Having failed at installing Gentoo Linux, I am giving knoppix a shot. I downloaded the iso using bittorrent, and burnt it to a CD with no difficulty. The CD booted up just fine, and, just as claimed, there sits a completely functional Linux instance, running purely from the CD! This is more like it! Of course, running from a CD is a whole lot different than running from disk, so let's seeif things go any better.

I'm already seeing some differences between Gentoo and Knoppix; with Gentoo, the documentatin was very specific, but the product just didn't work (for me, at least). With Knoppix, the documentation is pretty vague, but the product does seem to work.

Documentation? http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Hd_Install_HowTo

With the Knoppix gui running, I can see the two partitions I have left over from the failed Gentoo install, but in the name of fair play, I will delete and recreate them.

I fire up a command-line window, and...

$ su
# fdisk /dev/hda ... d ... 3 ... d ... 2 ... d ... 1 ... w

and just like that, it's gone! BTW, I finally figured out that when folks document command-line stuff, the $ and # is so ya know it is a non-root or root user. Not sure why that didn't click a few years ago. Whatever.

Now to make the new partitions. The docs say
"It´s recommend to use 5 GB for root partition and 400 MB for swap partition.

(NOTE: Be sure the root partition is the first partition on the drive, is formatted with ext2 or ext3, and is set to "active." The swap partition must be formatted with "linux-swap." Installation and subsequent booting will not continue otherwise.)"
 
Now I make three partitions, the first will be a 5gb root, the second a 400mb swap, and the third for my stuff. Also, I should note that at this point (as of this paragraph), I am writing this using Firefox, running from Knoppix as I do the fdisk! Now that's cool. Okay, the partition stuff, I did a cut-n-paste from the command-line window to here, so you can see all the blab:

root@1[knoppix]# fdisk /dev/hda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 19885.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-19885, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-19885, default 19885): +5000M

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
First cylinder (9690-19885, default 9690):
Using default value 9690
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (9690-19885, default 19885): +400M

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 2
Hex code (type L to list codes): 82
Changed system type of partition 2 to 82 (Linux swap)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 3
First cylinder (10466-19885, default 10466):
Using default value 10466
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (10466-19885, default 19885):
Using default value 19885

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 3
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.

So now that's done. It says I need to reboot, so, I suppose I'll reboot!

(2 days later)

Now to format the partitions.

knoppix@1[knoppix]$ su
root@1[knoppix]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/hda1
mke2fs 1.37 (21-Mar-2005)
/dev/hda1 is mounted; will not make a filesystem here!
root@1[knoppix]# fstab
bash: fstab: command not found
root@1[knoppix]# cat /etc/fstab
/proc      /proc       proc   defaults            0 0
/sys       /sys        sysfs  noauto              0 0
/dev/pts   /dev/pts    devpts mode=0622           0 0
/dev/fd0   /mnt/auto/floppy auto   user,noauto,exec,umask=000    0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/auto/cdrom  auto   user,noauto,exec,ro 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ext2 noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
root@1[knoppix]#

So as you can see, after that reboot, it looks like Knoppix already took care of /dev/hda1. Looks like /dev/hda2 needs to be formatted as a swap partition, though.

root@1[knoppix]# mkswap /dev/hda2
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 400486 kB

That went well enough. Now to format /dev/hda3.

root@1[knoppix]# mkfs.ext3 -b 4096 /dev/hda3
mke2fs 1.37 (21-Mar-2005)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
594368 inodes, 1186920 blocks
59346 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
37 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16064 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (8192 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 26 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

and that looks good, too. I forgot to set /dev/hda1 to be active, though. Time to fix that, too.

root@1[knoppix]# fdisk /dev/hda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 19885.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): a
Partition number (1-4): 1

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.

Good.

And the documentation I found at the wiki says to type
sudo knoppix-installer
I do. It turns out I could have done this in the first place, cuz it is now running and formatting /dev/hda1 for me. After I did all that work! Oh well, that's what I get for not reading, right? Yep. Well, maybe it wasn't all in vain, I think I had to create the partitions first, so perhaps I didn't waste too much effort.

Knoppix is now installing to the hard drive, while I'm typing this stuff in at the same time. I like this, this is sweet.

(45 minutes later)
The installer could not determine my video card type; as the screen was going crazy. I wiggled the mouse and was back at the installer. It asked if I wanted to create a boot floppy, and I did, so I put in a blank floppy and hit "OK".

The installer quit immediately, the floppy never got accessed. The command sh... no wait, I just got a blurb "Knoppix was successfully installed to the hd." Good!

I never saw the floppy light come on, though. I think the floppy is blank. Whatever.

I eject the floppy, and shut down the server.  I remove the Knoppix CD and reboot the server. And behold, there is a login screen. I try to login as root, and am notified that I cannot login as root. Now that is something I am not used to, but whatever. I log in with the user account I created at some point, I forgot when; I think it was while the installer GUI was running. Anyhow, I long in just fine. I'm typing this out from Knoppix running off my hard drive, so I'm a pretty happy guy at this point.

I've got Knoppix lit up on my hd, it took very little effort. I am definately a Knoppix fan as of this moment!

So now that I got what I came for, what next? My plan is to install Blue Dragon on this guy. I'm presuming Apache is on here, if not, I'll install that, too.