Distributions

KANOTIX - The Knoppix Improved

Is there a little-known Linux distribution consistently rated as one of the best by a large and varied spectrum of Linux users? If we were to name one, it would surely have to be KANOTIX, a Knoppix-based live and installation CD, which was, until recently, one of the best-kept secrets of the Linux distribution world. Launched in early 2004 by Joerg Schirottke, a computer science graduate from Kulmbach, Germany, the fame of the increasingly popular KANOTIX project has spread mainly due to the many time-saving improvements over its better-known parent. Here is a list of some of the more interesting features of KANOTIX:

• KANOTIX has improved considerably Klaus Knopper's hardware auto-detection and auto-configuration module. Users report that KANOTIX is one of the very few distributions that boots into a graphical desktop with touchpads on most notebooks working straight away. Many digital cameras, PDAs, and storage devices are configured on the fly, while wireless networking, both for network access and printing, is also ready for use right after the boot. Granted, some of these modules are experimental and might cause problems in certain hardware configurations - this is why Klaus Knopper has been reluctant to include them in Knoppix. But for many novice and medium-skilled Linux users such superb autoconfiguration of their hardware is a blessing, and a welcome surprise, compared to most other distributions.
  
  
• KANOTIX has been optimized for notebooks. We have mentioned the automatic configuration of touchpads, but that's not the whole story. The distribution also includes PowerNowd, a daemon which works as a client of the CPUFreq driver and which has an ability to adjust the speed of the CPU depending on system load.
  
  
• KANOTIX can be installed on one's hard disk with a simple graphical installer. While this program was originally developed for Knoppix, the KANOTIX maintainers have made a number of behind-the-scenes improvements. As a result (and in the true spirit of the GPL), the KANOTIX installer is now used by both KANOTIX and Knoppix, where it has been given preference over the original installer.
  
  
• As with most live CDs nowadays, KANOTIX also provides a way to save user's configuration and preferences to a variety of storage media, including floppy disks, USB pen drives, and hard disks. An interesting variation of this task is that if the settings are saved to a hard disk partition, specifying "myconfig=scan" at boot time will make KANOTIX search all hard disks for the settings file and load it automatically, without the user having to remember the location. Needless to say, the ability to set a persistent /home directory is also present in KANOTIX.
  
  
• The latest version of KANOTIX uses the Unionfs file system. While this is also true for the more recent releases of Knoppix, the KANOTIX developers have made a number of unusual enhancements to the concept. Firstly, Unionfs is optional; to activate it, "unionfs" has to be added to the boot prompt. However, if the KANOTIX hardware detection program detects the presence of ATI or NVIDIA drivers, it will enable Unionfs automatically - this way the users can easily install any proprietary ATI or NVIDIA graphics drivers, if they so desire. Unionfs can also be loaded either as read-only (unionro) to prevent files from being overwritten, or as read-write (unionrw), and it can even be activated after the CD is fully booted, although this will only set the Unionfs into the home directory.
  
  
• KANOTIX comes with a selection of applications that is probably better suited for an average home user that those included in Knoppix. Firefox has been the default browser for several releases and many will find the presence of the Guarddog firewall or the Skype telephony application a pleasant surprise. Firefox also comes pre-configured with the Java plugin. The best of all, however, is the ability to install more applications through klik, a sophisticated web-based interface for installing software on Knoppix and KANOTIX. New programs can be installed either with a single mouse click while browsing the applications on the above-mentioned web site, or by typing "klik://program_name" in Firefox. The range of available software is surprisingly large, including many non-free programs, such as the Flash plugin, Real Player, Acrobat Reader, NVIDIA and ATI drivers, just to mention the more obvious ones. Beta versions of certain popular software packages, e.g. OpenOffice.org 2.0, are also provided for one-click download and installation.
  
  
• The developers of KANOTIX have also written a large number of specialist bash scripts for various tasks. These are located in /usr/local/bin and although they are not well commented (or documented), most of them have self-explanatory names. The scripts vary from configuring hardware drivers to starting services, fixing problems, and installing software.
  
  
• A 64-bit edition of KANOTIX has also been released. This is one of the very few live CDs providing native support for the AMD64 and Intel EM64T processors. The live CD is based on the "pure64" branch of Debian Sid, with a compatibility layer to run certain 32-bit applications, such as OpenOffice.org.

It is hard not to be impressed with KANOTIX. We know of several users who have tried dozens of Linux distributions before finally settling on KANOTIX (because KANOTIX just works, they declare confidently), with no more interest in trying other distributions. The project's success formula is simple: take all the hard configuration work away from the users - instead, present them with a complete and pre-configured desktop ready to be enjoyed to the full. Whether as a live CD or a full distribution installed on hard disk, KANOTIX beats the competition by including dozens of under-the-hood improvements that makes Linux equal, if not better, than any other desktop operating system available today.

