[Nottingham] A newbie speaks... nervously

[Robert Hart]

On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 13:37, Matt Hurst wrote:

> 1. Am I right in thinking Knoppix is based on Red Hat? If so, given
>    Knoppix seems to find almost all my hardware and run fine, is that
>    going to be the best distro to go for? In which case, RH9?

No, it's Debian actually. Although having said that the "flawless
hardware support" is probably the bit of Knoppix that differs most
strongly from debian.

Redhat are giving up producing a Linux distribution, so now may not be
the best time to start using it, given the wide range of alternatives.

Everybody has their favourites of course. I know a lot of the people on
this list (including me) would swear by debian, but I think that's
because it's the last distribution you'll ever need, not the first (if
that makes sense)

> 2. Knoppix seems to have problems with my sound card. XMMS runs, but nowt
>    comes out of the speakers, and the test config only produces eerie
>    silence, claims to have installed the card fine (an AC97), but in fact
>    doesn't work. I've checked the cables, and the mixer. Any thoughts?

You don't happen to know what the card is? How old is your Knoppix CD?
Soundcard support depends on the version of the linux kernel you have.
If you are going to install linux on your hard drive, it shouldn't be
too difficult to get it working.

> 3. I'm on ntl cable broadband, using an external modem (one of the silver
>    ones) through my USB port, and Knoppix is a bit iffy about it.
>    Sometimes it'll function flawlessly. Sometimes it's okay for a few
>    minutes then drops the connection. Is there a known Linux driver for
>    these things? What's the best way round it, because the absence of a
>    net connection really is the deal breaker when it comes to Linux.

I have one too, but I use ethernet, rather than USB to connect to it. It
may be something better support by more recent kernels. I'm sure others
on the list will tell you.

Rob

-- 
Robert Hart <enxrah at nottingham.ac.uk>
University of Nottingham