# Knowing Knoppix/Knoppix essentials
## Knoppix essentials

“If I ever met Bill Gates, there wouldn't be much of a meeting point. I couldn't tell him about business, and he couldn't tell me about technology.” -- Linus Torvalds
This section contains important background information that will help you understand the rest of this book. If you are in a hurry, skip over this section. The terms explained in this section will be used often, so you may need to refer back to this page later.

### File names

The following rules apply to file names in Knoppix.
* Case sensitive. This causes the most problems for beginners. For example, “myfile.txt”, “MyFile.txt” and “MYFILE.TXT” are all different names.
* Long file names are allowed. File names can be up to 255 characters long.
* There is no “C:” drive. Instead, all files are arranged in a tree beginning with “/”, which is called the root directory. The “root directory” is like “My Computer”. It is the starting point for everything stored inside in the computer.
* Forward slashes. For example, in Windows, part of the location of an image file might be: My Documents\My Pictures\duck.jpg In Knoppix, the backslashes that represent the path to the file are written as forward slashes instead, like this: My Documents/My Pictures/duck.jpg

### Drive names

You may be used to Microsoft Windows' naming scheme for disk drives. For example, you may be used to “drive A:” for the first floppy drive; “drive C:” for the first visible hard drive partition, and so on. Knoppix has its own drive naming scheme. This section explains how the naming scheme works.

#### Disk types

The naming scheme starts with a two-letter code for the type of disk.
| Name | Drive type |
| fd | Conventional floppy drive |
| hd | Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) drive |
| sd | Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) drive |

#### IDE drives

IDE drives are the most common in desktop PCs and laptops. A single letter indicates how the drive is connected. Most PCs and laptops have two IDE channels: primary and secondary. Each channel can have up to two devices: master and slave.
| Name | IDE drive |
| hda | Primary Master |
| hdb | Primary Slave |
| hdc | Secondary Master |
| hdd | Secondary Slave |

#### SCSI drives

For SCSI drives, a single letter indicates its location. This is called its position in the SCSI chain. Zip, USB and Firewire drives are also treated as SCSI drives.
| Name | SCSI drive location |
| sda | First SCSI drive |
| sdb | Second SCSI drive |
| sdc | Third SCSI drive |

#### Disk partitions

IDE and SCSI hard drives are divided into partitions. Zip, USB and Firewire drives also contain partitions. A partition is like a compartment within a disk. There may be a single partition that covers the entire disk. There may be more than one partition. Each partition is indicated by a number.
| Name | Drive | Partition |
| hda1 | Primary master IDE drive | First partition |
| hda2 | Primary master IDE drive | Second partition |
| hda3 | Primary master IDE drive | Third partition |

#### SCSI emulation for IDE CD-ROM drives

IDE CD-ROM drives are treated as SCSI drives. This is called SCSI emulation. SCSI emulation is there so that CD burning applications can use the same language to talk to SCSI and IDE drives.
| Name | CD-ROM drive |
| scd0 | First CD-ROM drive |
| scd1 | Second CD-ROM drive |
| scd2 | Third CD-ROM drive |

#### Conventional 1.44 Mb floppy drives

For ordinary floppy disk drives, a number shows the drive number.
| Name | Floppy drive number |
| fd0 | First floppy drive |
| fd1 | Second floppy drive |

### Drive detection

Knoppix automatically detects all IDE and SCSI devices. The names of the devices are printed in the startup messages (Ctrl+Alt+F1). Here is an example:
This example shows that the primary master is a Fujitsu hard drive. The primary slave is an Imation LS-120 SuperDisk drive. The secondary master is a Hitachi DVD-ROM drive. The secondary slave is a Matshita CD-RW drive.

### Partition detection

Knoppix automatically detects all partitions on all IDE and SCSI devices. For example, given a single Windows partition on the primary master IDE hard drive, the following device name will be created:
This means the partition will be called /dev/hda1 in Knoppix.

### Mount points

Each device name has a mount point. This is a special place where the files on a device appear. A mount point is created automatically for each device name. For example, given the Fujitsu drive above, the following mount point will be created:
This means the partition /dev/hda1 will be mounted to /mnt/hda1.

#### Auto-mounting of floppy and CD-ROM drives

Conventional floppy and CD-ROM drives are auto-mounted. This means Knoppix takes care of mounting and unmounting them automatically. The auto-mount locations are:
* First floppy drive: /mnt/floppy
* Second floppy drive: /mnt/floppy1
* First CD-ROM drive: /mnt/cdrom
* Second CD-ROM drive: /mnt/cdrom1

### Login accounts

When you start Knoppix, you are logged in automatically. No passwords are needed. All passwords are locked by default. Knoppix bypasses all the usernames and passwords of the operating system installed on the hard disk.
| Keyboard shortcut | Virtual terminal | Logged in as user account |
| Ctrl+Alt+F1 | Console number 1 | root |
| Ctrl+Alt+F2 | Console number 2 | root |
| Ctrl+Alt+F3 | Console number 3 | root |
| Ctrl+Alt+F4 | Console number 4 | root |
| Ctrl+Alt+F5 | X Window System (KDE) | knoppix |
You can switch between the virtual terminals at any time. For example, to switch to the first console, press Ctrl+Alt+F1. The Knoppix startup messages will be displayed. To switch to the second console, press Ctrl+Alt+F2. To get back to the X Window System, press Ctrl+Alt+F5.

### User accounts
#### The user account

The Knoppix user account is called “knoppix”. This account is for all productivity tasks, including CD burning and printing. When the X Window System starts, you are logged in to that user account automatically, without a password.

#### The superuser account

The superuser account is for system administration tasks. The superuser account is called the root account. When Knoppix starts, you are logged in as root to all four consoles automatically with no password. It is also possible to use the root account within the X Window System.