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GNOME GUI Software Linux

GNOPPIX: Bootable GNOME CD 380

Posted by michael from the sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.
ubiquitin writes "While KNOPPIX has been around for some time, the GNOPPIX project has only recently made its first release. The main difference is that it lets you boot into the GNOME desktop environment. Usually forks are more trouble than they're worth, but given the limits of what you can compress onto a single CD, separate projects makes sense to me. Hopefully more widespread recognition will also bring about a few more mirrors."
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GNOPPIX: Bootable GNOME CD More

GNOPPIX: Bootable GNOME CD

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  • shouldn't this be on freshmeat? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    shouldn't this be on freshmeat? maybe this site should be called freshdot, or slashmeat?

  • well what I prefer.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by peculiarmethod ( 301094 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @03:57PM (#6946359) Journal
    I prefer spooning with my software..

    forking, you gotta stay the night, and feel awkward that morning at breakfast..

    pm

  • Troubleshooting Potential (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mnmlst ( 599134 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @03:58PM (#6946380) Homepage Journal
    This could be just the thing for checking a system for broken hardware and/or connectivity. A tech could walk up, insert their GNOPPIX CD, boot into a GUI environment, check things out and then go. The cost for this versus propietary alternatives would be VERY attractive.

    • Re:Troubleshooting Potential (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:01PM (#6946438)
      This could be just the thing for checking a system for broken hardware and/or connectivity. A tech could walk up, insert their GNOPPIX CD, boot into a GUI environment, check things out and then go. The cost for this versus propietary alternatives would be VERY attractive.

      Gee... sort of like Knoppix which has been out for over a year.

      • Just to add more whoring... (Score:4, Informative)

        by soloport ( 312487 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @05:33PM (#6947767) Homepage
        Yes. And over a year ago, I scrounged around the lab for a thrown-away PC just so I could try Knoppix, for the first time.

        My impression: Piece of shit!!!!

        Try as I may, I couldn't 'mount -t ext2 /dev/hda[1|2|3|4|5]' to save me! Well, that was my *first* impression. It melted into shocking admiration when I discovered no hard drive in the chassis (was a really scavenged box).

        Been a loyal Knoppix fanatic ever since. [Gushes]

        In fact I was at a customer's site, last week and the customer wanted to move their ACT! DB to a centralized server (I'm not making this up). They were running Windows 95 on a PC they had manually used as a "central" ACT! DB for years. The OS wouldn't configure the NIC card I gave it, so...

        You guessed it: Knoppix to the rescue! I had that DB off the machine in less than an hour (rsync'ed to a Samba share on the main server).

        Mike, you wanna pass the plate around?

    • Troubleshooting Potential-Killer App. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Live CDs are one of Linux's "killer apps". Considering the low numbers of Live CDs out there. This is one niche that's not being fully explored. How about an Astrix Knoppix? Or a Musicians Knoppix? Same with graphics. Knoppix for schools. Knoppix for someone into the engineering arts.

    • Re:Troubleshooting Potential (Score:4, Informative)

      by numatrix ( 242325 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:08PM (#6946578)
      It could, but there are many other, better, bootable distributions for that sort of thing. Three with a security (and thus forensics and recovery) twist that are all more useful in that sort of situation are:

      F.I.R.E [dmzs.com]
      knoppix-std [knoppix-std.org]
      l.a.s. [localareasecurity.com]
    • And, Knoppix has already sold several people on Linux (want to try this Linux thing you've been hearing about? Check this out, runs off the CDROM, nothing gets changed, and it all just works). Just the fact that fully functional OS boots from their CDROM the first time has a kewlness factor...

      The problem is (I know it's a matter of personal preference, live and let live and all that) is that it's KDE and a not a very attractive version: I've personally been waiting for a Gnome-based Knoppix-like CD (ag

  • Forks (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:00PM (#6946408)
    Usually forks are more trouble than they're worth

    That's why I use chopsticks.

  • Not the only gnome remaster (Score:5, Informative)

    by numatrix ( 242325 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:00PM (#6946410)
    There are other knoppix remasters of gnome. See the full list [knoppix.net], or try a [hispalinux.es] few direct [morphix.org] (morphix has had gnome for a while) links [yoper.com].

  • Knoppix originally supported GNOME (Score:3, Informative)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:01PM (#6946436) Homepage
    Then it gave up.

    Too unstable, too unreliable, too much work to keep up. Meanwhile, KDE Just Worked.

    Things might be better now, though.

