...how do i find the best link to multi boot knoppix 8.1 and xp
Not news you will want to hear, but ... you won't.
(Wizard appears in a puff of smoke, bearing mixed tidings)
G'day
@hmazuji and welcome to linux.org
On April 8 coming, it will be 5 years since Windows dropped support for XP, so it is possibly a blessing that your old browsers do not work because of the security risk.
Knoppix 8.1 was released in September 2017, so the odds of anyone writing a guide as to how to install Knoppix to dual-boot with XP are minute.
Wikipedia have this on Knoppix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoppix - ... and although you may not read it through, it has some information that I relevantly quote
Knoppix is a
32-bit Debian Linux based distro, but recent releases (including the latest version 7.6) have also been equipped with a
64-bit kernel on the DVD edition, where it will automatically boot up for 64-bit computers, or by using the boot option knoppix64 manually in the command-line prompt, while knoppix will boot up the 32-bit kernel. Neither PAE nor 64-bit applications are supported by Knoppix, and system memory with more than 4 GB can only be used with a 64-bit kernel.
With the combination your computer and Knoppix kernel, that is
non-PAE, you could have 16GB of RAM and it would still only recognise 3GB. It is a limitation from a time when no-one had more than 4GB of RAM.
If you seriously wish to install Knoppix to your HDD, you could try this article
http://linuxreviews.org/software/linux-distros/knoppix-install/
... but I do not know about the dualboot capabilities.
On a CD or DVD, you cannot get what we call Persistence, that is, changes to stick (beyond the length of the current session). Once a CD or DVD is burned, the session is closed.
Knoppix is based on Debian, but I am not aware of a Persistence option being available for it, even on a USB stick.
One Distro that
would likely suit your circumstances is
MX-16
... not MX-17 nor MX-18. Just MX-16.
It runs brilliantly with modest or aging equipment, supports 32-bit systems, also non-PAE is supported, AND, with the USB install, there is an option to implement Persistence built-in.
MX is based, as is Knoppix, on Debian. MX-16 is based on Debian "Jessie". It will continue to receive support until at least April 2020.
You can read some old Q&A here
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/debian-stretch-mx-16
and you can download through here
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-linux/files/Old/MX-16/
The .iso you will want is near the top, under README. That is MX-16_386.iso .
Good luck
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz