Is it just me...

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: AnonymouseUser

Originally posted by: Deeko
I have a question for you linux-types.

I do a lot of remote work on windows machines. Can I log in to a windows computer with linux, ala Remote Desktop in Windows? Don't care about the reverse, just need to access Windows systems from Linux.

Yes, you can, but you will violate your EULA if you access Windows via any OS other than a Microsoft OS.

Are you serious? Because its for work - I don't want to jeapordize my company.

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: manly
How's ACPI support doing these days? Anywhere close to Windows XP yet?

:|

Unless you've ever been reverse-engineering a DSDT, hacking ACPI Source Language (the person who suggested that variable names be at most 4 characters long should be dragged out back and shot :evil: ), trying to compensate for the subtle breakage in MS's implementation of their own fscking standard, and the accompanying insistence of laptop vendors to code to that laxity (or worse), I suggest that you STFU about ACPI with respect to Linux.

ACPI on Linux

Now that I've calmed down now... ACPI is a POS anyway. I shouldn't be going ballistic over thoroughly fscked-up standards; unnecessary stress is bad for my health.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: bersl2

Originally posted by: manly
How's ACPI support doing these days? Anywhere close to Windows XP yet?

:|

Unless you've ever been reverse-engineering a DSDT, hacking ACPI Source Language (the person who suggested that variable names be at most 4 characters long should be dragged out back and shot :evil: ), trying to compensate for the subtle breakage in MS's implementation of their own fscking standard, and the accompanying insistence of laptop vendors to code to that laxity (or worse), I suggest that you STFU about ACPI with respect to Linux.

ACPI on Linux

Now that I've calmed down now... ACPI is a POS anyway. I shouldn't be going ballistic over thoroughly fscked-up standards; unnecessary stress is bad for my health.

It was a reasonable question, why should anyone STFU?

I (and I'm sure others) just want Suspend to RAM/sleep state S3 to work. It wasn't viable a couple years ago, but I would hope they've made some progress since.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: halik
Just wait till you actually start using it...

open evolution, copy something from an email and paste it into firefox address bar

I click on the link in the email and it opens a tab in firefox. Problem with that?

Plug in your external firewire drive / non-usb-mass digital camera. Let me know in couple hours how far you've progressed.

It's been a long time since I've tried a firewire drive, but I don't remember having any problem with it on Linux 1-2 years ago. I ended up using the USB port instead, but that's only because OpenBSD didn't yet support firewire drives. My FireWire MiniDV videocam also works just fine.

As for still cameras, my Canon PowerShot A95 works fine in non-usb-mass mode. Plug it in. Window pops up automatically asking if I want to import my photos. Clicky-clicky.

All in all, I fail to see your point. None of the above things were even "hacks" in any sense of the term. They just worked.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Deeko

Originally posted by: AnonymouseUser

Originally posted by: Deeko
I have a question for you linux-types.

I do a lot of remote work on windows machines. Can I log in to a windows computer with linux, ala Remote Desktop in Windows? Don't care about the reverse, just need to access Windows systems from Linux.

Yes, you can, but you will violate your EULA if you access Windows via any OS other than a Microsoft OS.

Are you serious? Because its for work - I don't want to jeapordize my company.

I think that is bullshit, personally. Even if it's in the EULA (which I don't think so) doesn't mean it's valid. Plenty of people use in corporate-land

I am sure it's fine as long as you don't try to work around any licensing stuff.

For instance it's quite possible to use one MS Office copy for multiple users via remote desktop/citrix server setup, but you still need to purchase the extra licenses to make it perfectly legal.

Talk to your company people about it. If it turns out they dont' like it have them purchase citrix essentials or something. Maybe if it works out you'd be able to start replacing fat clients with thin terminals and/or linux PCs running rdesktop (or gnome or kde easy-to-use-gui-based equivelent) or citrix clients.. Should lead to considurable administrative cost savings if users don't need to have a whole local Windows OS install to do their work.

People use projects like LTSP and other thin client setups with good success with things like call centers and such.

 

[doornail]

Originally posted by: Deeko

Originally posted by: AnonymouseUser

Originally posted by: Deeko
Yes, you can, but you will violate your EULA if you access Windows via any OS other than a Microsoft OS.

Are you serious? Because its for work - I don't want to jeapordize my company.

