Evaluating Knoppix 5.1.1 for use in the Linuxworld lab

In a recent post I looked at using Kubuntu 6.10, the DVD version, as a candidate for creating the Linux desktops for the lab at Linuxworld/IT360. I wanted Kubuntu to work because I knew the hardware recognition was outstanding, the applications up to date, and I use Ubuntu 6.10 (actually one of it's children, Mint 2.2) as one of my office Linux desktops, along side OpenSUSE 10.2. I use Mint 2.2 with KDE 3.5.5 reinstalled even: a sort of Kubuntu / Mint mash-up if you will. For the reasons documented in the afore-linked post however, I had to wave Kubuntu off for the lab at IT360 / Linuxworld.

One can not know the answer before you ask the question. OK. Maybe some people can.

Part of the fun of this is asking the questions and then testing for the answers. I set up the questions I needed answered for the lab and "asked" them of Kubuntu. I can not force Kubuntu to be something it is not. It is what it is. A great, easy to install Linux desktop. Not a great LiveCD DVD for emulating a corporate desktop. Not the corporate desktop of the lab anyway.

Back to the drawing board: what LiveCD distro is out there that uses KDE as the primary desktop, but is stocked with best of breed apps appropriate to the questions the lab is asking and answering? Knoppix would seem to be the obvious answer.

It is not like using Knoppix is a hardship. I have used it to good effect in many of the labs I have given. I look at other options from time to time just to be sure I am not in a rut. I want to be sure I am considering all the options. I want the people that attend the session to get more than canned knowledge, but an experience that is, to the best of my ability and within the time limits, as technically fresh as it can be.

The last time I looked the CD version of Knoppix (version 3.6) it had dropped Evolution for disk space reasons. Live CDs on CD's have 700MB. Something new went on, and something had to come off. The Knoppix folks picked Evolution at some point. When one is talking about how to make Linux and MS Windows infrastructure get along, Evolution is a key application. The needs of the Knoppix project and my lab were at odds back then.

On the other hand, the Live CD DVD version of Knoppix has Evolution installed still. Previous to this lab I had avoided going this route. I needed to make sure enough time had past that most people attending the lab would have DVD bootable laptops. I think the time has come. With some trepidation about who I might be leaving behind, for the first time ever, I decided to make being able to boot a DVD on ones personal system a prerequisite of the lab. The CAB (me) has approved the change. Time for the Change Manager (me) to turn this over to the Release Manager. me.

I'm pretty sure ITIL might not have the same person in all the roles...

Room to move about

Even if I ultimately had not chosen Knoppix, it was time to move past a CD and it's inherent 700 megabyte space limitation. Knoppix compresses about 1GB of applications and OS into that 700MB, but that still just is not much elbow room. This lab is not about running the smallest version of Linux possible. This lab is not about getting a boot-able flash fob that is complete with all the security tools you might need to break into an MS Windows system or run Intrusion Detection. There are plenty of Distros around like that. Those Linuxii and those labs are for specialists. Not people working with Linux all day long every day as their garden variety office desktop system.

This lab is about emulating at some level an office Linux desktop, just as if it was running on a desktop PC in any office anywhere. A place where people set up meetings and email and do spreadsheets and look for printers and the like. A real office PC is going to have a bigger hard drive than 1GB. I am currently using 4.5 GB for '/' on my Mint 2.2 desktop. '/home' is way big.

I have been through the process of jamming Evolution back into a 700MB Knoppix LiveCD disk. It can be done. Serious application triage ensued. I always imagined folks got home from that lab, booted the Knoppix disk we had built, and said to no one in particular: "Hey... where are all the games!"

Assuming the Knoppix DVD didn't work, I think I'd still want to go forward in the lab with a boot DVD. No matter what LiveCD version I had to modify to put Evolution on to it, I would want the space I'll have on a DVD. That way the disk would boot more than just a Linux kernel plus the very specific things I was looking at in the lab. There would be other things to look at and explore. And of course, there would be the games.I used the Acer 5610 to test the basic functionality of the distro.

Screen gems

Knoppix 5.1.1 booted without issue on the Acer 5610. It was running the widescreen in 1024x768 mode, so I rebooted and passed the screen parameters to tell it about the 1280x800 screen. Still ran at 1024x768.

Nuts.

Not a show stopper though. There is also a frame buffer parameter to pass: I try that. Still 1024x768.

I try passing them both. Still 1024by768.

Clearly the Intel BIOS hack ('915resolution' package on Mint) is not installed by Knoppix. If this happens in the lab, I'll look at the laptop the attendee brought, but I'll bet I'll see an Intel 9xx series video card sitting there.1024x768 is not really an issue for lab functionality. Everything works fine at that resolution. I'll mark this as a provisional pass, and also a "good to know".

Wireless card

A point of curiosity only. Not vital to the lab. On the 5610, a No go.

