New convert and kit idea

[George Toft]

My experience with Knoppix

I am teaching Introduction to Unix/Linux at a Community College.  I
burned 48 (or so) Knoppix CD's and gave them out to the students (I'm
teaching two sections).  The results have not been encouraging.  On the
Dell computers at school, Knoppix prevents the machine from rebooting
unless the machine's power is physically unplugged.  Several student
report problems with the graphics, including one whose PS/2 mouse does
not work, and one whose mouse pointer is about and inch above and to the
left of where the action actually takes place.  Another student could
not get the CD to boot.

It worked well for me, but not for a significant percentage of my
student population.

Regards,

George



Michelle Lowman wrote:
> 
> I have my first convert among my English students at PC. She brought her
> laptop to IF2, but whoever was doing the install gave up after her
> machine wouldn't boot from the CD. She wants to dual-boot with XP, so
> she's going to bring her laptop to class Monday, and I'm going to
> install Red Hat for her.
> 
> I was thinking that it would be a good idea to create a "conversion kit"
> for people who want to dual-boot. That way, if you ever run into anyone
> who is ready to try Linux but isn't quite ready to give up Windows, you
> can set them up right away. Knoppix is one alternative, but I was
> thinking of (1)fips (or PartitionMagic if you don't mind paying), or
> parted with a boot disk (although I've never used this one--I think it's
> non-destructive, but correct me if I'm wrong), along with (2)your
> favorite distro on CD(s), and (3)don't forget a boot.img floppy in case
> you can't get the box to boot from CD. I've used fips with older
> versions of Windows, but has anyone tried it with Windows 2000 or XP?  I
> couldn't get it to work with 2000 and I've never tried with XP. The kit
> could include partitioning instructions, etc. with screenshots for the
> visual learner (like me :)).
> 
> Whaddya think?
> 
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