Help

[sceithamer]

I have been trying to use KNOPPIX live cd. I downloaded the dvd version, burned it to a disk and rebooted my computer. I then get a non bootable disk error. I used Nero to burn the disk. I am not sure what I am doing wrong but I am very interested in trying Linux.

I really want to see how it works before I load a full version on my computer. Which I have noticed there are many different kinds. My wife will be using this computer so it will need to be user friendly. LOL Funny but very true. And since I have never used Linux before I have no idea what I am getting into. But Void Main has been talking this up on another forum so I thought I would give it a try. A couple of questions,


1- what Linux is easy to use?

2 – Is there a maul tie user ( like windows) available with Linux?

3 – Will all pc programs run on Linux. If I loaded Microsoft office on it would it run it.

4 – Is this a DOS program and if so will I be typing in commands in a command prompt or does it run like windows?

5 – If I went with Linux do any of the available versions actually load itself over windows or do I have to uninstall windows?

I hope these aren’t too ridiculous of questions. Thanks for the help.

[Void Main]

I have been trying to use KNOPPIX live cd. I downloaded the dvd version, burned it to a disk and rebooted my computer. I then get a non bootable disk error. I used Nero to burn the disk. I am not sure what I am doing wrong but I am very interested in trying Linux.

I'll just start by trying to help you with this first one. If you get a non bootable disk error then either the disk was burned incorrectly or the image is messed up. You first need to verify that the image is perfectly in tact. Here is a document to tell you how to check the md5 sum:

http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/verifyiso.html

Once you are sure the image is perfectly in tact here are some Nero burning instructions:

http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/neroburning.html

Since I don't use Nero or Windows I can't really say how accurate these instructions are but they should be correct.

I guess I will address one of your other questions now as well. Regarding it being easy enough for someone in the family who might not be that computer literate I can say that my wife and two kids are not anywhere close to being computer geeks and they have gotten along with Linux just fine for the last 8 years or so (when I got rid of Microsoft completely from my house). My kids have done all their school work via Linux and both have been near the top of their class throughout their entire school life. My daughter graduates from high school this weekend and got a great academic scholarship to college. Mind you, they are not computer geeks like I am. What I can say is that it is a very rare occasion that I have to help them with anything and I *never* have to fix anything that they have broken because nothing ever breaks. In fact they really couldn't break something if they wanted to. :) With that said, Linux is not Windows, but I consider that a good thing.

[sceithamer]

Ill give those instructions a try. Hopefully tonight.

I really hope this works because I really hate windows. I constantly have to reload drivers or lost dll files. Don’t ask me how she is doing it but my wife is like a walking disaster with computers!! LOL

You say your kids use it for school. Ours have home work that involves using some Microsoft office programs, that is why I was asking if I would be able to run Microsoft programming on a Linux platform.

Congratulations on the collage scholarship. My 20 year old is going to collage but im flipping the bill. Well not the whole bill but enough.

[Void Main]

You say your kids use it for school. Ours have home work that involves using some Micro$oft office programs, that is why I was asking if I would be able to run Micro$oft programming on a Linux platform.

I can't imagine that they "must" use Microsoft Office. If they did I would definitely be making some complaints to the school. That's like saying you must practice your driving for drivers education only in a Ford. I was prepared to rock that boat with my kids but to my surprise I never had to. As far as I am concerned OpenOffice.org should be the standard that schools require since it is free, open source, open format, and runs on the most platforms.

Rather than being forced to spend the several hundred dollars on the crappy Microsoft stuff I (and my kids) use OpenOffice.org which is basicially the equivalent to MS Office. It's free and Open Source and comes with most Linux distributions, and it will open MS office documents and save docements in MS Office format. All of the OpenOffice apps are very very similar to MS Office apps and they should have no problem using it for their school work. In addition to the Linux version of OpenOffice.org there is also a version for Windows, Macintosh, Sun Solaris and FreeBSD so unlike MS Office your documents are compatible between the largest number of systems.

