dmesg | grep -i sd and dmesg | grep -i hd. Also note that you'll want to be running at least Knoppix 5 to have a working copy of ntfs-3g.

USB Mass Storage is supported natively in any reasonably modern kernel. Just plug and play. If the USB disk is formatted NTFS you'll need to mount it similarly to above.

-drasnor

Thrax

How close is the Linux project in general to auto-mounting NTFS?

Tex

Thrax last time I checked most would deal with a NTFS drive well in read only format. There is legal issues that prevent them from writing to it. Some distro's seem to not care. Others are scared of MS and their big club. All could write to a ntfs file system but few want to tangle with MS in a legal dispute.

Sort of like Bill gates backing into your car at the supermaket, And you have a hundred witnesses that all saw it happen.

You REALLY do not want to go to court and sue bill gates even if your 100 percent right. .

You do not have that much money.....

Cowboy

Tim

Whenever I've used the 3.6 CD to get a computer running, it'll show me some of the files on the hard drive, but not everything. I open folders and there are a few items in them but there would be way more things if I was running the computer off its normal Windows operating system.

So when someone says they need to save files from their hard drive, I can't just use the 3.6 CD to copy them or even look at them, because most of the time they don't appear on the screen.

What's the newest version of Knoppix? Someone said 5. I have an Ubuntu 6.06 LTS CD here that someone gave me. Its paper folder goes on and on about how easy it is to use. Well I tried it once, the thing wouldn't open correctly on my system, so I put it back in its folder and put it on top of my PC and it's been there a good 6-8 months now. Maybe I'll retry it sometime.

kryyst

Ubuntu is now up to 7.10 and have made some significant hardware compatibility issues when they jumped from 6 to 7. Knoppix also has made major compatibility upgrades with the recent kernel updates.

drasnor

Knoppix 3.6 is three years old. The current version of Knoppix is 5.2. The only thing I've found that doesn't work 100% of the time is wireless.

-drasnor