Knoppix

Wow, it's been a while since I heard that name.

Knoppix saved my bacon a couple of times, I remember using their live CD.

I love that so many people have fond memories, and I assume it says something about the state of bootable linux distros that Knoppix is not as unique anymore.

Knoppix was my first experience with Linux over 20 years ago; my brother-in-law introduced me to it and it was really neat. "My computer isn't just Windows!"

Now with major distros offering live sessions in their installer, you can just hop into Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch.

Brings back memories. One of my earlier Linux touch points. There was also this sibling Kanotix. Good times.

I used knoppix (and later SLAX) in high school to reboot shared computers (library, labs, etc) and then extract the SAM file from the C:\ drive. I would shuttle the file home on a USB stick and crack it overnight. After doing this on a handful of computers I ended up having virtually every teacher/admin password in the school, including the domain admin which was no shit all lowercase "north". The crack was so fast for weeks I thought it was a mistake and never even attempted to use it.

The most interesting thing was the patterns you could see with various teachers and pw reset policies. Some had themes like seasonal, others would take the current month and tack-on a number.

I ended up getting expelled for using that domain admin account to poke around. Had to transfer to a different school and was perma-banned from touching a computer for the rest of my time there. It ended up being a blessing in disguise, I had a lot more fun and grew up a lot at the other, larger high school. I still recall my guidance counselor helping me setup my classes for senior year... "ok, yeah and we'll put you in programming for your elective... OH WAIT... you aren't allowed to be anywhere near a computer, ceramics it is". Ceramics ended up being a blast!

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