COMPLETE Newbie LIVE CD Guide
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LIVE CD's
What are Live CD's exactly? LIVE CD's are usually associated with GNU/Linux distributions (Operating Systems) on one CD. All utilities, GUI, kernel, are in one CD! LIVE CD's can directly boot off the CD-ROM / RW drive and run entirely from the CD, without installing it on to the hard disk.
Sources for getting Knoppix
- This mailing list has a page dedicated to it. Find it here
- If you have a high speed internet connection, with unlimited data transfer, you can download it from Knoppix (Latest version)
- Search Archives of Magazines like Digit / PCQuest etc.
- BitTorrent link on the Knoppix website mentioned above
- Emule link on the Knoppix website mentioned above
Minimum Requirements
- RAM: 128 MB (though, higher will always be better. Note, this specification is given on the assumption that the user would like to know which are the different application available for use, commonly in most GNU/Linux or Linux based operating systems)
- As a rule of thumb, Hard disk drive space a little more than double of the amount of RAM, atleast
- Bootable CD-ROM / RW drive.
Downloading and Burning the ISO
If you are downloading it from the above said websites, you would have to download it through public mirrors. A list of ftp / http mirrors are available once you click on the download link on the home page. Select one among them, which suits you, read the agreement terms, and click on Accept, if you do.
What you see next, is a page showing a long list of files containing, text files, md5 information files and iso files of different versions.
Choose the latest version and download the ISO file, the one which ends with EN.iso. Once you complete downloading the ISO file, download the file that ends with <name>.iso.md5 where <name> should be same as that of the ISO file. After the downloads are complete, you can check the md5 of the ISO file using software whose information is available here
If the MD5 checksum matches, the one given in the text (<name>.iso.md5) file, you can go ahead and burn it to a CD-R or a CD-RW using Nero or any other recording software that was supplied with your CD-RW drive. However, it is recommended that one should burn it to a CD-RW disc, if available. This is because, if there is some minor problem while writing the disc, you will end up ruining the disc.
Booting from the LIVE CD
If you didn't have to take the trouble of downloading and burning ISO's, you were lucky to have people around you who know what GNU/Linux is all about!
Assuming, you are in Windows, you can insert the CD-R / RW disc in the drive. This will open your default browser, showing the index page of Knoppix.
Reboot the computer, and press Delete button / F2 button (or whichever applicable), to enter the BIOS. Under Advanced Section for older BIOSes and Boot Configuration (or Boot) for compartively newer BIOSes, select the first bootable device as your CD-ROM / RW drive. Press F10 and save the changes.
If your display (monitor / graphics) are detected, you will see a screen, with a prompt "boot:" on the screen. If not detected, you will be asked to choose a screen width and height in a list of 8 entries. Select 0 (default)
Press "Enter" to boot Knoppix. It will automatically detect, all the peripherals and internals of the system and load the GUI. Once the desktop is loaded, the different partitions that exist on the system are listed. These are named as "Hard Disk Partition [hdax], where x stands for a number based on the type of partitions. If the number is between, 1 - 4, its usually the primary partition(s). If it is greater than or equal to 5, they are the logical partitions in the extended partition area. Therefore, your C: drive will be as "Hard Disk Partition [hda1]. Your D: drive, if as a logical partition under extended partition, will be "Hard Disk Partition [hda5]".
Single Click on icon of hard disk on the desktop, for mounting drives C:, D: etc.
That's it. You have an Operating System running off the CD!
