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I see this predates Knoppix. What did Knoppix get right that this got wrong, to the point where Knoppix quickly became synonymous with live-distrubution?

by xnorswap 10mo ago

seemaze 10mo ago
I've used finnix forever as my go to live recovery distro, and have never heard of knoppix. From a cursory search, it appears that finnix is focused on the command line while knoppix provides a desktop environment. Don't most distros offer live boot environments these days? I know I've done this with Fedora, Debian, Suse, and Alpine at least..
- zem 10mo ago
  > From a cursory search, it appears that finnix is focused on the command line while knoppix provides a desktop environment if knoppix was one of the first live distros to offer a full desktop environment, that's definitely what they got right.
  - darkwater 10mo ago
    Yeah, in my book (used Knoppix, never heard of or don't remember Finnix), Knoppix had 2 uses: restore systems but primarily try out if Linux worked on an unknown PC. And also run Linux on Windows PCs at school.
- WesolyKubeczek 10mo ago
  > Don't most distros offer live boot environments these days? That wasn't a thing in 2007.
meatmanek 10mo ago
> On 23 October 2005, Finnix 86.0 was released. Earlier unreleased versions (84, and 85.0 through 85.3) were "Knoppix remasters", with support for Linux LVM and dm-crypt being the main reason for creation. However, 86.0 was a departure from Knoppix, and was derived directly from the Debian "testing" tree.[7] My reading of this is that early versions of Finnix were based on Knoppix. However, according to the wikipedia sidebars, the initial release of Knoppix was 30 September 2000, while the initial release of Finnix was March 22, 2000. Something something beta/pre-release versions?
- looperhacks 10mo ago
  From the Wikipedia article: > Finnix 0.01 was based on Red Hat Linux 6.0, and was created to help with administration and recovery of other Linux workstations around Finnie's office.[citation needed] The first public release of Finnix was 0.03, and was released in early 2000, based on an updated Red Hat Linux 6.1. So it seems that it was based on Knoppix later
ginko 10mo ago
I used to have a Knoppix disc signed by Klaus Knopper. Wonder what happened to that one..
pxc 10mo ago
If I had to venture a guess, I'd say compression. Knopper picked up and became maintainer of a kernel module called "cloop" that supports zlib-compressed loopback filesystems. If Knoppix had this and Finnix didn't, or if Knopper was able to supply enhancements and bugfixes in order to support Knoppix releases, then he was likely able to fit a much more complete system onto a given CD or DVD. But idk what kind of compression early Finnix used, if any. (Nowadays, everything uses SquashFS, right?)

I see this predates Knoppix. What did Knoppix get right that this got wrong, to the point where Knoppix quickly became synonymous with live-distrubution?

seemaze 10mo ago

I've used finnix forever as my go to live recovery distro, and have never heard of knoppix. From a cursory search, it appears that finnix is focused on the command line while knoppix provides a desktop environment. Don't most distros offer live boot environments these days? I know I've done this with Fedora, Debian, Suse, and Alpine at least..

zem 10mo ago
> From a cursory search, it appears that finnix is focused on the command line while knoppix provides a desktop environment if knoppix was one of the first live distros to offer a full desktop environment, that's definitely what they got right.
- darkwater 10mo ago
  Yeah, in my book (used Knoppix, never heard of or don't remember Finnix), Knoppix had 2 uses: restore systems but primarily try out if Linux worked on an unknown PC. And also run Linux on Windows PCs at school.
WesolyKubeczek 10mo ago
> Don't most distros offer live boot environments these days? That wasn't a thing in 2007.

meatmanek 10mo ago

> On 23 October 2005, Finnix 86.0 was released. Earlier unreleased versions (84, and 85.0 through 85.3) were "Knoppix remasters", with support for Linux LVM and dm-crypt being the main reason for creation. However, 86.0 was a departure from Knoppix, and was derived directly from the Debian "testing" tree.[7] My reading of this is that early versions of Finnix were based on Knoppix. However, according to the wikipedia sidebars, the initial release of Knoppix was 30 September 2000, while the initial release of Finnix was March 22, 2000. Something something beta/pre-release versions?

looperhacks 10mo ago
From the Wikipedia article: > Finnix 0.01 was based on Red Hat Linux 6.0, and was created to help with administration and recovery of other Linux workstations around Finnie's office.[citation needed] The first public release of Finnix was 0.03, and was released in early 2000, based on an updated Red Hat Linux 6.1. So it seems that it was based on Knoppix later

ginko 10mo ago

I used to have a Knoppix disc signed by Klaus Knopper. Wonder what happened to that one..

pxc 10mo ago

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say compression. Knopper picked up and became maintainer of a kernel module called "cloop" that supports zlib-compressed loopback filesystems. If Knoppix had this and Finnix didn't, or if Knopper was able to supply enhancements and bugfixes in order to support Knoppix releases, then he was likely able to fit a much more complete system onto a given CD or DVD. But idk what kind of compression early Finnix used, if any. (Nowadays, everything uses SquashFS, right?)