    --Dan

  • Nothing new here... (Score:5, Informative)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:01PM (#6946445)
    Morphix has had a Gnome version available for some time now as well as KDE and XFCE4 versions.

    morphix.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]

    >Currently, iso's with XFCE4, Gnome2.2, KDE3.1 and a game iso are available for download! Morphix is an Open >Source/Free software project, based on Debian GNU/Linux and Knoppix. For more information, check the FAQ

    Now had it been Gnome 2.4... that would have been news. :)

  • How do you pronounce this? (Score:4, Funny)

    by devphaeton ( 695736 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:02PM (#6946452)
    Yet another linux live-cd with essentially the same spoken name.

    "Hey, what are you running?"

    "'noppix!"

    "which one?"

    (note: i know some people say it "gah-nome, gah-noo", but where i'm from the G is silent in front of an N. Same with the K in Knoppix)

  • Pronounce... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Creedo ( 548980 )
    Wouldn't those be pronounced the same way? Makes it a little confusing to talk about.
    • What do you mean by "Makes it a little confusing to talk a boot?"
    • see, in order for this confusion to occur, a slashdotter would actually have to interact with another person in real life. However, on the internet, where we slashdotter's reside, everying is pronounced with spelled-out. so you see, there isn't any problem after all.

  • This story posted... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:03PM (#6946481) Homepage
    This story posted for your enjoyment by a KDE Zealot who wanted to kill the Gnoppix project and melt it's webserver beore it had a chance to gain in popularity.

  • Any BitTorrent Mirrors? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:06PM (#6946538) Journal
    That's really the way to distribute things like this without getting Slashdotted...
    • Remember when Slashdot fractured the BitTorrent Community after Slashdot reported that BitTorrent had DVD-quality copies of Matrix:Reloaded?

      Slashdot easily DDOS'd all the popular BitTorrent servers on that fateful day, because people posted links to good BitTorrent copies of the Matrix:Reloaded.

  • Usefulness of Bootable Linux Distros (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sremack ( 701659 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:06PM (#6946548)
    Bootable Linux distros should not be looked at as standalone OSes. Instead, they should be used for some specific purpose. One could test hardware configurations, recover some aspect of an old Linux partition, or even do a complete forensic investigation. I really like how you can create your own bootable Linux distro using Eagle Linux [w32.net]. One example is the bootable Linux project, FIRE (on sourceforge).
    • In a Windows environment you could use a Knoppix CD to grab files off an unbootable windows install. Knoppix would have been great for me when I had that happen, but at the time I had to put mandrake on a second partition and mount the ntfs partition, burn needed files, and then reinstall everything.
  • ...a text-only Knoppix/Gnoppix workalike for us geeks. Where everything is console-only (including Curses-based stuff and the like). Heck, they could even throw in AAlib-based Quake ;) Or not.

    But by making a text-only Knoppix (Toppix?), they would produce a really nifty research platform, and could include a ton more stuff (since text-only software tends to be a lot smaller than graphical stuff)...
    • I know a pile of guys that have essentially made thier own rescue disks with everything but X servers and X apps on it.

      I prefer the text-only model for rescue.

      On the other hand, you bring up another interesting point about "fitting it all on a CD".

      Just a couple of years ago a CD was considered ENORMOUS. Hell, i remember several years ago when you could fit an entire OS on a floppy.

      I think a lot of developers are getting complacent these days and are less efficient when writing code. I'm noticing a lot

    • Re:How about "Toppix"? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just boot Knoppix with the "txt" option at the commandline you like so much to run a text only version of Linux.
      • However, you still have X and KDE taking up space on the disc, where there may be other things you'd rather have on a true text-only disc. I, for one, would love to see a "Toppix."

  • All right! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by djeaux ( 620938 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:10PM (#6946610) Homepage Journal
    I recently "discovered" KNOPPIX as a nice way to have a Linux environment (and some favorite tools) anywhere.

    I've handed out a number of copies of the CD, too, to friends & colleagues who aren't brave enough to go through the whole repartition shindig to put a dual boot installation on their Windows box but who are curious about Linux. Knoppix has raised more than a few eyebrows around here. While I'm not exactly a "Linux evangelist," I do enjoy watching people expand their horizons. KNOPPIX (and now GNOPPIX) can be useful tools for winning "converts," if that's important to you.

    GNOPPIX means that now I can hand 'em two CDs & say, "This one brings up the KDE desktop & this one brings up GNOME, so you can see what all the brouhaha is about."

