HDD install with KNX2HD and KNX-HDINSTALL easier than ever

[godot]

hi,

I have now extended my web page at http://godot.be (go for the animated penguins) to provide quick and easy usage guidelines for knoppix 3.4's new hard disk installation tool knx2hd and for the old knx-hdinstall utility.

in addition to these installation procedures, this page has also become a mature page on installing and configuring various types of hardware I came across and needed non-trivial fine tuning (e.g., firewire, cd/dvd burners, modems, tape drives, etc.), and provides examples and howtos for complex and less complex commands I commonly need (usually oneliners), but coiuld not easilly find elsewhere.

a secondary mirror of this page can be found at http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~decockd -> animated penguin, and a tertiary mirror at http://godot.studentenweb.org.

hope you will enjoy this page and its information as much as I do... ;-)

cu, g.

ps: I use the installation procedures myself on a very regular basis, i.e., they have been successfully tested :twisted:

[spurious]

Thanks for your page; many handy tips.

[godot]

for those of you who may be interested: I have just significantly improved the post-initial installation procedure: by deselecting a few packages and forcing the installation of a few experimental and unstable packages, it is now possible to usedselect without *any* dependency problem right from the start... *YOU HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS BEFORE* :wink:

g.

[godot]

fyi: given the feedback I received on the previous versions of my knoppix hard disk installation instructions, I have improved them even more... :?

g.

[godot]

g.

[intuxicated]

Thank you godot.

[TechFan]

Unfortunately, I am having trouble with the knx2hd that is part of v3.4

It kept telling me that I didn't meet the requirements. . .at least 2GB partition and 256MB swap. I am trying to install on a 4GB empty partition. In progressive testing, I even created the two partitions with the partition program, set the 3.5GB partition active, set the partition types, and formatted them, but then it still complains that I don't meet the requirements.

I stuck in my v3.3 CD and ran the to harddrive utility. It found the partition just fine and I completed the harddrive install successfully. . .not sure what the difference is, but I tried it on two totally different systems with the same results.

I will enjoy playing with 3.3 for now, but it would great to at least understand what is giving me fits.

Btw, one of the tests was in VMWare, the other on a Acer PC.

[intuxicated]

Greetings TechFan.

When you ran knx2hd, did it gave you the error right away or after you got to the options screen?

__

Take care.

[TechFan]

It is the second screen. The first one is just the "splash" screen with the credits that tells me it is going to try to configure. The next screen I get is that it can't find a partition.

[intuxicated]

Greetings.

Ok, that happens to me too. What I do is just press enter on that error message and it takes me to the options screen, there I select the option to create the partitions and then I select the configuration option which I believe is the first option, and then start installation.

Try it and lets us know.


--
Take care.

[TechFan]

The next screen just gives me the option to partition. As soon as I manually create two primary partitions. . .first 3800MB bootable and the second 400MB. . .then when I write and quite it gives me the same message again. . .and again and again. . .?

I would have thought that maybe it was VMWare. . .but it works fine with v3.3

[intuxicated]

I have no idea what could be causing it. Maybe someone has that same problem and a solution?

Did you tried every time from scratch? like re-downloading the knofig, etc?

When you boot up with the CD do you use any cheat codes?


--
Take care.

[TechFan]

I have tried without any cheat codes. I have added lang=en and have also tried dma.

I also did try downloading the most recent from the web with the provided update script.

I have deleted all the partitions several times as well.

[Jesse]

Your problem sounds like you have a hidden mbr giving you trouble. Boot to a DOS floppy that has fdisk on it. type : fdisk /mbr. That should fix your master boot record. If you still have a Knoppix 3.3 do a disk partition with it instead of the 3.4. This morning, I tried to hdd Knoppix 3.4 using a seperate 50mb boot secto, which it created hidden! Things got screwed up, so I went back to try a regular hdd install using hda1 and hda2 (swap). I would not take. I ended up fdisk / mbr, and using knoppix 3.3 to setup the hd. What does 3.4 report as your total partiion size. When I was having trouble, my total partitions were a little less than my hard drive, telling me there was a hidden partition.
Hope this works for you. It did for me.

Jesse

[TechFan]

Thanks. I tried fdisk /mbr and then repartitioned on 3.3. Still same message.

I am using a 3.2GB drive. . .2900MB for primary, then the remaining 300MB for swap. Again, I have no trouble choosing to install 3.3 to hd, but 3.4 just doesn't like me.

[godot]

hi,

the procedure now also includes a knofig file which does not perform the hard disk size checks... this means <quote from knofig> the program will NOT check if there is enough space to install knoppix on the selected partition(s). Use at your own risk! </quote from knofig>

hope that hepls, g.

[slackhack]

i've been WAITING for this! heh (get it: waiting? waiting for godot? :D oh, nevermind.)

will try it out first thing tomorrow, see if it fixes my install problems. :cool:

[TechFan]

What in the world? I tried the install again today booting off my 3.4 CD after a week trip (on which I carried my knoppix cd the whole time but didn't actually end up using it). . .when I ran knx2hd today I got an entirely different menu. . .and it seems to be installing on the same computer it wouldn't work on before. . .?

