Kanotix, also referred to as KANOTIX, is an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

based on

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

, with advanced hardware detection. It can run from an optical disc drive or other media i.e.

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

-stick without using a

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

. Kanotix uses

KDE Software Compilation The KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC) was an umbrella term for the desktop environment plus a range of included applications produced by KDE. From its 1.0 release in July 1998 until the release of version 4.4 in February 2010, the Software Compi ...

as the default

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

. Since 2013 the newer releases ship with

LXDE LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...

as a second lightweight desktop environment. Unlike other similar Linux-distributions Kanotix is a

rolling release Rolling release, also known as rolling update or continuous delivery, is a concept in software development of frequently delivering updates to applications. This is in contrast to a ''standard'' or '' point release'' development model which uses ...

. Nightly builds are automated builds every night of the latest development code of KANOTIX and with the latest packages from the repositories. The name "Kanotix" is derived from the founder's

nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

"Kano". Kanotix's mascot is a fangtooth.

Content

Kanotix is based on the newest Debian stable. It also provides its own packages and scripts and many

backport Backporting is the action of taking parts from a newer version of a software system or software component and porting them to an older version of the same software. It forms part of the maintenance step in a software development process, and it i ...

s. Kanotix also provides an optimized kernel with additional patches. Kanotix includes about 1,500 software packages, among others *

, the default desktop environment and

the lightweight version * Amarok, Video Disk Recorder * Internet access software, including KDE Network Manager, KPPP dialer,

Wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

-driver and

NdisWrapper NDISwrapper is a free software driver wrapper that enables the use of Windows XP network device drivers (for devices such as PCI cards, USB modems, and routers) on Linux operating systems. NDISwrapper works by implementing the Windows kerne ...

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

web browser, Thunderbird mail/news client,

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

instant messenger * K3b, for CD (and DVD) authoring and backup *

GIMP Gimp or GIMP may refer to: Clothing * Bondage suit, also called a gimp suit, a type of suit used in BDSM * Bondage mask, also called a gimp mask, often worn in conjunction with a gimp suit Embroidery and crafts * Gimp (thread), an ornamental tr ...

, an image-manipulation program, also

Inkscape Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. It is used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagrams, and flowcharts. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at ...

a free and open-source vector graphics editor *

GParted GParted is a GTK front-end to GNU Parted and an official GNOME partition-editing application (alongside GNOME Disks, Disks). GParted is used for creating, deleting, resizing, moving, checking, and copying Partition (computing), disk partitions a ...

and other tools for data rescue and system repair * Network analysis and administration tools *

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...

, the office suite (backports) * Programming and development tools * NTFS-3G used by default * Automatic installation of graphic-drivers with

nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

and fglrx-scripts with dkms support. * Scripts for additional multimedia support (current mplayer-versions) *

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

(Software) updated to newest versions

Usage

Kanotix is designed for multiple-purpose usage so that it can be used in live mode on different types of media (

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

, and

USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

) and includes an installation tool for installing Kanotix to the hard drive. The distribution ships with the latest kernel which is carefully patched with fixes and drivers for most modern hardware. Kanotix is an ideal tool for testing, data rescue, or for working and safe surfing and mailing on different machines e.g. in an Internet cafe.

Live mode

The Live mode allows it to work without any installation. As Kanotix comes with unionfs and aufs-support one can "install" additional packages by using APT (via connection to the Internet). For USB-users the so-called "persistent mode" allows to save data changes back to the USB storage device and the stored data and customized settings can be used again on following boots. Using USB flash drive (when supported by BIOS), is of course much faster than booting from CD or DVD.

Installation

Kanotix can be installed to the hard disk using the (graphical) acritoxinstaller, which, depending on optical drive, hard disk and processor speed, can take around 10–20 minutes. The acritoxinstaller is a KDE/Qt frontend and a bash backend and comes with a user-friendly interface and several advanced features: e.g. LVM support, dmraid support, automatic partitioning (including ntfsresize-support), installation to USB-HDDs.

