Knoppix 3.2/3.3 runs fine on an Inspiron 8100 as long as a HDD is present (!?!) - recently I had to have the HDD replaceed, so I removed it ready to hand over to the courier. I then attempted to boot from a Knoppix CD. No go. Didn't want to know. Later that day when I had the replacement HDD installed (but not necessarily formatted etc) I *could* boot from CD. yeah whatever!