    That is, I'll be able to do that after the GNOPPIX site recovers from being /.ed or puts up a few gazillion more mirrors ;-) It may be faster just to wait for the KNOPPIX folks to finish their DVD image...

  • This is excellent (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:11PM (#6946637) Homepage Journal
    for people interested in getting into Linux but are not ready for formatting and installing Linux themselves. It gives them a taster for what it could be like! Bravo!

  • Now we need to make a bootable live DVD-RW distro. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LinuxMan ( 3590 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:12PM (#6946646)
    It would be really cool to take KNOPPIX to the next level: DVD-RW knoppix, where you can actually save your changes on the disk. (albeit slowness) Theoretically, you could write a certain amount of information to it, until you have filled up the disc, then have a mechanism to write a new clean DVD-RW with just the most modern information. That with a very driver heavy Linux kernel should allow for your "desktop" being exactly the same on any machine you insert the disc into!

    Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition [amazon.com]

    • USB storage (Score:5, Informative)

      by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:27PM (#6946891) Homepage
      In case you do not know, you can buy a cheap USB Flash storage device and use that for your Home dir.

      Support is included in the lates Knoppix 4.2 release.

  • finally (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Miguel de Icaza ( 660439 )
    actually knoppix used to carry a half-hearted gnome desktop effort back in the day, until klaus understandably dropped it to make room for extra kDE eye candy. there are already plenty of essential gtk apps on the Knoppix cd today, just no desktop. the cool thing about kde 3.1 is it enforces KDE themes and colors onto gtk programs so you can hardly tell the difference apart from things like transparent snap-on menus, font rendering hints, and other (imo) unneccceesssary eye-candy. Eclipse running on knoppix

    • Re:finally (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Moderators: while the comment itself seems fine, this user is a troll, it is not the *real* Miguel de Icaza from Ximian.

      Look at his post history and you'll see.

      Please mode him down as a troll; no one should be playing such games here;

      The real Miguel:
      http://slashdot.org/~miguel/

  • Patent Issues? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Breezway ( 704675 )
    I hope this project got around the patent issues that are plaguing KNOPPIX. Good bootcds are wonderful and put bootfloppies to shame. KNOPPIX is currently closed - view their current page and not the old one that was /.ed.

  • But.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fr33z0r ( 621949 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:17PM (#6946724)
    Knoppix used to have gnome on it (accessable via a cheat code [linuxtag.org]

    Such is my understanding anyway, I've never used a version with Gnome, but there's plenty about it on various messageboards (it got removed before the latest versions because it had "problems" - hopefully this version is what it seems to be on the site - a completely seperate distro, and not just a hack of knoppix that is plagued by the same problems)

  • Window managers ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Flossymike ( 461164 )
    Actually one of the reasons I've played with Knoppix is because you can try out different window mangers very easily...

    While booting up up you get the choose of going for help, and if you do that you will see the choose of different window managers to try.

    Not sure about the need for another live distro (but I'll qualify that with a what ever scratches an iche) then again, anything that has the same quality as knoppix is sure to impress any on looking windows users :-)

  • BAH! (Score:5, Funny)

    by da3dAlus ( 20553 ) <dustin.grauNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:25PM (#6946861) Homepage Journal
    *sings* "You say k-noppix, I say g-noppix"
    Eh, let's call the whole thing off...
  • I love these Linux on CD projects.

    Go into a computer lab... computer not working? Oh well. Just pop in CD, and do your work. How great that is.

    Would be nice if they could interact with a USB keychain drive better (keep your home directory on that, so you can write to it).

    The perfect solution for anyone who must ensure they can get on a computer.
    • Would be nice if they could interact with a USB keychain drive better (keep your home directory on that, so you can write to it).

      I haven't tried it with a USB keychain drive, but it is mentioned in the KNOPPIX documentation [knoppix.net]. The online docs explain how to set up a persistent /home with KNOPPIX 3.1, but the capability is built into 3.2.

    • Morphix command saveconfig will burn your config to a usb device.

  • Another Press Release From SCO (Score:4, Funny)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:29PM (#6946929) Homepage
    To increase the relevance of SCO in the current IT market, they put out a new press release regarding this Gnoppix CD:

    Dateline 9/12/2003 -- a day after the anniversary of a great tragedy, the terrorists have struck again by continuing to disrespect our Intellectual Property. The Gnoppix CD is in clear violation of everything we stand for. It should be stopped.

