Knoppix running on a CD is so amazing that I am telling everyone about it. No operating system has ever impressed me more. I have never seen MS Plug 'n Play (sp?) {Known to many as "Plug 'n Pray"} work as well as HotPlug? (sp?) on Knoppix. You can put a Knoppix version 3.2 disk in the CD drive of any reasonably up-to-date PC and it will quickly detect and configure all the hardware and open the KDE graphical user interface. Nevermind that the computer has MS Windows installed on the hard drive and has never before run anything else. Knoppix includes OpenOffice and an array of applications including CD burner software. If you want to really impress your non-UNIX savvy friends, put Knoppix in their machine, set the BIOS to boot from the CD and turn on the power. Knoppix will take it from there! If the system is connected to a network with the DHCP server option, your friend will be able to immediatley surf the web. Also he will be able to open MS Office documents and edit them in OpenOffice. If the system has a DVD or CD burner in addition to the drive that is running Knoppix, then I suppose you could burn a CD of something. Amazing stuff for something so quick and automatic!
Read about Knoppix, its developer; Klaus Knopper, and the software patents situation in Europe. What is the future of the GPL in Europe?
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
-- RonDuncan?
http://linux.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/4323
*Contributors
Set up the page
-- Rick Archibald - 08 Nov 2003
Added major content
-- Ron Duncan - 12 Dec 2003
Added headers & minor text revisions
-- AaronEstrada? - 13 Dec 2003
Added these revision notes & toc, also changed format
-- RickArchibald - 13 Dec 2003