Here is the main site for OpenOffice.org if you wanted to download a copy (it should be included with your linux distribution so you should only have to download it if you wanted to run it on your Windows machine):

http://www.openoffice.org/

Having said that, if you *must* run MS Office there is a product called "CrossOver Office" that is a commercial version of "Wine" (like a Windows emulator for Linux) that will allow you to install Microsoft Office right on your Linux machine and run it. Here's the web site you can get this:

http://www.codeweavers.com/

There is also a way to actually run a copy of Windows directly inside of a running copy of Linux using virtual machines. So basically you will run Linux and Windows side by side at the same time and you can run MS Office on the Windows instance. The best product to allow this is currently also a commercial product called VMware:

http://www.vmware.com/

Personally, I think you should be able to get by nicely without any commercial application once you get things up and running smoothly and you figure out the differences. between the applications (which can range from not much of a difference to a very large difference depending on the app).

[sceithamer]

Ok I tried the md5sum and now I get a missing parameter or keyword missing error.

I don’t have a problem downloading a new live cd if you think it will help.

[Void Main]

Ok I tried the md5sum and now I get a missing parameter or keyword missing error.

I don’t have a problem downloading a new live cd if you think it will help.

Don't download it again unless you are sure the other one is bad. How did you run the md5sum program? It sounds like you didn't give it the name of the image as a parameter assuming you are running a command line version of md5sum:

Code: Select all

md5sum KNOPPIX_V4.0.2DVD-2005-09-23-EN.iso


It should output an alphanumeric string that looks something like this:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/ ... EN.iso.md5

Code: Select all

5dc82e80d5430d306f3eb2a008529844 *KNOPPIX_V4.0.2DVD-2005-09-23-EN.iso


Find the *.md5 sum file that matches the ISO image you downloaded and that string should match exactly the string that your md5sum command outputs. If it does the image is good and it should burn to a DVD and boot. If it doesn't match then something was wrong with the way you downloaded the image. It must be exact.

[sceithamer]

No matter what I do when type in md5sum in my command prompt I get a

‘md5sum’ is not recognized as an internal or external command

So I can’t get it to do anything for me. When I opened the file after downloading, it flashed my command prompt for a second. That was it. Did it install?

[Void Main]

It sounds like you downloaded the dos shell version of md5sum which means you have to either copy the md5sum program into a directory in your PATH or put it in the same directory as your image file. Otherwise download the GUI version:

http://www.md5summer.org/

[sceithamer]

Well you should love this. 697 errors. So should I delete the existing file and download a new one?

[Void Main]

Huh? 697 errors on what? Whether the ISO image file is good or bad there should be no errors. It will either produce a matching md5sum string or a non-matching md5sum string. I'm confused on where any errors would be coming from.

[sceithamer]

Well i guess im screwing this up. First i downloaded the latest vesion 1.2.0.5 from http://www.md5summer.org/download.html

Then i downloaded GNU Win II Installer from the same link. That gave me a desktop icon to use. I started the progam and pointed it to the file holding the Linux progam and it told me i have 697 errors.

You think your confused LOL I will try and play with it somemore.

[Void Main]

Ok, sorry about the confusion. As I said, I don't use Windows so I am not actually familiar with md5summer program and how it works. I just downloaded it and ran it under wine in Linux and see what you mean about the errors. What you should be able to do is click "Create Sums" then navigate to your ISO image file in the left window and click "Add" then click "OK". It should create an MD5 hash. You can save it in a file but all you really need to know is what that string of characters is what it says in the right window. It should match the string of characters in the *.md5 file that is located in the same place you got the ISO image file from. If you have the file named
"KNOPPIX_V4.0.2DVD-2005-09-23-EN.iso" then your md5 hash should be:

5dc82e80d5430d306f3eb2a008529844

If it's something else then your ISO image is corrupt.

[sceithamer]

I dont know if i did it right but it looked the same.

[Void Main]

If it was exactly the same then your image is fine and you don't need to download another one. So, that would indicate that you did not burn it correctly with your burning software. You should have an option somewhere that says something like "Burn Image" or "Burn ISO". If it does it should be able to properly write the DVD using that option.

[sceithamer]

It does have it. But it does not let you burn a DVD. I can burn the iso to a cd and I have already done that. It again would not boot.