The internal Ethernet NIC from Broadcom configured and works just fine on the 5610. This means pass for the purposes of the lab. The lab will have Cat5 in it for people to hook too, just like a real office.

The Intel wireless card does not even appear to have been detected. This is very odd, especially since it is an Intel, part of the chip sets required for the Centrino Duo branding. These normally work great under Linux. Mint 2.2 finds and configures it without issue and without even being told.

802.11 being non-functional is not a show stopper. It would be nice if the wireless worked for those in the session that are interested: The lab has an 802.11b WAP in it. When I test boot other laptops, I will look at this to see how other systems fare.

Evolution

Now we are getting someplace! Evolution configures and runs the way it always does under KDE. That is to say, you configure Evolution, exit, restart it, and then find the password prompt *behind* the main log in screen. I am beginning to think that is never going to be fixed.

It looks like this Knoppix 5.1.1 might work out though.

Time to test boot some other laptop systems. Every one I can find.

Merrily we boot along

Since I have no idea what kind of computer is actually going to be used by those who attend the session, I have to make an attempt to boot the Knoppix disk on as many different kinds of computers as I can, so I can understand how a Knoppix-booted laptop might behave in the labs virtual world.

If this were a real company, there would be a pilot group or something, and there would be talking to vendor about their Linux hardware certification and things like that. In the synthetic world of the lab, the desktop systems are a great big question mark. The "desktops" are really the melange of systems people attending the session bring with them.

The good news is that Linux hardware support is better than most people usually know, especially for the basic things I need. The built in memory card reader or the wireless may not work, but by and large the display, keyboard, trackpad/pointer stick, cpu, memory, and built in NIC will all be there and working fine if history is any guide.

These are what the hardware requirements are documented as, over at the Knoppix home website :

• Intel-compatible CPU (i486 or later),
• 32 MB of RAM for text mode, at least 96 MB for graphics mode with KDE (at least 128 MB of RAM is recommended to use the various office products),
• bootable CD-ROM drive, or a boot floppy and standard CD-ROM (IDE/ATAPI or SCSI),
• standard SVGA-compatible graphics card,
• serial or PS/2 standard mouse or IMPS/2-compatible USB-mouse.

I know that I have already changed some of these requirements by deciding to go with a boot DVD. I have not tried this before: I have always had a boot CD, so I will need to understand what that one change means for the lab in terms of required hardware. I am the Change/Release Manager for this virtual little company after all.

If the testing does not go well, I may back off this Boot DVD change, or I might bring a few of the modified-for-the-lab Knoppix 3.6 disks, just in case. I don't want to to that though because that will make following the updated Doc a bit harder: the screen captures in the doc will no longer match 3.6 but 5.1.1.

One other thing: that above listed memory requirement. I am guessing it would work, but boy would it be slow! With the Knoppix 3.6 disks, 256 MB seemed to be a more realistic low water mark. I guess that is no different than the minimum requirements listed for MS Vista: I finally got around to booting Vista on the Acer, played with it a bit, then upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 2 GB, and played with it some more. 2GB is definitely the place to be. 1GB worked, but it was not fast. So, 128MB might work for Knoppix 5.1.1, but I hope they have more. Two or three times that. Is 384MB really that big a hardship these days? I would not think so. Not on a system that can boot a DVD anyway.

Time to check as many laptops as I can find to be sure I am not utterly barking up the wrong tree by using the boot-DVD. The test will be pretty simple: boot the target laptops, and then update docs.google.com (this document you are reading) with its status. This will verify DVD bootability (coming soon to iTunes: the new hit song “Bootability”, by Linus and the Geeks), that the NIC came up, and that the web browser works with docs.google.com.

