Newbie needs help to create boot floppy

[mingus725]

I need to create a boot floppy for Knoppix 3.7 to use in my old laptop (the BIOS does not support CD boot).

I've read thru all the documentation on this topic, however either the info is out of date or I am missing something (probably the latter): On knopper.net it refers to using boot.img, in the FAQ it refers to rawrite, and in other docm it refers to mkbootfloppy.bat - all referenced as being on the CD. However, none of these were in the 3.7 iso that I downloaded (nor in my vsn 3.4 iso either).

When I google these tools, I always get pointed back to this same documentation.

Can anyone please suggest how I can (easily) create a boot floppy for 3.7?

Thanks very much in advance!

[Harry Kuhman]

While you might be able to make a typical Linux boot floppy for Knoppix, if you are trying to do so to get the CD to boot because your BIOS does not support booing from CD directly, you would be far better off to make a Smart Boot Manager (http://btmgr.webframe.org/) boot floppy, which you could use to boot any bootable CD, not just this particular release of Knoppix. A Linux boot floppy may actually take 2 floppies (the kernel seems to be too large to fit on one) and will only boot the Linux release it is made for; the next time Knoppix is released or if you get a different live CD you would need to make more boot floppies, but with SBM you can use the same floppy to boot all CD's. And you can install it to your MBR and need no floppies at all.

Or you could install XOSL (http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm) to your hard disk. XOSL is larger (it will not install to a floppy), but more rich in features.

[mingus725]

Thx very much Harry for the quick reply.

I took your advice, created the SBM install to floppy, and booted. Unfortunately, for a reason I cannot diagnose, SBM returns a disk error (00x0) when pointed at the CD-ROM, although it sees it. I was able to use this method with another system.

I then tried copying the Knoppix iso files to a laptop FAT partition, and attempted to use loadlin under DOS. But there is no initrd image in the iso (at least that I could find), so that didn't work.

However, in making one last try with the Knoppix docm, this time the cheatcodes, I found:

"If your BIOS does not support el torito booting from CD, you can create two bootable floppy disks by issuing (from Knoppix running on a different machine) the command "mkbootfloppy", which will create a bootable Kernel-disk plus a disk containing the initial ramdisk, which will be prompted for at boottime."

The mkbootfloppy program choked on several floppies, but eventually the copying worked. I was subequently able to successfully boot from floppy to load the CD on the laptop. Mission accomplished.

I am a bit surprised at the obtuseness of the documentation. Making the boot floppies was straightforward, once I found the correct instructions.

Again, thx for your help.

PS. One of my objectives with this was to test what video settings Knoppix would detect, because with my VectorLinux install (Slackware based) I have not been able to get 1024x768@16bpp no matter how I tinkered with the XF86Config file. At one point I came close to frying the display. But Knoppix did the detection like a champ and enabled me to run xvidtune so I could get the precise settings. So all in all, a good project!

I haven't messed with stuff like this since my old Fortran and Assembler days (dating myself, right?).