  The neutrino burst from a core-collapse supernova can provide information
about the star explosion mechanism and the mechanisms of proto neutron star
cooling but also about the intrinsic properties of the neutrino such as flavor
oscillations. One important question is to understand to which extent can the
supernova and the neutrino physics be decoupled in the observation of a single
supernova. The capabilities of present and future large underground neutrino
detectors to yield information about the time and flavor dependent neutrino
signal from a future galactic supernova are described in this paper. Neutrinos
from past cosmic supernovae are also observable and their detection will
improve our knowledge of the core-collapse rates and average neutrino emission.
A comparison between the different experimental techniques is included.
