Knoppix on HP Pavilion 7880 (UK)
This page gives details about using Knoppix on my Pavilion desktop computer. I say using because Knoppix (pronounced K'Noppix, created by a German bloke called Herr Knopper) can be booted from CD - just stick it in your drive and reboot.
This page started on 17 March 2003.
The computer
A HP Pavilion 7880 (UK) about 2 years old. It's a AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz with 20 GByte harddrive, Nvidia Gforce 2 graphics. It appears that it has a HSP modem using a PCTel Chipset, ie a Winmodem. sourceforge.net has a useful project on PCTel modems under Linux and there's a mini how-to.
The distro
Having got bored - low boredom threshold? - with trying to hack together a working Linux system for out of date hardware I decided to try Knoppix as it's bootable off the CD.
I'm stuck with windows at the moment as there are a few programs that we use (particularly MS Money) that I haven't found a linux alternative for yet - I'm sure there is one but will it read the proprietary format of Money's files? I'm waiting to get a new HD to boot Linux properly - but this is good for the moment. Due to the winmodem (see above) I haven't got online with Knoppix yet but everything else seems to work fine,eg OpenOffice.org and all the games ;0)> .
Where can I get Knoppix (and other Linux distros) in the UK?
Well, funny you asked that! I got my copy from uselinux.co.uk, the proprietor was most helpful and appears to be providing the discs out of love for Linux - as I can't see how he'd make a profit unless he has a huge CD generating capacity already.
Your best source for up to date distributions is the internet site, usually www.your-desired-distro.com. They usually have a list of FTP mirrors that you can spend a few weeks trying to get an ISO off - if like me you have 56K dialup access. You could get a friend to download a copy. Or you could borrow a copy - remember this is open source and most of it is free-as-in-beer (eg GNU GPL) so you can print as many copies as you like - check the license first and if in doubt e-mail the support guys for your distro.
Alternatively, try one of the following sites (none of whom sponsor me), I can only vouch for uselinux.co.uk though.
- uselinux.co.uk Good basic site, limited set of distros, payment by paypal,nochex, postal orders, etc.. Mr Wellstead seems like a nice bloke - any chance of a commission? Knoppix 3.1 comes to £3 with p&p.
- cheeplinux.com - appears to be the most expensive of this pick. Knoppix 3.1 comes to £7.98 with p&p.
- linuxemporium.co.uk - no comments really. Knoppix 3.1 comes to £4.50 with p&p.
General Knoppix places
The first page listed is the creators site. Note that Knoppix is from a German source and so English documentation appears to be sparse at the moment.
- knopper.net
- www.volny.cz/basiclinux/lowmem.html Installing slackware with only 4 MB of RAM
- jetblackz.freeservers.com/ConfiguringSlackware81.html - well duh?
- linuxtipps.sourceforge.net/index.php - the SlackFAQ, gives general info about Linux too, in multiple languages!
Knoppix on Pavilion places
I didn't find any one else logging there use of Knoppix on a HP Pavilion.
- [NONE]
General Pavilion 7880 places
General information about my Pavilion:
- hp.com - drivers and downloads page.
- hp.com - specifications/information about the 7880. There's also a local copy of this page.
Again, apologies, but you can see I'm working on it, lunch has finished, back tomorrow ...