That floors me. The guy wants to remote from one computer to another and has to worry about "legal" issues.

This is exactly why I'm a Linux/FOSS guy -- freedom from this kind of BS where companies sic lawyers on their own customers. No EULA's, no CAL's, no WPA, no WGA, no serial numbers to lose, no confusing product versioning designed to empty the most pockets, no artificial throttles on processing, etc.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: thehstrybean

Originally posted by: Jassi
How can I customize the look of my Xubuntu install? I like Apples icon bar at the bottom and the setup you've shown in your screenshot. I'd like to copy that on my Xubuntu install, anyone know how?

That bar is from gdesklets...it's right in the package manager...once you have it, go for the Toolbars/Misc for the one I have, or there's one under Toolbars/Launchers that is like dashboard...almost...

Yep, I use it and it's cool but there is no option for 'stay on top' with it.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
It's just you.

*cough* BSD *cough*

- M4H

When OpenBSD gets APT I'll use it as my desktop

And no, ports isn't as comfy as APT.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
It's just you.

*cough* BSD *cough*

- M4H

When OpenBSD gets APT I'll use it as my desktop

And no, ports isn't as comfy as APT.

Use packages.

 

[spike spiegal]

trying to compensate for the subtle breakage in MS's implementation of their own fscking standard

Given that the odds are 85% or better the box is going to be running Windows anyways, why shouldn't they cheat? You'd rather it be stroked for OSX?

Otherwise, I agree with you about ACPI.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: spike spiegal

trying to compensate for the subtle breakage in MS's implementation of their own fscking standard

Given that the odds are 85% or better the box is going to be running Windows anyways, why shouldn't they cheat? You'd rather it be stroked for OSX?

Otherwise, I agree with you about ACPI.

Because it's supposed to be a standard.

 

[spike spiegal]

This is exactly why I'm a Linux/FOSS guy -- freedom from this kind of BS where companies sic lawyers on their own customers.

Trust me. The same lawyers who go after MS for trying to include software with their own OS are firmly entrenched in the penguin camp.

"Open Standards" means any standard besides Microsoft's.

Also, the most restrictive and draconian software Licensing I've had to deal with *isn't* Microsoft's.

MS also doesn't give a crap what hardware you load their OS and software on as long as you've paid the license. This unlike that OTHER OS that Linux fanatics are raving about (OSX) that restricts you to a single platform. Apple is now a non-profit company according to what I'm reading in Linux forums.

I spend a good deal of time using Adobe Photoshop, a typical 'capitalist pig' application that requires $$$ and a license. Also doesn't run native on Linux without a hack fooling it into thinking it's running on Windows.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: spike spiegal

This is exactly why I'm a Linux/FOSS guy -- freedom from this kind of BS where companies sic lawyers on their own customers.

Trust me. The same lawyers who go after MS for trying to include software with their own OS are firmly entrenched in the penguin camp.

"Open Standards" means any standard besides Microsoft's.

Also, the most restrictive and draconian software Licensing I've had to deal with *isn't* Microsoft's.

MS also doesn't give a crap what hardware you load their OS and software on as long as you've paid the license. This unlike that OTHER OS that Linux fanatics are raving about (OSX) that restricts you to a single platform. Apple is now a non-profit company according to what I'm reading in Linux forums.

I spend a good deal of time using Adobe Photoshop, a typical 'capitalist pig' application that requires $$$ and a license. Also doesn't run native on Linux without a hack fooling it into thinking it's running on Windows.

Someone's bitter. About what I'm not sure, but I think Steve Jobs kicked his dog...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: thehstrybean

Originally posted by: Jassi
How can I customize the look of my Xubuntu install? I like Apples icon bar at the bottom and the setup you've shown in your screenshot. I'd like to copy that on my Xubuntu install, anyone know how?

That bar is from gdesklets...it's right in the package manager...once you have it, go for the Toolbars/Misc for the one I have, or there's one under Toolbars/Launchers that is like dashboard...almost...

Yep, I use it and it's cool but there is no option for 'stay on top' with it.

There is a new one that is suppose to be very slick. Cairo based and it can take advantage of opengl acceleration via glitz.

Cairo-dock, this guy has a video of it.
http://macslow.thepimp.net/?p=61
Notice how the names of applications appear when you drift over a icon.

