Poor Man's Install hda1 Problem

[Kowood]

I just did a poor man's install, and now it recognizes the hard drive as a cd rom. If I click the hda1 icon on the desktop, it opens file:/cdrom, and it has all the files, but I can't write to it. Also, I've found I'm unable to run the Poor Man's Install without loading the 2.6 Kernel. And I'd like to know how to save the configuration (backgrounds, icons, etc.). Please post if you have the answer to 1 or more of these problems.

[j.drake]

I just did a poor man's install, and now it recognizes the hard drive as a cd rom. If I click the hda1 icon on the desktop, it opens file:/cdrom, and it has all the files, but I can't write to it

A few questions:
Does the desktop icon still say hda1?
Is hda1 your only partition? What others do you have, and what file system in each?
Is hda1 where you have Windows installed?
Is your persistent home defined as the entire partition of hda1, or a file within hda1?
Did you make hda1 writable?
What do you see when you click the home icon?


Also, I've found I'm unable to run the Poor Man's Install without loading the 2.6 Kernel.

If you followed this howto (http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/PoorMansInstall), the example loads 2.6. If you want 2.4, just substitute "knoppix" for "knoppix26" when you type in the various cheatcodes.


And I'd like to know how to save the configuration (backgrounds, icons, etc.).

That's just "save knoppix configuration" - click the penguin icon, then configure, and it's one of the choices.

jd

[eco2geek]

One learns not to make absolute statements such as, "in this situation, Knoppix always does this," because often one gets proven wrong.

So, in my experience, and I've done it a bunch of times, when you do a "fromhd" style poor man's install, Knoppix treats the partition you're loading it from as if it were a read-only CD-ROM. It's not a bug; it's a feature.

Which is why it's much more satisfying to do a real hard disk install, if you can find the space on your hard drive.

It shouldn't matter which kernel (2.4 or 2.6) you use. "fromhd" works with either.

[ICPUG]

One learns not to make absolute statements such as, "in this situation, Knoppix always does this," because often one gets proven wrong.

...

It shouldn't matter which kernel (2.4 or 2.6) you use. "fromhd" works with either.

That's an absolute statement eco2geek!

My experience on an NT machine with NTFS format disk drive is that fromhd does not work with it.

Another poster said 'use bootfrom and kernel 2.6' and I found this works. He also said to use 2.4 you had to bootfrom the ISO, but as I do not have an ISO I cannot check that.

You're absolutely right about making absolute statements. There are too many possible combinations out there and they don't all work!

I was playing around with Dynebolic last week and I found it would not work with a mouse connected to the serial port but was fine with a PS2 mouse - ARGHH!

[Kowood]

A few questions:
Does the desktop icon still say hda1?
Is hda1 your only partition? What others do you have, and what file system in each?
Is hda1 where you have Windows installed?
Is your persistent home defined as the entire partition of hda1, or a file within hda1?
Did you make hda1 writable?
What do you see when you click the home icon?
1. Yes. It still says hda1
2. Yes. That is my only partition. It has an FAT32 filesystem.
3. Yes. hda1 has Windows 98.
4. No. My persistent home is a 30mb image within hda1.
5. I don't know if I made hda1 writeable. How can I do that?
6. When I click the home icon, I see the image I made, and any files I have saved to it.

Knoppix treats the partition you're loading it from as if it were a read-only CD-ROM. It's not a bug; it's a feature. Right, but it doesn't help me write to my hard drive.

[Kowood]

I'm also curious if any of the emulators included with the 3.4 CD can make a windows modem driver work.

[j.drake]

A few questions:
Does the desktop icon still say hda1?
Is hda1 your only partition? What others do you have, and what file system in each?
Is hda1 where you have Windows installed?
Is your persistent home defined as the entire partition of hda1, or a file within hda1?
Did you make hda1 writable?
What do you see when you click the home icon?
1. Yes. It still says hda1
2. Yes. That is my only partition. It has an FAT32 filesystem.
3. Yes. hda1 has Windows 98.
4. No. My persistent home is a 30mb image within hda1.
5. I don't know if I made hda1 writeable. How can I do that?
6. When I click the home icon, I see the image I made, and any files I have saved to it.

