Knoppix

“It did indeed run pretty well, at least well enough for me to play around with it”

“Such a well-done gateway to any aspiring linux users”

“not just a rescue disk but a full-on distribution!”

“I used to keep a Knoppix disk around for times when my desktop would run out of space and wouldn't boot”

“It's probably been 20 years that I last used it, but fond memories indeed!”

“The number of times I rescued data off of broken Windows installations with Knoppix is BIG!”

“Always hated the screen saver on Knoppix. Otherwise a reasonably feature-rich liveboot OS, albeit not updated recently.”

“For many years I had a Knoppix Live CD and later DVD/USB in my work bag, so that could boot up Linux if needed.”

“basically Knoppix and Wienux live distributions set me up for what has later become a career working with Linux/DevOps/SRE”

“It made separating janky hardware and janky software much easier.”

“Used to fix broken Gentoo builds, using it to chroot onto the drive.”

“I really enjoyed the 'security tools distribution'”

“I saved a lot of friends files from crashed windows with this”

“Knoppix gave us live CDs, and everybody who had been making excuses for years could test drive to their hearts content”

“Useful dozens of other times before Ubuntu popularized live images just being a thing you supplied as table stakes”

“This was huge at a time where it was quite difficult for a non-technical user to install Linux.”

“The necessity to do a trial by fire made me pretty good at it”

“Knoppix was my first experience with Linux over 20 years ago”

“The detection/configuration of hardware just worked out of the box.”

“Fond memories of Knoppix from when I was younger. Many many thanks to the authors.”

“enjoyed my very own hidden Linux every time I visited home”

“The go-to live cd that helped me fix many Windows XP installs!”

“helped me learn quite a bit about networking and security in general”

“Knoppix was useful when a linux box got hosed and would not boot”

“Knoppix would boot from the CD and let you recover files from your HD. Loved it”

“allowed me to boot into a safe environment to play around in”

“It was a game changer for doing forensics back before full disk encryption was a common thing.”

“Knoppix used to have a really good desktop environment with effects and games.”

“used Knoppix to recover some data from my old Windows PC, great first contact with Linux”

“I have fond memories of sliding a CD into an old desktop and using Linux.”

“one of the best hardware autodetection settings ever”

“Knoppix and memtest to troubleshoot friends and family's PCs were my go-to tools.”

“Brings back memories. One of my earlier Linux touch points. Good times.”

“It was my first experience of a Live CD. which was cool as I could run it”

“it didn't have the overlayfs feature which often felt limiting since most directories were read only”

“I always had some Knoppix live CD/DVD which had better defaults than Ubuntu itself on hardware autodetection and setup.”

“This is golden standard for secure computing: read only os image.”

“If it ran at all, it was easier than downloading those apps. Boot and run.”

“I learned on Knoppix, back when storage was scarce and expensive”

“One of the techs cooked up a great idea — use Knoppix or something like it to let us use random computers if needed.”