A bit of general trouble

[TheOddLinguist]

Hello, everyone. I'm pretty new to Linux, so I thought I'd give Knoppix a try.

I'm a having a bit of trouble, but I'm afraid that my inexperience will make it hard to describe my problem. If anybody could give me any advice, I'd appreciate it immensely.

When I boot from the CD, it starts loading, says that it "can't find a KNOPPIX filesystem," and gives me a DOS-esque command prompt-looking deal.

I tried a "failsafe" boot, which loads the OS, but when it's finished loading, it appears messed up. It's flickering and illegible. I apologize for my scarce description; the best way I can describe it is like trying to watch a PAL video on an NTSC system. Once again, I'm sorry. But, if anyone can help me, I'd be very grateful. I can't wait to give Linux a try. Thank you for your time.


Sincerely,
Christopher David YUDICHAK

[A. Jorge Garcia]

The Care and Feading of Linux Coasters

Sounds like a bad CD burn. Get used to 'em until you get the hang of burning bootable ISOs! This creature you've made is so infamous that it has a name: Linux Coaster. Linux Coasters are great at parties. Just lay them out at random intervals, don't worry you'll soon have many of them, so people can rest their drinks on them and not mess up your furniture....

But seriously, it does sound like a bad burn. Please describe how you burnt your CD.

Regards,
AJG

[TheOddLinguist]

I downloaded the ISO, which was about 686MB, and saved it to the hard drive.

Then, I used the programme which came with my burner to burn the ISO to the disk. It had an option labeled "Burn ISO." It burned at 16x and took about 5.5 minutes. The filesizes matched.

The one thing that gets me is that it loads the first graphic where it says something like, "Press ENTER to boot Linux. Hit F2 for help or F3 for more options." That's where I've been trying the failsafe boot, which appears to work, but with graphical problems.

I apologize if I'm not being specific enough. Please let me know if you might need some more information about the process I took to burn or attempt booting.

Thanks for the fast reply.


Sincerely,
Christopher David YUDICHAK

[seta21]

you could try to burn it again with a slower speed this time, I once burned the iso on 32x and everything seems fine but some programs didnt work, I tried burning it at a slower speed 4x, and it came out perfectly. Sometimes burning at a high speed can cause different problems. You can try that solution and see what happens.

[TheOddLinguist]

Ok, thank you. I'll try reburning tonight and let you know how it turns out.


Sincerely,
Christopher David YUDICHAK

[mzilikazi]

I think you burned the image just fine. Why not tell us what kind of hardware you have. You can boot into run level 2 (use the 2 cheatcode) and issue:

lspci

to get some hardware info (if you have none) and you can even join the knoppix irc channel w/ bitchx or other
text-mode irc client if you would like some real time help. X is optional. ;)

[TheOddLinguist]

I thank everyone for their help because it is working now.

I tried reburning at 4x, but it still didn't work. However, this time, it was due to a burning error on my part.

So, I reburned at 4x, and it's working fine now. Thanks again for your help. It looks great, and I can't wait to dive into this great OS.

Until next time...



Sincerely,
Christopher David YUDICHAK

[mzilikazi]

RIght on. Perhaps cheap media? I burn .iso images @ 16x all the time no worries. Well glad you got it working.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

FYI:
I always do 8x on my old 8x CD-RW drive. Several months ago I got a new 48x at work but never got a good burn out of it. I never use CD-RW discs. I mostly use Memorex 700MB data CD-R discs (sometimes TDK data+audio). I buy them at the local Costco by the 100 count spindle for $28 + multicolor cases by the 100 count for $8. Works for me!

Question:
Anyone out there have experience burning mini CD-Rs (185 MB)? I wanted to try out DSL and Slax but I wonder how reliable these little discs are and if you can burn and boot them in a regular CD-R drive.

TIA,
AJG

[TheOddLinguist]

OK. Now the problem surfaces.

Last night, when I reburned the ISO and tried to boot the KNOPPIX to test it, I ran it on my computer, in the CD burner.

However, when I took the CD back to my brother's computer, the one that caused the problem before, I received the same problem as before.

It reaches a point in the load where it says, "Looking for CDROM in: /dev/scd0" It holds there for a few moments, then returns the "KNOPPIX filesystem" error. So, my immediate guess is that there's something wrong with the configuration of my brother's computer or, more likely, something wrong with using his CDROM drive.

Any ideas?


Sincerely,
Christopher David YUDICHAK

PS When I was using it last night on my computer, I absolutely loved it. I've used a few other distros over the past few weeks, but this one is very good, especially for a live boot from a CD. Thank you, everyone, for helping me use this great operating system.

[eco2geek]

Question:
Anyone out there have experience burning mini CD-Rs (185 MB)? I wanted to try out DSL and Slax but I wonder how reliable these little discs are and if you can burn and boot them in a regular CD-R drive.

Yes, but. I got a pack of Memorex 24x 210MB CD-Rs from the local Fry's (http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3517344), just so I could burn Slax and give it to a friend, and found them to be a tad bit more touchy than regular CD-Rs to burn. They were more sucseptible to becoming coasters due to memory issues (like burning them after the computer's run for days w/o rebooting, or with too many apps going at the same time. This was using Nero on Win2K, and Linux seems a bit more stable than Windows when it comes to CD burning, so YMMV.)

If they burn fine, they seem to work fine in any CD tray with the "dimple" in the middle that fits them. But they're about twice as expensive as those TDK's from Costco, so unless you need the "coolness" factor or just have to have a CD that'll fit in your shirt pocket, I'd stick with the TDK's. (I buy those too, and they're great.)

[Cuddles]

Linux Coasters :!: LOL

You guys crack me up...

So, I guess the big question is...

Is Linux responsible for the invention of Coasters, or
Did Coasters exist before the invention of Linux :?:

BTW: Those "spindles" are great - they come in handy when burning Knoppix ISO's, it appears. ( you never expected to use all 100 of them to get a good Knoppix Live CD though, huh ??? ) -=- LOL j/k

Nothing like a good sense of humor to liven up the crowd,
Ms. Cuddles

Hmmmmmm, hey TheOddLinguist, thinking about your "continued" problem with your friends computer... Since you mentioned the idea/theory, lets see where it goes...

You mentioned the following before:

I apologize for my scarce description; the best way I can describe it is like trying to watch a PAL video on an NTSC system.

Can this be a possible issue? ( not sure if it could happen, but, if you can use the symptom as an explaination, why couldn't it "actually" be the problem???? )

Just some thoughts,
re: Ms. Cuddles

[TheOddLinguist]

I did think that the display was the problem, but I tried taking the CD burner (the one that reads the disc fine) and installing it in my brother's computer. The boot worked fine.

So, in general, the boot won't load in my brother's CD-ROM drive. However, I can't think of a reason why.

One question I do have: as I said, when I try to just boot it normally from my brother's CD-ROM drive, an error comes up to the tune of "Couldn't load a KNOPPIX filesystem." When I boot as "failsafe," it seems to bypass this error and then becomes a display problem.

When could be causing this "filesystem" snag in trying to boot normally?


Sincerely,
Christopher David YUDICHAK