It's now called gnome-dock. It's very slick, very very fast. Unlike gdesklet stuff in my experiance. With glitz and cairo the guy got it well above 500 fps. Of course normally it will be constrained to your desktop refresh rate.

Of course personally I've always hated the MacOS doc. Irritates the hell out of me. It's fancy and nice looking, but it takes up a lot of space and actually gets in the way of applicaitons sometimes.

Now this same guy that started that had a couple other videos.

For eye candy goodness I found a couple different things on that guy's blog.
This youtube video shows how well the XGL stuff works with touch screens. The wobbly windows and such give it a more tactile response to your touch. Still need the keyboard though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx9FgLr9oTk

The guy that did the cairo-dock is working on a lightweight opengl/gtk-driven file manager called lowfat
http://macslow.thepimp.net/?page_id=18

That one is even more fancy then anything else. It starts to show off what is possible with good new flexible accelerated interfaces and human interaction.

Looking at the youtube video and then the lowfat one you can start to realy see how it can work. I beleive he mentions multiple input devices and such. Just think what it's going to be like as people start to move into a more fully immersive 3d environment. (realy realy big screens or real 3D with full depth perception, 3d goggles and pointing devices that aren't attatched to your desk anymore and things like that)

 

[doornail]

Originally posted by: spike spiegal
I spend a good deal of time using Adobe Photoshop, a typical 'capitalist pig' application that requires $$$ and a license. Also doesn't run native on Linux without a hack fooling it into thinking it's running on Windows.

It's funny that you make an allusion to open source as being communistic when, IMHO, it's kin to one of the founding concepts of the United States -- freedom. Photoshop is a great program and I have no problem with them charging for it.

I've yet to run into a imaging need that I couldn't manage in The Gimp though. In fact, I have it open right now to add white backgrounds to some web art because piece-of-s### IE6 doesn't know how to draw a PNG with transparency.

 

[Robor]

That Cairo-dock looks cool but it's not available with apt-get (not in my repos anyway). I tried downloading it, extracting it, and launching it but it fails with a 'Floating point exception' error. There's a thread HERE on Ubuntu Forums about it as well. I tried that guys instructions and it bombed out miserably. Toward the end of that thread I noticed someone asking about a 'stay on top' option so it looks like I wouldnt' like it anyway. Hopefully it will be fixed, stable, and available with a simple apt-get soon.

Edit: Looking further it looks like I've got version conflicts. In Synaptic if I search for 'glitz' I see I've got libglitz1, libglitz1-dev, and libglitz-glx1 installed (all 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1 versions). I have libglitz-glx1-dev available but it's 0.5.3-0Ubuntu2 version. If I try to install it anyway I get an error. If I look under the Dependencies tab I see 'Depends: libglitz-glx1 (=0.5.3-0ubuntu2) but 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1 is to be installed' and 'Depends: libglitz1-dev (=0.5.3-0ubuntu2) but 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1 is to be installed'. If I understand that correctly, the version of libglitz-glx1-dev available in Synaptic is for 0.5.3-0Ubuntu2 and the dependencies I've got installed are 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Robor
That Cairo-dock looks cool but it's not available with apt-get (not in my repos anyway). I tried downloading it, extracting it, and launching it but it fails with a 'Floating point exception' error. There's a thread HERE on Ubuntu Forums about it as well. I tried that guys instructions and it bombed out miserably. Toward the end of that thread I noticed someone asking about a 'stay on top' option so it looks like I wouldnt' like it anyway. Hopefully it will be fixed, stable, and available with a simple apt-get soon.

Edit: Looking further it looks like I've got version conflicts. In Synaptic if I search for 'glitz' I see I've got libglitz1, libglitz1-dev, and libglitz-glx1 installed (all 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1 versions). I have libglitz-glx1-dev available but it's 0.5.3-0Ubuntu2 version. If I try to install it anyway I get an error. If I look under the Dependencies tab I see 'Depends: libglitz-glx1 (=0.5.3-0ubuntu2) but 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1 is to be installed' and 'Depends: libglitz1-dev (=0.5.3-0ubuntu2) but 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1 is to be installed'. If I understand that correctly, the version of libglitz-glx1-dev available in Synaptic is for 0.5.3-0Ubuntu2 and the dependencies I've got installed are 0.5.6-0Ubuntu1.