Versions

History (2003–2006)

The distribution derived from "Kano's Scriptpage for Knoppix". He wrote about Knoppix: "I like it much, but I had to improve it :)". One of the main differences from Knoppix was the support of hard disk installation. The first "Kanotix"-preview was released at 24 December 2003 "KANOTIX XMAS 2003 PREVIEW". In 2004 and 2005 KANOTIX was a popular distribution ranking in the top 20 of distrowatch.com. In 2004 the releases were named "Bug Hunter" (Bug Hunter-01-2004 - X-2004). After problems with the stability in 2006 Jörg "Kano" Schirottke decided to move from Debian Sid to a less volatile basis. The co-developer and other of the Kanotix-Team wanted to stay with Debian-Sid and left the project, to start sidux, a new distribution based on Debian sid. The last Kanotix release based on Debian Sid was 2006-01-RC4.

Versions based on Debian stable (2007–current)

Kanotix-Thorhammer-Release 2007

The first Release based on Debian-stable was the Kanotix-Thorhammer in 2007. After the Debian- Etch-Release in April 2007 Kanotix was no longer compatible with Debian Sid. So a Howto was given, "Steps to update right", to move a KANOTIX-installation to the new base by dist-upgrade. After 3 months of development and several beta Releases the new ''Kanotix-2007-Thorhammer-RC6'' was publicly available for download. The last published version was ''Kanotix-2007-Thorhammer-RC7''. The ''development in 2008'' featured continuously kernel-updates and a lot of backports in the Thorhammer-repository. Some of the additional packages were adaptations for

netbook A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...

s and

notebooks A notebook is a small book often used for writing. Notebook or The Notebook may also refer to: Computing *Laptop, a type of personal computer **Notebook (laptop), a specific, smaller class of laptop *Google Notebook, a discontinued online appli ...

. A highlighted additional backport was OpenOffice.org 3.2.x

Kanotix-Excalibur-2010

The (old) stable Release 2010 ''Kanotix-Excalibur'' was based on Debian 5 ("Lenny") and had compared to Thorhammer some basic changes (based on Debian-Live, bootloader Grub2). Furthermore, Kanotix-Excalibur was available for 32-Bit and 64-Bit architecture and a 2in1 iso with both. Additionally there are Kanotix Excalibur 2010 KDE4 (KDE SC 4.3.2) versions available and an "all-in-one"-DVD.iso. Kanotix-Excalibur contains the more up-to-date Ubuntu-kernels 2.6.32-BFS with special patches. During the development most of the Kanotix-Excalibur-test.iso were not published but accessible to the community. A first "Preview"-Version was published on December 27, 2009. The final ''Kanotix-Excalibur-2010'' was released on 8 June 2010, just in time for LinuxTag 2010.

Kanotix-Hellfire-2011-2012

The next stable version, code-name ''Kanotix-Hellfire'' is based on Debian 6 ("Squeeze"). It ships with

KDE Software Compilation 4 KDE Software Compilation 4 (KDE SC 4) was the only series of the so-called KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC), first released in January 2008. The final release was version 4.14.3 in November 2014. It was the follow-up to K Desktop Environment 3 ...

for 32-Bit and 64-Bit architecture and a complete new branding stuff, new kernel (2.6.38), LibreOffice 3.3.2 and more. An updated version ''Kanotix-Hellfire 2011-05'' was released with the project's presentation at LinuxTag 2011 in Berlin and again with version ''Kanotix-Hellfire 2012-05'' one year later during the LinuxTag 2012 With the so-called "GFX overlays" that enables to use

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

or ATI 3D graphics driver in live mode, Kanotix-Hellfire provides this new feature first time.

