Knoppix • Hacker News Board

Re: Knoppix

#61

Post by satiated_grue » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

rivetfasten wrote: post #6

Knoppix was the first Linux distro I ever tried back in the early 2000s. IIRC it was only a few hundred megs. At the time it didn't have the overlayfs feature which often felt limiting since most directories were read only. Slax felt like a serious upgrade since you could install more packages after booting the CD. I think Knoppix was the original live CD distro though?

I remember running live and then installing from Yggdrasil in the early 90s on 486 with 8MB RAM and 250MB hard disk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil_Linux/GNU/X

Really liked Knoppix for a lot of things, though. Used to take it to the county used-sales office and boot the PCs they were selling to test for functionality and Linux compatibility.

Re: Knoppix

#62

Post by unethical_ban » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

I love that so many people have fond memories, and I assume it says something about the state of bootable linux distros that Knoppix is not as unique anymore.

Knoppix was my first experience with Linux over 20 years ago; my brother-in-law introduced me to it and it was really neat. "My computer isn't just Windows!"

Now with major distros offering live sessions in their installer, you can just hop into Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch.

Re: Knoppix

#63

Post by falsaberN1 » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

At one point in the very early 2000s my HDD failed and I was diskless for a while. I used Knoppix to be able to run things using a floppy to store my configs. I've been using Linux as daily driver ever since. The necessity to do a trial by fire made me pretty good at it and helped me in my professional life as well.

Thank you Knoppix.

Re: Knoppix

#64

Post by the_af » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

Wow, it's been a while since I heard that name.

Knoppix saved my bacon a couple of times, I remember using their live CD.

Re: Knoppix

#65

Post by mempko » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

This brings me back. Used the live cd (then later thumb drive) at my university whenever I needed to use the computers. Would just reboot into it.

Re: Knoppix

#66

Post by CurbStomper » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Knoppix

#67

Post by nosioptar » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

If you like Knoppix, Slitaz is also worth checking out. I think slitaz has more updated release at the moment.

Re: Knoppix

#68

Post by sombragris » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

Nice to see Knoppix featured here. This is basically the distro that pioneered the "Live CD" Linux where you can play with the full system without the need to commit to a full install. This was huge at a time where it was quite difficult for a non-technical user to install Linux. In addition, it was based on Debian, which at the time still was much more difficult to install than now, so for many people Knoppix was a way to use Debian without having to use that old installer. To top that, it used KDE.

Since then, a lot of Live Linux distros emerged, with various features offered; Debian got a much better installer; and then Knoppix dropped KDE Plasma as their desktop environment. All of that made me to move over to better "Live Linux" distros.

Re: Knoppix

#69

Post by rincebrain » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

I had a lot of use for this for a few years, there was a window where I had my first laptop's hard drive die a horrible death, but I could not afford a replacement.

Enter Knoppix and persisting any state I cared about on a thumb drive.

Of course, since RAM was so limited on devices, just installing packages and leaving the modifications taking up valuable RAM was inconvenient to do, so I went down a rabbit hole of customizing the image builds with various nonsense.

Useful dozens of other times before Ubuntu popularized live images just being a thing you supplied as table stakes, but that window of going down a customization rabbit hole and running a diskless laptop is what I remember.

Re: Knoppix

#70

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

Knoppix was basically the dawn of mass-market Linux, and I think it goes unsung. Installing Linux on a fresh computer, or even worse setting up dual boot, was way too much of a commitment to try it out. Knoppix gave us live CDs, and everybody who had been making excuses for years could test drive to their hearts content and find out it wasn't so hard.

It was certainly my Linux start. I'd been embarrassingly defying friends for years and sticking to Windows because I'm a creature of habit - thank god I jumped ship before Vista, when all my habits would have changed by force.

I think the 1-2 punch of Knoppix and Vista might be responsible for a significant portion of current Linux usage, at least in a Butterfly Effect way. People who were trying out Linux when Vista came had an easy escape hatch, and wouldn't have felt any urge to turn back until Windows had reverted to usable again.