Re: [school-discuss] Knoppix vs. Freeduc vs. ???

[Massimiliano Mirra <mmirra@libero.it>]

Jan Wilson <corocom@btl.net> writes:

> Think about what you are asking here.  The Knoppix-based systems are
> designed to be compressed onto a single CD and run almost entirely in
> RAM (they will use a swap file on the HD if they detect it and it
> looks OK to use).  So it's hard to make a full system like that work
> in much less than 128 MB.  If you select IceWM instead of KDE they
> SHOULD work in 64 MB, but the combination of CD and P-133 is going to
> make a very slow system at best.

No.  They don't run in RAM any more than your regular installed Linux
does, they run from the CD and uncompress things on the fly.  Knoppix
works great in 64MB with WMaker as the window manager, has no problem
with 32MB and I'm sure less (I haven't tried) with a lightweight
window manager like fluxbox, and it does just fine on even 486 with
16MB if all you need is the command line.


Might I bring your attention on Sean Finney's project about Knoppix
bootstrapping?  Basically it consists in debianizing the
Knoppix-specific software that you can find in a Knoppix CD, so that
Knoppix-based distros can be built quickly and easily through Debian's
APT with just the needed packages.  Roadmap is at:

http://cs.swarthmore.edu/~finney/debian-knoppix/roadmap.txt

...and if someone wants to lend a hand, I guess Sean couldn't ask for
better. :-)