Knoppix treats the partition you're loading it from as if it were a read-only CD-ROM. It's not a bug; it's a feature. Right, but it doesn't help me write to my hard drive.

Sounds like all you need to do is make it writable. Right-click hda1 ->properties ->third tab -> uncheck "read only" ->OK . You may have to unmount and remount (right click ->unmount, then click to remount).

One possible problem you may encounter with the single partition is that if you booted into Knoppix using the fromhd cheatcode, and the image is in hda1, knoppix may not allow it to be unmounted, because that's where the fs is running. So, you may need to boot without the fromhd cheatcode (but with your home and myconfig cheatcodes) before doing this. Make sure it's writable, then shut down & restart with all cheatcodes in place.

hth

jd

[eco2geek]

Right, but it doesn't help me write to my hard drive.

If you're running your "poor man's install" using the "fromhd=/dev/hda1" cheatcode, you can't write to hda1 after Knoppix is running. No amount of my or anyone else's help will tell you how to do so, because Knoppix currently doesn't work that way.

How's that for an absolute statement? If anyone can give me explicit instructions for Knoppix 3.4, 3.5 or 3.6 that contradict that, I will be happy to send you a copy of the ISO-Top Knoppix 3.5 DVD.


My experience on an NT machine with NTFS format disk drive is that fromhd does not work with it.

I asked Fabian about that, and also looked at the boot scripts. Knoppix will allow "fromhd=/dev/hdxx" with the KNOPPIX image on FAT32, ext2, ext3 (and IIRC, ReiserFS) partitions, but not NTFS. (Its boot script is written so that it won't mount one. Which seems odd, since there is no apparent danger in mounting an NTFS partition read-only.)

You can copy the Knoppix ISO onto an NTFS partition and use the "bootfrom=/dev/hdxx/path/to/knoppix.iso" cheatcode.

[Kowood]

If you're running your "poor man's install" using the "fromhd=/dev/hda1" cheatcode, you can't write to hda1 after Knoppix is running. No amount of my or anyone else's help will tell you how to do so, because Knoppix currently doesn't work that way.
:o Someone was wrong, because I just saved a root ouput :o

Sounds like all you need to do is make it writable. Right-click hda1 ->properties ->third tab -> uncheck "read only" ->OK . You may have to unmount and remount (right click ->unmount, then click to remount).
:D Someone was right, because that worked :D

[pau1knopp]

good tip from kowood on making the "poor man" repository drive writeable. i followed those steps (except couldn't perform a remount as it was busy) and it let me have root write access. I'll fool with permissions when it is not mounted, but I have a hunch that

chown knoppix.knoppix .
and
chown knoppix.knoppix ..

at the root of the "poor man" repository drive while it is not is use should do it.

Also, I have discovered that if i put a persistant home (knoppix.img) in my "poor man" repository drive and mount it with the home=/dev/hdxx/ switch, the partition is also rewriteable. However, I don't always use my persistent home, so this is much better.

Thanks,

~pau1

[eco2geek]

If I'm wrong, that's fine -- been wrong lots of times before, and will probably be wrong many more times in the future.

The issue is, if you can gain write access to the drive that the Knoppix image is being loaded from, then it should be reproducible for everyone -- in other words, you should be able to tell me how to do it.

So, prove it! What version of Knoppix are you using; what commands did you use to load Knoppix, and what commands did you use to gain write access?

[Kowood]

Ok, I use PMI Knoppix 3.4, with boot arguments (cheatcodes isn't a nice name) Knoppix26 DMA home=scan fromhd=/dev/hda1 myconfig=scan. To make it writeable, I simply right-clicked the desktop icon-->properties-->3rd tab-->and unchecked "read only". I think if you right-click it, there is also something in there about changing reading/writing allowances, it may be under one of the thingies that you hold your mouse over and it shows more thingies. (I'm not good with names)

[eco2geek]

Please post the output of "cat /etc/mtab" after you do this.