PapaSmurf88

Hey whats up with everyone out there. I'm new to the whole linux thing. Ive used Microsoft 98 & xp since they both came out and hatted them both but knew of no other option in operating systems. I'm now know that linux is FREE, woop woop gotta love free, and is a great way to screw Bill Gates in his rich *** with a guy named Bubba. Anyways back to my questions

1. I'm going to school to get my A+ certification and am trying to install Knoppix on the computer there. Ive got everything installed but when i log in it gives me these following errors:

There Was an error setting up inter-process communications for KDE. The message returned by the system was:

Could not read network connection list
//.DCOPserver_JoshW_O

Please check that the "dcopserver" program is running

after i clik okay it pops up a couple more times then i get this message

Will not save Configuration

Configuration file "//.kde/share/config/kwinre" not writable

Confiuration file "//.kde/share/config/kdeglobal" not writable

after click okay on that error i get the first error a couple more times then i get this error

No write access to $HOME directory (/)

KDE is unable to start

finally after clicking okay on this error i get both the first and second errors a couple more times then the desktop looks like its gonna start and i get this error

Could not start Ksmserver. Check your install


i some how got into the shell command mode this morning but i dont know how i did it if some one could plz help me i really want to get to know how to use linux. but plz remember that i am very new to this so any instruction you give will have to be step by step

If some1 could help me out i really like knoppix so far it seems like a great tool for working on computers but i also want to test out a linux O/S as a perm O/S (Im doing this at school so if I mess anything up i dont hurt all my personal files) The Sys specs at school are as follows:
-AMD 800mHz Processors
-ATI Rage 8Mb AGP videos card
-128Mb Ram
-20Gb HD (this is divided up into 2 10GB partitions)
-first partition-Windows 2000 Pro
-2nd partition-Knoppix 3.8
i dont think there is much else very special about them other than this if you can think of anything plz help me out im stuck and have NO clue what im doing