    In response to Gnoppix and its predecessor Knoppix, our last programmer (since we've turned to a litigation-based business model) was asked to create SCOppix with which you could try our operating system without having to install it onto your hard drive, thus avoiding violating our IP. Users of SCOppix will not be targeted in any of our litigation.

    All users will be required to click through our EULA which states that by clicking, they agree that SCO owns Linux, the user's computer, the user's house, the user's underpants (UNDERPANTS? isn't that just silly? Guess it hasn't stopped us before so why not), and all his base, and will thus be forced to become indentured servants of SCO. Furthermore, by accessing the CD with their computers, they will immediately be charged $699 anyway.

    We are firm in our resolve that our Intellectual Property rights will be enforced to the far reaches of the planet. Every human, every penguin, every gnome (are you sure this is good to mention?) using our IP shall be charged until we can all sleep soundly at night knowing our children are safe from these terrorists. (and our bank accounts profit from this great pump-and-dump business model).

  • Hope this becomes a new trend; especially with DVD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bsharma ( 577257 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:29PM (#6946936)
    Hope this becomes a new trend; especially with DVDs. Then we can get rid of OS from hard drive entirely and just use a universally recognized file system on the HDD. You can boot whatever OS you want with the DVD and get the work done. Imagine four different people in your home using the same machine with four different OSs. The ultimate Virtual Machine!

  • EASIEST DEBIAN (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:33PM (#6947009)
    This is now the easiest way of getting a debian system because the knoppix\morphix installer is so much better.

    It creates a working system from the CDROM then gives you the option of installing to hard disk. Then with the setup version of APT the rest is childs play.

    This should have happened to Debian ages ago -- it kicks the pants out of Redhat and its update proceedures. If you haven't tried it do....

    • Re:EASIEST DEBIAN (Score:2, Informative)

      by katsushiro ( 513378 )
      ACtually, I know everyone's ignoring this post because it's by an AC, but he's got a very good point. Knoppix makes a Debian install absolutely brainless. I've used other distros before (Red Hat, Mandrake, Lycoris, mostly user-friendly desktop distros, I'm a Linux fan but not a hardcore Linux hacker, I just want an Open Source/Free desktop that *works*), but friends and net people kept telling me how much Debian rocked, how apt-get was better than sex, etc. etc. etc., so when I got my hands on a old PII mac

    • Re:EASIEST DEBIAN (Score:4, Informative)

      by dilute ( 74234 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @05:12PM (#6947548)
      Yes, Knoppix is a painless way to do an installation that trivially converts to official Debian. There is no catch that I am aware of.
    • I haven't tried knoppix's installer. But to me the strength in the debian installer is that it's very simple to set up a basic system and then apt-get install only what I need. I can't stand these distro that by default install 8000 packages you'll never need, or even know are there. Does knoppix's installer install KDE, openoffice, etc automatically?

  • Word to the wise... (Score:5, Informative)

    by bahamat ( 187909 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:35PM (#6947043) Homepage
    I saw this posted on Debian Planet [debianplanet.org] a few days ago and already downloaded a copy.

    Unless you speak German, or are very familiar with the GNOME interface you're going to have a hard time using this. Booting with lang=en and setting your session type to en_US still won't switch the language to English. Now I have a nice coaster with "GNOPPIX 0.5" written with a Sharpie on it.

    Too bad too. The only reason to get this over Knoppix or Lnx-BBC is for GNOME. Save your bandwidth for a few versions at least until the English support gets fixed. This is really a "too early to be slashdotted over" release, and they're going to lose a lot of potential users because of it's current condition.

    It's also missing vital tools that all other live cds have, namely the ability to set up TCP/IP. The GNOME Network thingy didn't work, dhclient didn't work, there's no pump.

    Gnoppix has potential to fill a nice little niche in the community, and when it's ready it'll be cool. But unless you're planning on helping out as a developer, wait on this one.
    • Any idea why it's missing all this stuff? I mean, Knoppix has TCP/IP tools, etc, so why doesn't Gnoppix?
      • I think they are trying to minimize the size of the system so it will fit on a mini-CD or one of those business card CD's.

        Still, it's a pain to not have any of that stuff. And, since it's running from CD, it's not so easy to just install more packages.

  • The gnome translate-o-matic! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:44PM (#6947187)
    Ever since Gnome 2.4 was released, I have found more and more gnome zealots who MUST absolutely advocate GNOME at every possible moment. Here is a guide to some of their claims, and what they really mean.

