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Guy Hart-Davis

"CNET Do-It-Yourself PC Upgrade Projects"

You can then store your Knoppix CD away safely with your other troubleshooting tools, ready
for trouble??”whether it strikes on your PC or that of a family member, friend, or colleague.
?—? ?—? ?—?
note
106 Part 1I: Intermediate
Step 1: Understand What Knoppix Can Do
Knoppix is one of the many different distributions of the Linux operating system.
Like many other Linux distributions, you can either download Knoppix for free or
order a CD or DVD for little more than the cost of the media and shipping.
Knoppix is what??™s called a live distribution of Linux. That means that Knoppix
boots directly from the CD or DVD in your PC??™s optical drive without you having to
install it to your PC??™s hard disk. Booting from the optical drive has several advantages,
including not changing the contents of the hard disk and being able to work when
the hard disk (or its boot sector) is out of service. (There are also disadvantages, such
as needing to access the optical drive whenever the operating system needs more
instructions??”but when you??™re recovering from a disaster, this price is easy enough
to pay.)
Knoppix is modest in its hardware requirements, needing only 128MB of RAM to
run all its features. But as usual with operating systems, the more RAM, the merrier:
Knoppix will run better, and you can even load the operating system into RAM to
make it run faster and to free up your PC??™s optical drive.


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