Comments (4 posted)

Preparation of the next stable Debian GNU/Linux update (IV)

The (most probably) last revision of Debian 3.0 (Woody) is underway and may be out by the time you read this. There will be no more Woody updates once the Sarge release is finalized, which could be any day now.

Full Story (comments: none)

Debian sarge release update

An update on the Debian sarge release process has been posted. The release team is still chasing a few serious problems, so the release has been pushed back to June 6. "We're at a point now where more hands are not going to speed up the release, though, so if you aren't already involved in these tasks, you might want to just relax for a bit and start your Release Party preparations."

Full Story (comments: 9)

Cybernet Systems Sponsors the NetMAX Desktop Project

Cybernet Systems has announced that it is sponsoring the NetMAX Desktop Project, a development group that aims to produce a full-featured desktop package, licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL and based on the company's NetMAX Server distribution.

Comments (none posted)

Trustix Secure Linux now available via BitTorrent

Trustix has announced the availability of Trustix Secure Linux Installation ISO images for downloading via BitTorrent.

Full Story (comments: none)

Two new Gentoo based Live CD distributions

Thanks to Michael Schuh we have added two new distributions to our list. Both are Gentoo-based live CD variants. Pentoo is a live CD that comes with GNOME and lots of tools for penetration testing, currently at version 2005.1. Navyn OS may be run as a live CD, or installed to hard drive. This one focuses on network security and comes with a variety of tools for port scanning, password sniffing, searching for vulnerabilities on remote systems, and more.

Comments (none posted)

Debian Weekly News

The Debian Weekly News for May 31, 2005 looks at plans to optimize the LDAP gateway to the bugtracking system (after the Sarge release), Nokia's Debian-powered device, debian-legal summaries, preparations for Debconf5, Debian Day at LinuxTag 2005, and several other topics.

Full Story (comments: none)

Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of May 30, 2005 is out. This edition covers the donation of new AMD64 hardware, a documentation status update, developer of the week Damien Krotkine, and more.

Full Story (comments: none)

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 102

The DistroWatch Weekly for May 30, 2005 is out. "Last week, your DistroWatch staff had the extreme pleasure to meet with Dr Richard M Stallman, a truly fascinating, albeit controversial figure, dedicated to fight for our computing freedom; Robert Storey has summarised the experience. Also in this week's issue - a brief look at Libranet GNU/Linux 3.0 and a call for voting on which new packages you want to see tracked by DistroWatch from next month."

Comments (none posted)

Fedora updates

Fedora Core 3 updates: system-config-netboot-0.1.16-1_FC3 (fixes problems with generating unusable initrd.img diskless boot images, missing snapshot files, running /sbin/init at boot, and various python warnings), system-config-bind-4.0.0-16 (fix out-of-zone data reporting), netpbm-10.27-4.FC3 (fix segfault in pnmcolormap).

Comments (none posted)

Trustix Secure Linux updates

TSL-2005-0026 - multi addresses problems in anaconda, bittorrent, iptables, lilo, mod_perl, openldap, php, php4, pptpd, samba and squid for Trustix Secure Linux 2.1, Trustix Secure Linux 2.2 and Trustix Enterprise Server 2.

Full Story (comments: none)

Linspire 5.0, The Linux Desktop For The Masses (LinuxElectrons)

LinuxElectrons reviews Linspire Five-0. "Linspire has chosen to eliminate some of the bloat that ships with most Distro's. Linspire doesn't have kmail, evolution, or even nine audio mixers. Most distributions ship with full versions of Gnome and KDE, plus some, that's a lot of overlap. Keven Carmony, CEO of Linspire, commented, "Linspire is Linspire because we touch pretty much every package in the OS". "We rarely just take a package and put it in our OS without polishing it up, adding features, fixing bugs, etc". Don't fret, you can still fire up CNR and download all the applications you want."

Comments (none posted)

My Workstation OS: Scientific Linux (NewsForge)

NewsForge hears from a Scientific Linux fan. "Scientific Linux (SL) might seem a strange choice as a desktop operating system for someone who is retired, disabled, and elderly, and who has relatively little scientific or programming knowledge, but I get great excitement from exploring the art of Linux distributions, and with Scientific Linux, that excitement is amplified by knowing I'm using the same operating system that is being used by many of the world's leading scientists."

Comments (none posted)

Review: FreeBSD 5.4 (NewsForge)

NewsForge has a short review of FreeBSD 5.4. "One of the oldest Unix-like operating systems, FreeBSD, continues its advancement with the sixth release in the FreeBSD-5 series. Its developers have added nothing major, but have made many modifications, fixing a number of problems introduced in previous releases. FreeBSD 5.4 is the best release since 5.1, but it still may not be ready for prime time."

Comments (none posted)