That happens sometimes. Broken dependancies. Probably nobody else has ran into it and filed a bug for it.
Maybe ask on the ubuntu forums about the problem. I think they have a developer section that may be appropriate. Not sure.

Anyways if your installing cairo-dock I am not surpised it's going to be difficult.

It's been superceeded by Gnome-dock. http://www.gnome-dock.org/trac
Keep in mind that this is very in-development type thing so it may be dfficult to get working.

 

[Nothinman]

I know I probably shouldn't post this late in the thread, but I'm bored so =)

Post a screenie with that OS running all our stuff that we use everyday - smoothly with no compatibilty and perhaps I'd be interested.

No compatibility with what? I use Linux on all of my desktop machines every day and have no compatibility issues.

emerge is sick though...

If by sick you mean pointless and annoying, sure.

Linux is cool, except for the whole... it-takes-me-an-hour-to-do-what-would-take-2-minutes-on-windows problem

Funny, I have the opposite problem. Every time I have to do something on Windows it takes me at least twice as long to get it done and I can think of 5 ways to do it faster in Linux.

I have no tolerance for that level learning curve.

Yea really, who wants to learn anything with a computer?

It took me 3 hours of cussing to get the wireless to work, and even then it wouldn't stay connected.

Then you probably have a Broadcom card, you should complain to your manufacturer for selling you such subpar equipment.

How's ACPI support doing these days? Anywhere close to Windows XP yet?

IMO it's better, with acpid I can script what happens when an ACPI event occurs. With Windows you're limited to the ~3 choices in their menus. As for the power management aspect of ACPI it depends heavily on your hardware and BIOS. On my laptop I only use hibernation since it's a hog, so I don't know if suspend to ram works but I have seen a lot of success stories on the suspend mailing lists that I'm on.

Yes, you can, but you will violate your EULA if you access Windows via any OS other than a Microsoft OS.

Bullshit, if you really believe that post the part of the EULA that prohibits it.

Some of the Linux distros are "cleaner" mostly because the development time on them is low and not that much has been built in yet. Sometimes I like that, but I also like having lots built in like with XP or even MacOSX.

Oh please, if anything most distributions include dozens or hundreds more pieces of software than MS does with Windows.

Given that the odds are 85% or better the box is going to be running Windows anyways, why shouldn't they cheat? You'd rather it be stroked for OSX?

Because it's a standard. And in most of the cases it's just really stupid things like obfuscating node names and straight up bugs that MS (or the vendor via drivers) has to work around.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Linux is cool, except for the whole... it-takes-me-an-hour-to-do-what-would-take-2-minutes-on-windows problem

Funny, I have the opposite problem. Every time I have to do something on Windows it takes me at least twice as long to get it done and I can think of 5 ways to do it faster in Linux.

No joke. What particularly irks me is hunting around the Internet for every little piece of software I like to use. I was recently stuck with Windows machines for a month or two, and all I wanted to do was burn a VCD from a download. The options were a) pay for crappy versions of software available for free on Linux, b) pirate them (which I won't do), c) use a half-dozen even crappier freeware tools that all had their own ideas about installation and UI. I went with "c". On Linux, I only had to download the "tovid" script, where somebody else had already done all the work getting all the free parts to work together, burn the resulting file with cdrdao, and clean up. All of which I later consolidated to a single run of a three-line bash script.

Yes, you can, but you will violate your EULA if you access Windows via any OS other than a Microsoft OS.

Actually, I looked it up after it was first mentioned here, and it does appear to be implied in a part of the EULA that was amended for XP SP2. Of course, it wasn't totally clear how to read the passage... only the lawyers know for sure. Well, probably not even them until a judge decides it.

Because it's a standard. And in most of the cases it's just really stupid things like obfuscating node names and straight up bugs that MS (or the vendor via drivers) has to work around.

On this topic, how technically difficult would it be for me to hack some kind of ACPI suspend support for a crappy Acer laptop that's never been able to suspend properly? (Given that I know some C and am generally not afraid of long-winded, standards/RFC-type documentation...) Is it mostly a matter of trial and error, or is there deep and ugly technical mojo going on in there?

