[Techtalk] KNOPPIX /NewChik Intro

[Carol Wade]

Hey everyone:  

My name's Carol, and I'm very excited to be here.  I've been running
into walls and spiralling purposelessly with Linux and UNIX for years.
 Being just curious has not gotten me far, and I need some kind of
real project or involvement to get me absorbed in this Open Source
thang.  And being here, I feel I may have finally landed in a place
where I might be able to realize the myriad fantasies of "The
Programmer in Me."

LifeWise:  I'm a Tech Support Specialist for a private school in NYC,
having recently entered the IT field as a professional, after years of
rather more right-brained pursuits. The dudes I work with are strictly
MicroStiffs, which is weird, considering the school is incredibly
progressive and forward thinking.  Luckily, I am obsessed with
concepts of cross-platform interoperability, but I have a strong
feeling the truth lies in the GNU Economy... (haw haw)

SO: my first question is this...I'm trying to run a live CD distro of
KNOPPIX on a Dell OptiPlex G1, attached to a 4 Port IoGear KVM switch
(via VGA and USB), connected to a 17" LCD monitor. The OptiPlex has
Win2K installed, and is connected to the school's LAN.  I had an older
KVM switch about a month ago, and got far enough w/ the Dell that I
could change the boot order and startup from the CD (I got an error
msg. saying "Cannot view this Monitor" on the LCD scrren).  But with
this new KVM switch, I can't get that far, I only get "Keyboard
Failure" when trying to hold down F2 to change the boot order, then
the system boots into Win2K automatically.

Is there any way to set up the Win2K system to disable whatever might
be auto-loading and interfering the KNOPPIX boot? Is trying to run the
CD with this KVM switch just gonna be too much of a pain?  What can I
say...I'm at work 9 hours outta the day, with three computers in front
of me (Mac G4 tower on OS 10.3.9, Dell OptiPlex280 on XP SP2, and that
older Dell on Win2k SP4). I gotta get up on this Linux tip...help!! 
:^)

Thanks, looking forward to hearing from y'all...

Carol