KNOPPIX 7.2.0 / ADRIANE 1.5

26.06.2013: What happened to Version 7.1?
Knoppix 7.1 was released for the annual Linux Magazine CeBIT edition with some add-ons which are not usually installed because of their non-free licenses. A public release was planned shortly after, but as things developed, there were far too many new and exciting developments and updates pending, such as an early EFI edition of the syslinux bootloader, two more kernel generations with improved hardware support, translations and improvements for the blind-friendly ADRIANE desktop included in Knoppix, to make the proposed release schedule. New things need testing, and so, we are just ready now for a first release of - now - version 7.2 for public testing. Apologies to all who waited for an unexpected long time for the 7.1. public relese, which is now superseded by version 7.2.

ADRIANE

A.D.R.I.A.N.E. (Audio Desktop Reference Implementation And Networking Environment) is a talking menu system, which is supposed to make work and internet access easier for computer beginners, even if they have no sight contact to the computers monitor. A graphical environment with also talking programs and arbitrary magnification using compiz-fusion, is another option.

CD / DVD / USB Versions - which files do I need?

The current public beta release of KNOPPIX 7.2.0 CD and DVD is available in different variants for download at the Knoppix-Mirrors.

For burning a CD or DVD, only one single .iso file matching your language and version choice, is sufficient.

Additionally, several independent vendors offer readily burned and verified CDs, DVDs and USB-memorysticks saent out via postal service.

Since there are so many different media capacities, there is no readymade image for booting off memorystick available for download. But it is easy to create a bootable USB-stick or flashcard from a running Knoppix system, as described in the next section.

Booting from Flash

In order to create a bootable USB-medium (memory flashdisk, SD-card, digital camera with USB connector, cellphone with microSD, ...), the program flash-knoppix can be started from a running Knoppix system. This program installs all needed Knoppix files onto the FAT-formatted flashdisk, and creates a boot record for it. If desired, the target medium can be partitioned and fornatted, or left in its inistal state, so that existing files stay intact. The KNOPPIX Live System starts and runs about factor 5 faster from USB flash disk than from CD or DVD!

After having copied the system to flash, using the persistent Knoppix image (overlay feature), it is possible to also store files permanently in live mode. That way, personal settings and additionally installed programs survive a reboot.

Boot options and controls

Overview of the most important functions. A complete description and listing of shortcuts can be found in the configurations of sbl, orca and compiz-fusion.

Boot options (can be entered in the startup screen)
adriane Start ADRIANE with talking text desktop knoppix Start KNOPPIX with graphical environment knoppix64 Same as above, with 64-bit kernel (DVD version only) knoppix/adriane acpi=off noapic nolapic pci=bios ... problem solvers, if computer doesn't start knoppix testcd Check CD for errors knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1 Copy CD content to harddisk (hda1 or sda1, 1st partition on 1st IDE/SATA harddisk) and start from there (free CD-rom drive) knoppix toram Load CD content to memory and start from there (free CD-rom drive)
ADRIANE navigation in text mode
CapsLock + space read current line CapsLock + arrow up read previous line CapsLock + arrow down read next line CapsLock + pageup read from beginning of page to current position CapsLock + pagedown read from here to end of page CapsLock + arrow left/right spell charwise
Navigation with compiz and orca in graphics mode
Super + mouse wheel Set/scale magnification Super + l Lock or release magnification area Super + m small mouse lens mouse to upper right corner window overview CapsLock + space start orca preferences Super = penguin- or "window"-key left

Micro-Remastering

Boot options like "adriane" can easily be preset by changing syslinux.cfg after having copied the CD to a bootable memorystick using "flash-knoppix":

for automatically starting ADRIANE on boot. This is already default in all ADRIANE iso files.