 

[Nothinman]

No joke. What particularly irks me is hunting around the Internet for every little piece of software I like to use. I was recently stuck with Windows machines for a month or two, and all I wanted to do was burn a VCD from a download. The options were a) pay for crappy versions of software available for free on Linux, b) pirate them (which I won't do), c) use a half-dozen even crappier freeware tools that all had their own ideas about installation and UI. I went with "c". On Linux, I only had to download the "tovid" script, where somebody else had already done all the work getting all the free parts to work together, burn the resulting file with cdrdao, and clean up. All of which I later consolidated to a single run of a three-line bash script.

Yea, I probably would have went with d) ask someone else with a burner and software to burn it for me or e) boot Knoppix and burn it myself with cdrdao.

Actually, I looked it up after it was first mentioned here, and it does appear to be implied in a part of the EULA that was amended for XP SP2. Of course, it wasn't totally clear how to read the passage... only the lawyers know for sure. Well, probably not even them until a judge decides it.

The language on it would have to be extremely clear, 'accessing' a Windows machine from another OS making you violate the EULA would pretty much make it illegal to put Windows on the Internet.

On this topic, how technically difficult would it be for me to hack some kind of ACPI suspend support for a crappy Acer laptop that's never been able to suspend properly? (Given that I know some C and am generally not afraid of long-winded, standards/RFC-type documentation...) Is it mostly a matter of trial and error, or is there deep and ugly technical mojo going on in there?

I've never fought with it personally, but I believe most of the work is in making sure the hardware and drivers support PM and if your problem really is ACPI getting a fixed DSDT loaded. The problem is that I have no idea on how to get or create a fixed DSDT.

Here would probably be a good place to start:http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Yea, I probably would have went with d) ask someone else with a burner and software to burn it for me or e) boot Knoppix and burn it myself with cdrdao.

Damn, why didn't I think of "e"? I even had free space I could have used for a native filesystem for scratch space. Does Knoppix have mplayer, mencoder, and the standard AV codecs pre-installed? Sadly, my RL friends are semi-technical at best - none of them have any clue about creating VCD's. So "d" would have been out.

The language on it would have to be extremely clear, 'accessing' a Windows machine from another OS making you violate the EULA would pretty much make it illegal to put Windows on the Internet.

It's pretty specific to remote desktop access. You can see some discussion in the context of VNC here.

 

[Mindflux]

Linux isn't an OS. It's a Kernel.

There in lay the problem.


Meaning:
Yes, the kernel has a relatively close eye kept on it. But what's comprised of the 'userland', is just a bunch of packages cobbled together.

*BSD the userland and the kernel come from the same source tree.

FTW.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Mindflux
Linux isn't an OS. It's a Kernel.

Wrong. It's actually a brand of detergent.

Anyhow which problem inlies there? MS just doesn't like multiple instances of its OS running at once. I don't think most Windows VNCs infringe on anything since they just share the current desktop. No two people can (reliably) simultaneously use the same operating system on one computer.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Mindflux
Yes, the kernel has a relatively close eye kept on it. But what's comprised of the 'userland', is just a bunch of packages cobbled together.

Not disagreeing with you, but I do think there's been tremendous improvement along these lines over the last 2 years or so. At least as far as the desktop user is concerned, the whole experience is much more "cohesive" now than it was before. I'm not comparing it to OSX or anything, but there's definitely been a lot of progress. To what extent that's an effect of greater corporate involvement, the effective reduction of the desktop space to GNOME/KDE, the work of independent groups (e.g. freedesktop.org), or just individual coders being more cooperative and thoughtful I couldn't say. All of the above to some degree, obviously...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: Mindflux
Yes, the kernel has a relatively close eye kept on it. But what's comprised of the 'userland', is just a bunch of packages cobbled together.

Not disagreeing with you, but I do think there's been tremendous improvement along these lines over the last 2 years or so. At least as far as the desktop user is concerned, the whole experience is much more "cohesive" now than it was before. I'm not comparing it to OSX or anything, but there's definitely been a lot of progress. To what extent that's an effect of greater corporate involvement, the effective reduction of the desktop space to GNOME/KDE, the work of independent groups (e.g. freedesktop.org), or just individual coders being more cooperative and thoughtful I couldn't say. All of the above to some degree, obviously...

Ha. Maybe I should go to channel9 (Microsoft astroturf website) and find the video were some top developers were complaining (in a sort of upbeat corporate way) about how much of a pain in the ass figuring out dependances was while they were working on Vista. And people say that Linux is difficult!