Only difference this time is that 3.3 was already installed on the HD this time and the CD had a week in my backpack in Taiwan.

Just got a couple errors about not being able to delete some folder because it is read only. . .didn't catch the entire message. Still completed successfully.

[godot]

hi,

there are indeed two distinct graphical interfaces for the hard disk installation tool... this was also the case for knoppix 3.x where x is strictly less than 4 :)

if one follows my procedure exactly and executes `sudo su -;sudo knx2hd` in a terminal window, one gets the text/ncurses based gui. but if one simply executes `sudo knx2hd`, one gets the X11-based gui.

I used to have problems with the password entry prompt using the X11-based installer for knoppix 3.x where x is strictly less than 4, but this problem never occurred using the text/ncurses gui.

g.

[AdmiralJonB]

I'm trying to install the 3.4 version of Knoppix, and I have a bit of a problem. When I go to install, it says I don't have enough space. Is 100GB enough? Anyway, I tried using the config said for no checking the hds, and that didn't work. I then used the IGNORE_CHECK=1 command which then came up with the hd error (as said in the guide), but then went straight to this dialog and back to the root.


Fatal dialog error:

Error: Expected at least 7 tokens for --radiolist, have 4.
Use --help to list options.



real 0m2.602s
user 0m0.140s
sys 0m0.170s

Please can someone help? [/quote]

[TechFan]

It ignorred my attempt to use the check bypass command line swithes it mentions as well. For some reason it worked this morning on a computer I had installed knoppix 3.3 on this morning. . .trying it again with VMWare using a "computer" that had 3.3 installed as well. . .see if that makes the difference.

YEP! For some reason, it is going to let me install 3.4 on the "machine" that has 3.3 installed already (booted to the 3.4 CD in that VM).

Like I said earlier. . .I get a totally different menu and don't get the space failure warning. . .I get a menu with 6 options instead of just two (partition and exit).

Anyway, there is something not right with this. . .should be able to install on a "clean" no partition system of the same size.

[AdmiralJonB]

Where can I get the version 3.3? Anyway, When I just do the knoppix-installer (or when I do the way shown above) it comes up with xdialog or something when I choose the debian style system for installation. Is this right? It's my first time with a linux installation, as you might have guessed. It also does this with the beginner installer. I havn't seen anything on this in the install docs, and I'm just looking for other things in this forum.

[AdmiralJonB]

How are you meant to load a script for the install? I'm at the part where I have to type lynx -source etc.

[godot]

hi,

you can download knoppix 3.3 from ftp://ftp.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/mirror/knoppix

the installation procedures you find on at http://godot.be also cover that version for a hard disk install...

g.

[Alandor]

I think I have found a solution. At least It worked for me. I had the same error message telling about requeriments all the time from the console. But then I tried to use the X11 installer version and well, instead the default console partition tool it loaded me QTParted and well, I made the partitions with it and all worked well. I think the reason in my case could be that was needed an extended partition that console partition tool don't create. I hope this helps you.

[godot]

thanx for the suggestion: I have included a note suggesting to restart the installation procedure with the x11-based variant of knx2hd in case this type of problems occurs :)

cu, g.

[Robertus]

Hi All,

I'm new on linux OS, I tried to install knoppix 3.4 to HDD but unsuccessful. I'm using 8G HDD, single-boot. I followed step by step instruction from this "http://godot.studentenweb.org/debian/index.cgi" web-site. Up to the point where I start the installation, I got the following error message:

"Error: Mounting of/dev/hda failed. Some messages from mount: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736

writing inode tables: 1/32
4/32"

Anyone can help?

Thank you!
Robertus

[bsoderror]

hi,

you can download knoppix 3.3 from ftp://ftp.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/mirror/knoppix

the installation procedure at http://godot.studentenweb.org/debian also covers that version for a hard disk install...

Hi godot.. is there an install procedure for 3.4 or is it the same as for 3.3? :shock:

WooHoo it's me again, I went to your page and found the answer to my question. Very nice page BTW, I'll get into it more later.

[godot]

dear robertus,

it seems like a hardware problem to me... you could try using reiserfs rather than ext3 as the filesystem...

cu, g.

[bsoderror]

Hello godot.

I made it, typing in Konq, using the 2.6? kernel from the Knoppix 3.4 cd But itäs all on mz HDD now. Just wanted to Thank Zou for zour site and the verz nice instructions. heh heh I just set my keyboard layout to something I recognize.
Look for a thread about how to set 1280 x 1024 when all that is shown is 1024x768 and lower. That'll be me if you have an answer jump in! :D

I got it.. just edited the *-4 file and it's now working fine

[godot]

specifying your resolution is also included in `my' howto/procedures:

knoppix26 screen=1280x1024

would do the job during installation.

if you wish to specify it after you have installed the thing, you could edit /etc/lilo.conf, look for the ``append'' parameter, and include `screen=1280x1024'.

save /etc/lilo.conf, run lilo (`sudo lilo`), and that's it :twisted:

cu, g.