there are the occational problem that i have on knoppix that i would like to know if i will have them when i install linux.

i.e.

file format issues - especially music files .wma?
dvd player wont play one of my dvd's
some of the programs on the menu dont start when i click on them
gaim wont work

just wondering

There is no open source wma9 codec for linux.
So to play wma version9's you need the closed source win32 codec.

To keep linux distro's open source, they are not included, but can be downloaded from http://mplayerhq.hu

about your DVD, there's nothing linux can do about damaged DVD's
Maybe you should try cleaning the lense of your DVD player.

the menu thing will be a Knoppix bug.
are you sure there not running ?
some programs run as daemons (no interface) for example the samba daemon.

Gaim works fine, probably a knoppix bug.. Unless you are using an old version and attempting to access yahoo or MSN. Microsoft especially like to randomly tweak the protocol to annoy 3rd party clients, a patch is usually released within a day or so.

Linux is easy aslong as you have a little UNIX experiance, and if not, most people learn quite quickly.

within a few weeks most people are comfotable compiling applications themselves,
within a few months, most people can master custom kernel configureation and compalition.

Another reason to use gentoo ..as u just need to put win32codes in ur use flags ..and u have wma capability

I have w32codecs in my SuSE partition, the other, being Win2K.

Gaim works on SuSE 9.3 and u need libdvdcss in order to play copyrighted DVDs.
To install it for Knoppix, in your console, do sudo apt-get install libdvdcss (by doing sudo, you must enter the root password. Please also double check to do apt-get update before doing apt-get install <package>)

xboxrulz

thanks for that - no worries i still have faith in linux.

new hd soon and then gentoo is happening!!!

well, it's good that u have confidence, but I don't recommend Gentoo for newcomers.

xboxrulz

no its fine - i have a non-internet friend running a perfect gentoo (which im posting from now) and he is going to help. I have attually also installed gentoo 2004.3 but it was networkless and i coulndt be bothered so that is going to have to be re-installed 2005.