Replying to Knoppix

To have chnages aparent in the User interface, would need to alter the code of the user interface, either GNOME, KDE, IceWM, WindowMaker QT-3 GTK GTK2, depends on what grapical user interface you use. there are hundreds if not thousande.

To hange the behavior of the mouse, you would need to alter wuther the mouse driver in the kernel, or re-program the way X11 interprets input from the mouse driver.

OR you could program a new driver, which takes input from the mouse driver, and tanslates it...
opens the /dev/input/mouse0 stream, alters it, then re-outputs the stream to maybe /dev/input/mouseX

for a laugh... try the following....
run "cat /dev/input/mouse1"
and movethe mouse around.. you will see raw input from the mouse displayed to screen..

(if not, try mouse0)

you can send your mouse crazy, my sening input to it... lik so (from the random number generating driver...)

"cat /dev/urandom > /dev/input/mouse0"

this will send your mouse zooming around, randomly clicking, dragging, deleteing... making a complete mess.

i hope you have a great understand of C, Linux module device driver programming, and the X11 Server, and its protocols.. the X server is a good few million lines of code,

"what part of linux were you planning on re-programming ?"

I basically just want to experiment with something in teh code, either the OS (GNU) code or the Kernel. Whichever one is easier and/or whichever one affects the OS most. By affecting the OS most, I mean affecting the OS in such a way as to have changes be apparent in the interface or behavior of the OS. For example, where is the behavior of the mouse managed? That is probably the place I want to experiment with.

Otherwise, I know my way around Knoppix quite well (I got Knoppix with Knoppix Hacks, a great book), so it's just the coding thing I really needed help on.

Again, thank you!

I use Knoppix to recover files from a broken windows installation. Knoppix supports USB Thumb Drives and reading of NTFS Hard Drives! This makes it very easy to recover a huge amount of data due to a corrupt windows installation.

Knoppix is also good to give to a friend that has never really seen a linux deskyop before. This way they can explorer it with out having to do any work, or reconfigure their computer/hard drive.

You said you really want to play around with the code that runs linux/GNU. So I would agree and say install a hard drive version of linux. Each distro is different, and it might take som experimenting with the different distros to find the one that suits you!

you can, but you need to remaster a new cd every time you want to tweak the code.

it will be far easyer if you use a normal hard drive installed distro.

what part of linux were you planning on re-programming ?

My own experiance is very limited, i managed to tweak an old modem driver from kernel - 2.4 to compile and install correctly in kernel 2.6. but that was relativly simple.

Assuming you are infact talking about the linux kernel, the following resources are very usefull...

kernel newbies: http://www.kernelnewbies.org/
and a collection of other good links : http://www.linuxhq.com/lkprogram.html

ohh, and if you want to just re-compile / reconfigure / customise rather than re-program, i wrote a little tutorial for newbies.. may be of some use to you, i dont know. http://www.astahost....rnel-t3060.html

Wow, thank you so muchqwuijibow!!!

That really cleared everything up for me. It hink I will try what you said. Thank you.

Why can't you edit the Kernel code in Knoppix?

And also, is Knoppix a good distro for beginners?

Yes and no.
Yes because you just put in in the cd-rom, and it just works works, no need to install.
No because adding new software requires re-mastering the CD, or building pluggins.

What distro is best for experiemnting with the actual OS code?

When you say actual linux code, what do you mean ?
do you mean he Linux kernel source code http://kernel.org
or the GNU operating system source code http://gnu.org
or maybe you mean 3rd party applications like firefox, or quake ?

Most people call linux distro's linux... but in reality, linux is not an operating system, just a kernel. the actual operating system is called GNU (GNU/Linux is a distro's full name)

If you want to tweak the linux kernel, you can use any hard-drive installable distro (not knoppix) because the kernel is built seperate from the operating system.

its as easy as deleting the origonal kernel, and recompiling a new on in its place.


If you man you want to tweak the operating system source code, then you need a more source code based distro like Linux-From-Scratch (aka LFS)
with LFS, you download the source code to everything and compile yourself.
the opertunity for tweaking is limitless.

but this is very difficult thing to do... amungst linux fans, sucesssfully completeing LFS and deyond is a rite of passage... LOL.

. Is changing the code about as easy as all the other things mentioned above?

editing the source code is very easy to do... but understanding the code you are modifying, and developing the code will require great skill and understanding.

if you want to help, have a look on sourceforge.net for projects that are looking for volenteers and sign up.

most projects are coded in C or C++, with some assembly for device drivers and media codecs.

(I only know Knoppix, so I will base tis off of it.)

When I remaster Knoppix, I can install and remoce the packages I do or do not want, I can set default persistent settings, I can change default backround desktop image, I can change the startup script, and a lot of things, including changing the actual Knoppix OS code. Is changing the code about as easy as all the other things mentioned above? What language is used in Linux code? Assembly language?

And also, is Knoppix a good distro for beginners? What distro is best for experiemnting with the actual OS code?