Kanotix

Kanotix

Kanotix-Hellfire-Live-screenshot
Company / developer	Jörg Schirottke (Aka. Kano)
OS family	Unix-like
Working state	Current
Source model	Open source
Latest stable release	2011-05 Hellfire / May 11, 2011 (2011-05-11)
Kernel type	Monolithic
Default user interface	KDE Plasma Desktop
License	Various
Official website	www.kanotix.org

Kanotix, also referred to as KANOTIX, is an operating system Live CD based on Debian, with advanced hardware detection. It can run from an optical disc drive or other media i.e. USB-stick without using a hard disk drive.

Kanotix uses KDE Software Compilation as the default desktop environment. Other window managers can be downloaded using APT. The name "Kanotix" is derived from the founder's nickname "Kano". Kanotix's mascot is a fangtooth.

Content

Kanotix is based on the newest Debian stable (the last published version is Kanotix 2011-05 "Hellfire," based on Debian 6 "Squeeze"). It also provides its own packages and scripts and many backports. Kanotix also provides an optimized kernel (using Ubuntu-recompiled) with additional patches.

Kanotix includes about 1,000 software packages, including:

• KDE Software Compilation 4, the default desktop environment
• Amarok, Video Disk Recorder
• Internet access software, including KDE Network Manager replaced Wicd, KPPP dialer, Wireless LAN-driver (with patched Ubuntu-Kernel) and NdisWrapper
• Iceweasel web browser, Icedove mail/news client, Pidgin instant messenger
• K3b, for CD (and DVD) authoring and backup
• GIMP, an image-manipulation program
• GParted and other tools for data rescue and system repair
• Network analysis and administration tools
• LibreOffice, an office suite
• Programming and development tools
• NTFS-3G used by default
• Automatic installation of graphic-drivers with nvidia and fglrx-scripts with dkms support.
• Scripts for additional multimedia support (current mplayer-versions)
• Wine (Software) updated to newest versions^{[citation needed]}

Usage

Kanotix is designed for multiple-purpose usage^{[citation needed]} so that it can be used in live mode on different types of media (DVD, hard disk, and USB flash drive) and includes an installation tool for installing Kanotix to the hard drive. With an improved hardware detection system, Kanotix is an ideal tool for testing, data rescue, or for working and safe surfing and mailing on different machines e.g. in an Internet cafe.

Live mode

The live mode allows it to work without any installation. As Kanotix comes with unionfs and aufs-support one can "install" additional packages by using APT (via an Internet connection). So a customized live-mode can be used for working. With Kanotix it is also possible to set up a "persistent home directory", where documents or settings are written to the user's home directory. The data file (kanotix.img) on the hard drive or removable medium, such as a USB flash drive, can be automatically mounted on bootup. The Kanotix-Thorhammer.iso can be booted with the cheatcode "fromiso=/(path)/" from harddisk, Excalibur by extracting and copying the "live" folder to HD. Using USB flash drive (when supported by BIOS), is of course much faster than booting from CD or DVD.

Installation

Kanotix can be installed to the hard disk using the (graphical) acritoxinstaller, which, depending on optical drive, hard disk and processor speed, can take around 10 – 20 minutes. The acritoxinstaller is a KDE/Qt frontend and a bash backend and comes with a user-friendly interface and several advanced features: e.g. LVM support, dmraid support, automatic partitioning (including ntfsresize-support), installation to USB-HDDs.

Versions

History (2003-2006)

In 2003 Jörg Schirottke was known with the nickname "Kano" in the former Knoppix-Forum (no longer available).^{[citation needed]} The distribution derived from "Kano's Scriptpage for Knoppix". He wrote about Knoppix: "I like it much, but I had to improve it :)". One of the main differences from Knoppix was the support of hard disk installation.^{[citation needed]} The first "Kanotix"-preview was released at 24 December 2003 "KANOTIX XMAS 2003 PREVIEW". In 2004 and 2005 KANOTIX was a popular distribution^{[citation needed]} ranking in the top 20 of distrowatch.com. In 2004 the releases were named "Bug Hunter" (Bug Hunter-01-2004 - X-2004).

