I received the latest issue of Wired and the biggest words on the cover, besides “WIRED”, was “REMIX NOW!”, indicating that this issue would be devoted to the huge amount of remixing the web has seen recently. It actually covered a lot more than I expected. There were many music and movie references, but it also included video games, writing, cars, shoes, ipods, etc. This got me to thinking, what else could be a remix, and it didn’t take long until I started thinking about LiveCDs. If any type of remix deserves a place in this issue of Wired, even just small box, it would have to be the Knoppix LiveCD. Being a derivative of Debian, Knoppix itself has easily over 100 derivatives, from bioknoppix to Whoppix. Knoppix also has credit given to it by Damn Small Linux, a LiveCD which weighs in at under 50 MB, and has several (six I think) derivatives itself. So, for example, one branch of this remix tree goes: GNU/Linux software -> Debian -> Knoppix -> Damn Small Linux -> ELE.
I now view this as a glaring omission from an otherwise great issue. Is Wired even aware of Knoppix? Why does a search for Knoppix on Wired’s website bring up zero hits? Isn’t the ability for anyone to remix an OS easily and distribute it to the world in a form that anyone can test out 5 minutes after downloading worthy of some kind of mention?