    Unlike KDE, gnome is free
    Translation : GPL is freerer than LGPL. LGPL allows corporations like Ximian and Sun to have propeitry forks and lock away their changes from the user. Now that novell has taken over ximan you can expect gnome to get put under corpirate lock.

    Nautilus is much better than konqueror.
    Wrong, if your using nautilus for anything more than a simple finder clone you can forget it. No split screen, no ioslaves and forget about being able to have a decent file dialog.

    Gnome is easier to use
    Yep, nothing like using gconf-editor to edit all except the most trivial of settings

    Gnome has eye candy
    Yes, my pirated Win32 fonts with the patent infringing font renderer. Bit stream vera sans looks like Tahoma put through a shreadder!

    Gnome has a new web browser
    Yawb! Along with Galeon, mozilla, thunderbird, konqueror, atlantis, lynx, netscape and w3m. Yes i need another browser! Not to mention that its got a religiously offensive name and it dosen't allow bookmark folders. It also crashes like a crazy! Apple chose khtml for a REASON! its stable and light!

    Gnome is themeable
    Yep, choose from High, low and medium contrast, default, and clean ice. Wan't to change the colour scheme? USE GCONF NOOB.

    Gnome has multimedia framework
    Its a kludge of esd combined with broken xine libraries. No wonder it crashes all the time and dosen't work on 95% of video files

    Gnome allows mac like operatoin.
    x86 compatible 1 button mice are almost impossible to find, and it dosen't copy the whole macbar concept. Not to even mention their auto apply implementation is broken and dangerous! Plus if they did actually come anywhere close to copying the mac the C&D letters would come flying up their asses!

    Gnome is GNU software.
    gnu/Yay, gnu/gnome gnu/for gnu/my gnu/debian gnu/linux gnu/500mhz /gnu/celeron gnu/packard gnu/bell gnu/box.

    Inspired by the gentoo translate-o-matic.

  • Where's LAPTOPPIX? (Score:3, Informative)

    by NoOneInParticular ( 221808 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:47PM (#6947227)
    Just checked out Knoppix on a new laptop and noticed there wasn't any APM (APCI) support built in the kernel. Does anyone work on a cd to be used for a basic working linux install on a laptop?
  • I realise that the bochs and plex86 projects are still in alpha stages, but is there any plan to port a knoppix CD to run under bochs? Then, if you provided different emulation binaries for different OS's(win98, 2000, linux, freebsd, etc...), you could run your own linux virtual system from the CD without having to reboot.
  • Anyone know the Kernel version of this release? I tried Knoppix, but due to Alan Cox's "patch" my sound doesnt work under linux (the only think keeping me on windows as of now). If this release is running 2.4.22, My switch is complete :D

  • Morphix+Gnoppix (Score:5, Informative)

    by AlXtreme ( 223728 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @04:59PM (#6947390) Homepage Journal
    well, I do want to note that Morphix has had a Gnome module for about 6 months now (was the second thing i made, after the really nice XFCE4 desktop-module, my personal fav.). Saw something about Gnome 2.4 in another comment... you never know what I have been cooking up :)

    anyway, Gnoppix will be using Morphix's install/configuration tools. I've talked to Sven of the Gnoppix team, and it seems like they don't like inventing the wheel again, so we'll work on them together (now just to convince them on using our modular design, but we'll leave that for another day). You can read his notice here [sourceforge.net].

    Currently we have the (gtk2) installer and a few configuration tools, but a (gtk2) partitioner is nearing completion which will replace cfdisk, together with a few new tools bundled together in a control-panel-thingy. Debian is too nice to be user-unfriendly :)

  • ... a bootable Linux distro that has Freevo on it. Just insert CD, boot, and it's all ready to go, freeing up the entire hard drive for recording and time-shifting live TV.
  • If you're looking for a 50 MB live Linux, try Damn Small Linux [damnsmalllinux.org]

  • Knoppix has Gnome too! (Score:5, Informative)

    by bazik ( 672335 ) <bazik&gentoo,org> on Friday September 12, 2003 @05:38PM (#6947813) Homepage Journal
    Err, whats the use of Gnoppix?

    With Knoppix you can just enter

    knoppix desktop=gnome

    at the boot prompt and it gives you a wonderfull Gnome2 desktop.

  • The OS we really need... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Andrewkov ( 140579 ) on Friday September 12, 2003 @06:02PM (#6948057)
    What we really need is an Emacs live CD, forget Linux! Just boot into Emacs!

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