After problems with the stability in 2006 Jörg "Kano" Schirottke decided to move from Debian Sid to a less volatile basis. The co-developer and other of the Kanotix-Team wanted to stay with Debian-Sid and left the project, to start sidux, a new distribution based on Debian sid. The last Kanotix release based on Debian Sid was 2006-01-RC4.

Versions based on Debian stable (2007-current)

Kanotix-Thorhammer-Release 2007

The first Release based on Debian-stable was the Kanotix-Thorhammer in 2007. After the Debian-Etch-Release in April 2007 Kanotix was no longer compatible with Debian Sid. So a Howto was given, "Steps to update right", to move a KANOTIX-installation to the new base by dist-upgrade.

After 3 months of development and several beta Releases the new Kanotix-2007-Thorhammer-RC6 was publicly available for download. The last published version was Kanotix-2007-Thorhammer-RC7. The development in 2008 featured continuously kernel-updates and a lot of backports in the Thorhammer-repository. Some of the additional packages were adaptations for netbooks and notebooks. A highlighted additional backport was OpenOffice.org 3.2.x

Kanotix-Excalibur-2010

The (old) stable Release 2010 Kanotix-Excalibur was based on Debian 5 ("Lenny") and had compared to Thorhammer some basic changes (based on Debian-Live, bootloader Grub2). Furthermore Kanotix-Excalibur was available for 32-Bit and 64-Bit architecture and a 2in1 iso with both. Additionally there are Kanotix Excalibur 2010 KDE4 (KDE SC 4.3.2) versions available and a "all-in-one"-DVD.iso. Kanotix-Excalibur contains the more up-to-date Ubuntu-kernels 2.6.32-BFS with special patches. During the development most of the Kanotix-Excalibur-test.iso were not published but accessible to the community. A first "Preview"-Version was published on December,27 2009. The final Kanotix-Excalibur-2010 was released on 8 June 2010, just in time for LinuxTag 2010.

Kanotix-Hellfire-2011

The current version, code-name Kanotix-Hellfire is based on Debian 6 ("Squeeze"). It ships with KDE Software Compilation 4 for 32-Bit and 64-Bit architecture and a complete new branding stuff, new kernel (2.6.38), LibreOffice 3.3.2 and more. An updated version Kanotix-Hellfire 2011-05 is released with the project's presentation at LinuxTag 2011 in Berlin.

Current development and test versions

The developer of the official Kanotix-installer "Acritox" gives on his website an insight on the state of development and also offers current, but unofficial Kanotix-test versions, called "kanotix-acritox-trialshots" for download and testing.

Kanotix based on Debian-stable Version Date Name Debian-Version 2011-05 2011-05-11 Hellfire 2011-05 6.0 Squeeze 2011-03 2011-03-02 Hellfire 2011-03 6.0 Squeeze 2010 2010-06-08 Excalibur 5.0 Lenny 2009 2009-12-27 Excalibur (Preview) 5.0 Lenny 2007 2007-12-31 Thorhammer (RC7) 4.0 Etch 2007 2007-09-15 Thorhammer (RC6) 4.0 Etch

Kanotix based on Debian-unstable (no longer supported) Version Date Name 01-2006 2006-10-02 2006-01 (RC4)[citation needed] 2006 2006-05-14 2006-VDR (RC6) 2006 2006-05-14 2006-Easter (RC4) 2006 2006-03-11 2006-CeBit (RC3) 2005-04 2005-12-31 2005-03 2005-06-06 2005-02 2005-04-10 2005-01 2005-02-12 10-2004 2004-11-28 Bug Hunter X 09-2004 2004-10-17 Bug Hunter 09 08-2004 2004-09-20 Bug Hunter 08 07-2004 2004-07-29 Bug Hunter 07 06-2004 2004-07-01 Bug Hunter 06 05-2004 2004-04-23 Bug Hunter 05 04-2004 2004-03-19 Bug Hunter 04 03-2004 2004-03-02 Bug Hunter 03 02-2004 2004-02-07 Bug Hunter 02 01-2004 2004-02-03 Bug Hunter 01 01-2003 2003-12-24 XMAS Preview

See also

• Debian
• Linux
• Parsix
• ZevenOS-Neptune

External links

• Official website
• Kanotix at DistroWatch