Kanotix-Dragonfire-2012-2014

This version, ("old stable") code-name ''Kanotix-Dragonfire'' is based on Debian 7 ("Wheezy"). A Preview of this Kanotix-Version was offered at LinuxTag 2012 in several versions in 32 and 64 bit. Also a new repository for Kanotix-Dragonfire was added with backported KDE4.8 packages (amd64 and i386). New features in Kanotix-Dragonfire are: booting from/with DVD, USB, UEFI (PCs, Intel Macs), an embedded USB-Stick ImageWriter for Mac OS X and the USB-Stick with Hybrid-ISO can now be made persistent from the live-system. A preview of the current release "Kanotix-acritox-trialshot" was announced on 14 February 2013. A special "

CeBIT CeBIT was a computer expo which, at its peak, was the largest and most internationally representative. The trade fair was held each year on the Hanover fairground, the world's largest fairground, in Hanover, Germany. In its day, it was c ...

" edition was released "as a Technology Demonstration" on 8 March 2013. A new official Kanotix-Dragonfire was announced from LinuxTag 2013 in Berlin. Beside KDE as default desktop environment the new release ships with

as a second lightweight desktop environment. In the KDE-Special version the extra 3D graphics drivers from

and

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

and the

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

-client are already preinstalled. An updated release of the stable Kanotix was presented at LinuxTag 2014 in Berlin.

Kanotix-Spitfire-2014-2016

''Kanotix Spitfire'' is based on Debian 8 ("Jessie"). Several Kanotix-LinuxTag images for 32 and 64 bit were offered for download. After the Release of Debian GNU/Linux 8.0 (2015-04-26) a reset of the "

nightly build A daily build or nightly build is a software build of the latest version of a software system, run automatically on a daily/nightly basis. This is so it can first be compiled to ensure that all required dependencies are present, and possibly te ...

s" with the official Debian kernel-version 3.16.7 started ''Kanotix-Spitfire'' as a "

" of the current stable ''Kanotix''. The Images are maintained by developer Kano and offered for downloa
"Kanotix Downloads"
and on kanotix.acritox.com The latest Kanotix modification of ''Kanotix-Spitfire'' has been presented at OpenRheinRuhr 2015 in Oberhausen.

Kanotix-Steelfire-2017-2019

''Kanotix Steelfire'' is based on current stable Debian 9 ("Stretch"). Two months after the Release of Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 (2017-06-17) the first iso-images of Kanotix-steelfire-nightly-LXDE were released. The KDE-modification of ''Kanotix-Spitfire'' was releast and presented later at OpenRheinRuhr 2017 in Oberhausen. (2017-11-4/5) All Images of "Kanotix-Steelfire" are available as KDE and LXDE versions in 32 and 64 bit.

Kanotix-Silverfire-2019-2020

''Kanotix-Silverfire'' is based on Debian 10 ("Buster"). Just like its Debian base Kanotix-Silverfire was in the "testing"-mode. Some "previews" with KDE and LXDE in 32- and 64-bit variants are linked on the homepage. With the Release of Debian-10 (Buster), Kanotix-Silverfire became stable too.

Kanotix-Slowfire-2024

''Kanotix-Slowfire'' is a edition based on Debian 12 ("Bookworm"). Just like the earlier Kanotix-Images the Nightly-Builds are released in 5 versions: The KDE and LXDE desktop environment, both in 64 and 32 Bit and the small Kanotix-Image -eeepc4G. In the KANOTIX tradition of rolling-release the Nightly-builds are automated builds every night of the latest development and the latest packages from the repositories. New is the Calamares-Installer (now in test version), wayland, refind, the current LibreOffice and a new kernel (6.6-13.1).

Kanotix-Towelfire-2025

''Kanotix-Towelfire'' is a preview-edition based on Debian 13 ("Trixie"). The first preview was releast on Towel Day 25-05-2025. The Nightly-Builds are released in 3 versions: The KDE and LXDE desktop environment, in 64 bit versions and the small Kanotix-Image -eeepc4G. In the KANOTIX tradition of rolling-release the Nightly-builds are automated builds every night of the latest development and the latest packages from the repositories. The Calamares-Installer (in test version), wayland, refind, the current LibreOffice and a new kernel (6.12-27).Kanotix-Towelfire
/ref>

Release timeline

References

External links

Official website
* {{Linux distributions, state=collapsed Debian-based distributions LiveDistro Live USB X86-64 Linux distributions Knoppix KDE Linux distributions Rolling release Linux distributions