Knoppix is well known as a live-LINUX in Germany, which allows to taste LINUX on a CD or DVD, without writing on the hard disk of your PC. Any possible damage on your Windows-system is excluded. Klaus Knopper started in 1998, already 23 years ago as a LINUX and open source software consultant. He also developed his own LINUX, KNOPPIX on a live CD/DVD and later on a USB-flash drive. Since USB 3.0, such a flash drive is fast enough for a gentle opeation.

This standard KNOPPIX USB-drive (XTRA-PC) is delivered by SoftwareFair for 23.85€ in Germany, delivery included within 2 days. After plugging into an (old) PC and booting for the US-drive, the LINUX system runs. The orginal PC-XTRA does not allow writing on the USB-flash drive, which means that extra installed programs are lost after shutdown. For that reason, you will find on the desktop a button to make a copy of the USB-flash drive with an overlay up to maximum 65GB. Once booted with the new USB-flash drive, all work and installed programs will be saved on the USB-flash drive. This USB-flash drive can be used on any Windows of Mac computer, every where on the world, even without internet connection with all your work included.

The USB-flash drive system contains a preinstalled an enormous amount of open source software. Libreoffice (Office replacement), GIMP (Photoshop replacement), a terminal emulator, Chromium webbrowser and a File explorer are a few examples. I included a FORTRAN compiler, which allows to run all my old programs, Texmaker (to work with Latex to write my book), YAD to generate a graphical interface and Anydesk to be able to take over PC’s of my customers all over the world. All this software is easily loaded from the Debian site but don’t forget to run first the “sudo apt update” command before installation.

As a service, BELGLAS sells this USB-flash drive with possibly all the FORTRAN programs, with and without source, I have written about cellular glass annealing, foaming, thermal shock, pipe thermal insulation, … . By nature, when your PC is booted with this USB-flash drive, all the programs will run for sure.

At last but not at least, I like to thank Klaus Knopper, who developped this valuable tool.