And since its an Open Source project, there's naturally many variations out there:
- Knoppix-STD is a Security Tools Distribution, with an amazing variety of tools included.
- Morphix is a similar project to Knoppix itself, with an emphasis on making it easy for a novice to change ["morph"] it to suit specific needs.
- Gnoppix is similar in almost all respects to Knoppix, except it uses the Gnome desktop by default.
- And the ubiquitous more, including some very interesting media specialized distributions.
As the above hints, the potential for crafting your own, portable OS with pre-set commands and codes, like passwords or PGP cryptography keys, and using that wherever, more or less anonymously is great. This book will make it all possible to do, showing brief and brilliant ways to use it and change it.
Within Knoppix Hacks, author Kyle Rankin does a superb job of bringing all the different projects together. Many of the project leaders describe their own projects and offer tips of their own, which is fascinating on its own since they amount to in-depth interviews of the project leaders.
All of the Hacks Series books are typically fast-studies on their subject, giving the reader some great ideas to ponder. Its doubtful you'd use every hack in every book, yet as a resource they stack up quite well.
Knoppix Hacks is best suited for novices to the Linux world, but there's an awful lot of information useful to present Linux users, too.
There is a CD included with the book. As of this writing it is already out of date. Specifically, KDE and Knoppix itself have updated and Linux has gotten a new kernel. As well, Knoppix has released a gaming version.
None of that should be regarded as negative, however: Linux is one of the fastest-changing OSs around, and thats the advantage.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Good review - knoppix has been considered a good gift by geeks to non-techies to get them interested in Linux.
Linux is nowhere near ready for prime time, though.
2 - Mark Saleski
Linux is nowhere near ready for prime time, though.
this is a line that has been repeated for years.
what makes you think it's not ready?
i use suse linux at home (with gnome) and it's just briliant for all of my needs.
plus, i don't have to reboot my computer once a day (or more) for no apparent reason.
3 - Aaman
To give you one example why it's not ready:
Booting Knoppix on my Dell Latitude starts DMA by default, then locks up because the CD-ROM is not recognized. Until DMA is disabled, I cannot boot up.
Another reason - application support - the enterprise apps I use all the time are not yet on Linux, despite the public efforts of all the big players, who are merely, IMHO trying to establish mindshare and positioning distinct from Microsoft.
Another reason, though this is not the fault of Linux - inertia. The sheer size of the Windows marketspace.
Incidentally, I do not need to reboot any of my systems for wierd reasons - don't install wierd stuff, work on supported apps, and you should be fine. Linux can freeze too, as you know. There is nothing unusual in a memory or application fault that can lock up or crash the OS, any OS.
4 - Mark Saleski
i write software for a living. believe me, when you stress test nt/xp over the long haul...it rots right out from under you.
5 - daneil ofosu
please I would be happy if you could send me a free cd to use to entertain my self. please my postal address is
abeka methodist church box 10896 accra north ghana
6 - Agbemor Emmanuel
Please i want you to give me some of your items through the box below: Agbemor Emmanuel Emit Elec. box 3530 Accra Ghana
7 - Eric Olsen
whoa, virtual pan-handling
8 - Victor Plenty
And both from Ghana, too. Thereby might hang a tale. If only someone here had time to research this.
(Not me... I gotta go back to work in a few minutes.)
9 - enock odai otoo
thanks