Windows is 10x more complicated, with a much more sophisticated kernel and a whole host of just realy insane stuff going on.

They specificly talked about how increadably badly the registry was designed... Or basicly complete lack of design. They've had (I am sure that it's ongoing to this day) figure out some logical way to divide up the registry for maintainability and security. Take something that was monolythic with people just funnelling all sorts of stuff into it without any real regard to protocol or logic since 1995 and then try to force logic into it without breaking backward compatability with 7 year old binary-only applications whose original developers have long since dissapeared.

That's just some insane stuff there and it's taking millions of dollars and many of the top programmers in the world in order to get it to a usable point for Vista even after many months of delays and setbacks.

Compared to that the dependancy issues that Linux users have to deal with are simplicity in itself. Each part is a little logical lego peice fitting into a cohesive whole... Which is entirely untrue, it just seems that way in comparision.


It's a very different mindset.

Linux being made up of little bits and peices is why I am happily typing this out on the browser of my choice, on the desktop of my choice, on a comptuer that boots up over iscsi (open-iscsi still needs some work before this is a realy workable solution).

I didn't even need to compile a custom kernel or use special hardware or anything like that. I had to just whip up some bash scripts/hooks for mkinitramfs and viola! custom network boot system. No floppy boot, no usb boot, no cdrom boot, just using the pxe boot built into my onboard nic card. But there are a dozen different ways I could of done it.

Setup pxelinux bootloader and a dhcpd and tftpd server and that's it. Nobody else realy does this. This isn't a tested configuration or anything like that were the Gnome developers muck around with to make sure it works.. but everything still works because each little peice of the OS does it's own little job and if it works then everything else works irregardless of what is going on.

Have full desktop search and indexing with just the normal everyday setup of programs and games.

Then on my laptop I use a simple rsync script to sync up my browser's settings and thunderbird email and scripts and high scores of some types of games and that just works to. Full desktop environment like I have on my desktop, just smaller. And even though it's a PPC laptop and my desktop is x86, it's still fine. I didn't have to use any special apps or figured out registry hacks or work out my own special vb scripts or anything to find specific ways I could match registry settings. I just found out which file did what for which apps and basicly do little more then a fancy copy from one machine to the next and it just works.

People take all these peices and they stick them on a cdrom.

Hell one group of people have setup a full desktop operating system.. a FULL desktop operating system with over 3 gigs worth of applications and such and have it so you just need to burn 4.7 MB worth of data to a cdrom.

It's bizzare. Over 3 GIGABYTES of applications on a 4 MEGABYTE cdrom.

And that's 3 gigs of heavily compressed data on a read-only file system. In actuality it's more like 6 gigs or maybe even more then that.

It just pulls down your operating system block by block by block from Coral cache websites. You can cache it to your harddrive if you like, but that's not required. You don't need 3 gigs worth or RAM to hold it either. And the fun part is that if you setup a generic http cache'ng proxy you can cache your operating system on a central server.

In other words it's a http-server based file system. Very bizzare stuff.

It's just a generic knoppix dvd image that their using also. Knoppix didn't know people were going to use it like that. They didn't have to recompile anything or realy modify a whole lot of the OS.. 2 or 3 bash scripts a most... if that. Just mostly they made a custom mini-root image for bootstrapping the system. They just changed out one peice (or added a peice: HTTP-FUSE), and it just works.
http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/http-fuse/DVD-KNOPPIX40.PNG
vs
http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/http-fuse/HTTP-FUSE-KNOPPIX40.PNG

It's ability to do bizzare stuff like that fairly easily, especially with access to the code makes it even more flexible, is one of the reasons linux is gaining rapidly in popularity with things like handheld devices, or industrial equipment, or phones, or servers, or super computer clusters, or high-end midi master controller keyboards, or mainframe operating systems, or whatever the hell else people use computers for.

Of course this doesn't help any with desktop systems. Flexibility comes with a price and being able to do custom stuff easily isn't that usefull to a person that requires strict uniformity in order to understand and use a computer effectively.. Which is generally what your going to see on Desktop Systems. Also it doesn't lend itself to binary compatability when it comes to drivers and applications... which is required if your users need to use closed source software for their day to day lives.

That's not the only reason why Linux isn't 'mainstream' in the desktop yet, but it's a big one.