• Acer 5610: Core Duo, There were two penguins on the screen at boot: it enabled SMP!. 2 GB RAM. There were no real issues. No wireless card, but no show stoppers. Since the Acer has been running Ubuntu 6.10, and now is running Mint 2.2, I did not really expect any issues.
• HPQ NX5000: Celeron-M 1.3 Ghz, 1 GB RAM. This laptop is one that someone of my team has. It is the very same one I used to use in the lab as the Linux host machine for the VMware guest running Lotus Notes.  It came with SUSE pre-installed from HPQ so chances of it working were pretty good, and indeed there were no issues.
• IBM T41: Pentium-M 1.7 Ghz, 1.5 GB. This 3.5 year old unit has run Linux since it was born, so I was not expecting any issues. It normally has OpenSUSE 10.2 as the main OS. Atheros 802.11 card correctly detected!
• Toshiba A105: Core Duo, 1.6 Ghz, 2GB RAM: This unit is the personal machine of one of my team, and he kindly agreed to let me test it. It normally runs MS Windows XP, VMware, and Linux as guests rather than the other way around. There are no issues, and MS Win XP boots back when we are done testing. The beauty of LiveCD based DVD.
• NEC Versa LX: The first failure. Actually the first two failures. We tried it on two different machines just to be sure. Pentium 300 Mhz, 128 MB RAM. Clearly the ragged edge of Knoppix hardware supported. I have booted these Versa's with the Knoppix 3.6 CD without issue, but despite having a drive labeled 'DVD' in them, neither test machine will boot them. Could be a BIOS issue, or perhaps the DVD reader can not deal with a "home burnt" DVD. It does not really matter why: they don't work.
• IBM Thinkpad X30: Pentium III Mobile, 1.2 Ghz, 512 MB. The X30 is my special Franken-computer, built of many other X30's that came before it. On average, it parts are about 2001 vintage, and I was glad to see it was working just fine with Knoppix. The test with the Versa had me a bit worried that the boot DVD was only going to work for systems built in the last two years, but the X30 was fine. I jacked in the Atheros chipped PCMCIA Wifi card, and it detected and almost configured it correctly. If it was germane to the lab, I could have gotten it working.
• Compaq Armada M300: Pentium III, 500 Mhz. Tried two, one with 196 MB and the other with 320MB. Everything worked fine on both except that no network card was detected on the 196MB unit. I am guessing that it why it was on the bone pile. This 320MB unit is pretty old: it is the original smaller screen, smaller case, and has an NT4.0 license on the bottom. The 196MB unit is the slightly newer, larger size case, with an MS2k license on the bottom. I am guessing older unit is 1999-2000 vintage...? If Knoppix will boot and run on something this old, but not the slightly older NEC Versa, then I am probably pretty near the tipping point of what vintage hardware will work. I have to say that, as old and slow as this hardware is, Knoppix is running nicely on it.
• Toshiba M45: Pentium-M, 1.7 Ghz, 512 MB: I have run Linux without issue on this unit before and so it was not a deep surprise to see Knoppix working. What was interesting is that, like the Acer 5610, this has the Centrino Mobile branded chipset, meaning an Intel wireless card in part. And Knoppix found and configured it correctly. Unlike the Acer. Go figure. There must be a difference between the Core Duo Centrino chipset and the non-Core Duo Centrino chipset that Knoppix cares about. For the lab though, I don't.
• Dell D600: Pentium-M 1.4 Ghz, 1GB RAM: booted and ran without issue. Found the Broadcom wireless card and configured it, but having no WAP at the office, I did not test it. This is another odd result in the wireless card department though. Broadcom 802.11 card support is pretty new, but Knoppix has it. But not the Core Duo Intel 802.11 card. This shows why IT departments like to talk to their vendors about their hardware support before they buy the unit...

This is the range of hardware I have at hand to test. Some brand new, some seven years old or older. Only the Versas did not work. I am at this point satisfied the Knoppix 5.1.1, the Boot DVD edition, will work from a hardware support point of view. This is what I will update the lab to be about.

Browsers and the lab

I have long held the position that I do not really care what the browser I am using is, as long as it is standards compliant, runs on the machine I am currently sitting in front of (whatever that may be) and is secure. I mostly use Firefox, since it runs the same on Linux, OS.X, and MS Windows for the most part. It has plug-ins I like, tabbed browsing... etc.

I like and use Opera as well: I have it everywhere, and it is my browser of choice on my cell phone. There are some webpages (like the home page at VMware oddly) that Firefox does not render well, but Opera does.

Mozilla/Seamonkey is fine. Epiphany is fine. Safari is good. Really: not much browser religion here.

Still, I was very confused when I first booted Knoppix and Firefox was not there. Seamonkey was not there. Mozilla was not there. Only Konqueror? That just can't be right. I like Konq and all, but...

Knoppix 3.6 had Mozilla, and I had just assumed that Firefox would be on the current version of Knoppix, and if not Firefox / Thunderbird then Seamonkey.

I wasted a worry again. Firefox was installed as it turns out. And it also wasn't. The browser on the task bar is called IceWeasel, And it is basically a version of Firefox 2.0.0.1. Nice and current. And confusing. The Iceweasel logo is cool though, now that I know what it is.

The strengths that make some projects work so well are also sometimes the things that make some people run screaming from Linux. Diversity of thought and execution is powerful, and it is confusing. I googled a bit and read why the Firefox / Iceweasel schism occurred, and I offer no opinion as to the relative merits of it here. I have not thought about it enough to have an opinion, and to be honest, I don't really care. In the context of getting ready for the lab, I just need to be able to tell folks where on the task bar the browser is. Iceweasel does have a few security bits added, so that will be good to know. More security on a web browser is always good these days.

And I'm off...

No. Really. I'm off. All next week. Spring break. West Texas. No Internet. No Computers. Just me, work gloves, a rock bar, and some rocky soil that needs to be worked. Sounds like I'm on a chain gang!

The week after that, I'll be spending my evenings looking at Knoppix 5.1.1 more in depth to see if it has any interesting new things I need to be adding to the lab.

Till then...