Book Review: Knoppix Hacks

O'Reilly sent me Kyle Rankin's updated Knoppix Hacks late last year, and I was remiss in reading it...until the ThinkPad did its much-moaned-about face plant. Soon as I could get it to accept some electrical power, it was the latest Knoppix distro I turned to for an OS interface.

Now you can just stick a Knoppix CD into most any PC and expect to get a Linux prompt...eventually; and getting to files on the hard disk from there is pretty easy as well. But sticking to those features alone is selling the Knoppix distro a little short.

That CD (or DVD now, if you prefer) is actually crammed full of additional tools (everything from programming IDEs to diagnostic and recovery tools) and a number of features that are semi-unique to Knoppix and its typical CD-based operating environment.

Knoppix Hacks does a great job of describing all these tools in user scenarios. Stuff like: "How to Recover a Windows Password" or "How to Recover Files on a Damaged Hard Disk." It's an easy-to-digest way of learning Knoppix as you use it to perform actual functions. Much better than the usual Linux learning method that starts off with Linus' elementary school years and then wants to tell you how find the Start button.

But what's especially useful is all the stuff aimed at making your Knoppix CD more than just a once-in-a-while boot. Rankin has a number of chapters on increasing Knoppix performance (yes, OS-off-CD can be damn slow), fine-tuning a permanent disk partition, accessing USB peripherals and similar features that can allow you to use Knoppix as a permanent Linux environment.

It's still subject to the usual Linux desktop limitations, but for recycling older PCs it's great. Also great for teaching yourself to live in Linux without having to commit to a permanent partition, or even endangering your standard operating system.

The O'Reilly site link above has a bunch of information on this book, including a few chapters available for free as PDFs. I've dropped a couple of them below in case you want to check them out, though you'll need Acrobat to do it.

Hack 5: Free Your CD to Make Knoppix Run Faster
Hack 40: Create an Emergency Router

Posted by Oliver Rist on March 2, 2006 12:42 PM