PDA

View Full Version : Complications on Winpartition HD install of knoppix



jmort
03-13-2005, 08:32 PM
I have a Dell inspiron 3800 600Mhz Celeron with a 10 gB hard drive. I have followed the initructions listed on the Poor Mans Install under the Winpartition section. Here is a link for convenience:

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition

I currently have WinXP installed on a 9gb NTFS partition. I have created a FAT32 partition with the remaining 1GB for use with Knoppix. The file grldr, which has something to do with GRUB, is in the root directory of the c: NTFS partition. supposedly, by following the intructions in the above link, the XP bootloader will appear asking to either start XP or start grub. If I choose to start XP, the system boots just fine. however, if I select start Grub, the screen first goes blank, and then displays the following using the grldr that came from the download in the first step (see the link above: Ruymbeke's files in the first step)

Error
GRLDR is compressed

After installing a grldr file from WiNGRUB, I get the following:
Try (hd0,0): extended or non-MS: skip
GRLDR is compressed
Try (hd0,1): extended or non-MS: skip
Error

More details: I believe the setup is what is known as chain loading a bootloader, as the NTLDR that comes with XP loads first giving the user a choice of XP or grub. If the user selects grub, then control is passed to the gRUB bootloader. From this point, a list of other OS's should appear on a menu. The advantages to NOT installing grub over the Master Boot Record (MBR) is obvious. Since GRUB is not working properly, I am still able to boot XP since Grub is chainloaded. If I had tried to overwrite the MBR, well, lets just say you wouldn't be reading this right now, well maybe not, (fdisk /mbr apparently will fix that particular problem)

Now, I have been searching for information on this in the forums and by using the search engines and I have found nothing. Any insight anyone might have on the subject of booting KnOPPIX from the hard drive would be greatly appreciated. In addition, after reading numereous threads and witnessing the severe lack of information posted by those in need, I hope that my post, which is loaded with lots of detail, will serve as an example to others that may need assistance.

Thank you,.
James

PS. My goal is to install a working copy of KNOPPIX 3.6 onto my Dell Laptop without doing anything to piss off Microsoft Windows XP, which includes messing with the MBR, repartitioning the drive, or anything that involves the recommendation to "backup your harddrive" unless every step provided is explained in detail and free of ambiguity. Since I am fairly new to Linux, please assume that I am not familiar with a lot of terminology. Plus, if anyone can explain how grldr works that would help as well. In addition, I want the machine to boot KNOPPIX WITHOUT REQUIRING THE CD. In other words, I want it to boot up just like my copy of XP boots.

Thank you.

Shadda
03-14-2005, 12:13 AM
As for pissing windows off, It's more like when windows sees linux it goes 'EEEEEK!!!'; I still have some bizarre problem with XP that started the second i installed linux on my extended partition (It will randomly choose to not load windows after the "loading...." screen and will flash a blue screen of death a split second before rebooting)

My question is, Why so skittish about installing a linux bootloader on your MBR? From my experience, windows handles things like that very poorly, because it truely believes that there can only be one type of operating system on any computer: Windows.

I dual boot to windows or linux (or BSD) just fine on all my computers, and I never use the windows bootloader.


My NEXT question is, why in God's name are you installing to 1gb of space? With a 10gb harddrive I'd choose between windows or *nix, son. I'm on a 30gb hdd laptop w/ three partitions and I'm pushing my limits.

Ps. Instead of Grub, you might try LiLo. I've never had any problems with it. (It's default with Knoppix 3.7)

mr_ed
03-14-2005, 12:16 PM
A few thoughts - - you'll need a 2.5 - 3.0 GB partition to install Knoppix;
- for something smaller, try a net install of Debian sarge and then apt-get what fits, or do a custom install of Progeny and leave out a few things - OpenOffice.org and probably gnome;
- you can use the XP bootloader to boot other systems directly - edit C:\boot.ini;
- yes, XP can repair its MBR;
- LILO requires a working Linux to change its configurations; GrUB doesn't - other than that, not much difference between them in practice;
- even if you hose the MBR completely, you can use Knoppix as it was intended, from CD, and repair the MBR easily. I've done it on my XP machines; ;)
- you must always back up your hard drive before you so much as contemplate sneezing, and you must sue anyone who fails to issue such a warning;
- think about installing a bigger hard drive - and backing up at least your data.-- Ed

jmort
03-14-2005, 11:19 PM
Okay, this leads me to a few more questions... but first here are a few answers:

First, it is rumored that Knoppiix can be booted from the ISO image, which of course is no larger than 700MB; otherwise, it would not fit on CD. Thus, I do not understand exactly why my partition must be larger than 1gb, especially since the ISO image is on the NTFS partition. (Again, see the link to a harddrive install with a Winpartition in my last post)

Second, as to the 10GB harddrive, unfortunately, it is here to stay, as I am a poor starving college student who is desperately trying to keep the credit card mafia off of his back. Furthermore, this laptop is beginning to have some issues (such as the keyboard - yes I can spell) that would make it illogical to upgrade further. The reason for the install is based purely on educational knowledge. Due to the ambiguity of technical data I have come across, I figured the only way to learn how to do this stuff is to actually DO it.

Third, as to nixing Windows XP, although it is an attractive thought, the middle of a semester is NOT the time for me to have to entirely adapt to a new OS, especially when there are things on there that I use for school, such as ML and Visual studio.NET. Yes I do know that there are free applications that can do the same thing and again for the school reason, I can't afford to spend the time learning the ins and outs of another application while struggling with the classes themselves. I'm sure everyone can relate to the feeling that you get when your OS is working pretty stable and allows you to be productiive in whatever you are doing. In other words, I want to concentrate on my classes and not how emacs in XP is different from emacs in Linux, and yes there are differences if not properly configured, like if someone is an amateur to Linux....


- you can use the XP bootloader to boot other systems directly - edit C:\boot.ini;


Okay, this sounds like the best option. Since GRUB does not start while chain loaded, this indicates to me that it might not load if I were to use it INSTEAD of the XP bootloader. Therefore, using my current setup, the fact that GRUB will not load does not affect my ability to boot using XP. It seems to me that using GRUB is like rolling the dice in Vegas when the odds are not in your favor. However, since the XP bootloader appears to behave just fine, do you have any iniput as to what I need to do to edit boot.ini in order to attempt to boot KNOPPIX from the CD image on a Winpartition, using the XP bootloader.

In other words, forget GRUB and LILO for a minute: what can I do to boot off the XP bootloader?

Any other info or suggestions would be great. Thanks again.

James

mr_ed
03-15-2005, 12:35 AM
Hello again!

To answer the most burning issue, "HOW TO: Edit the Boot.ini File in Windows XP" - I, Mr. Ed the talking horse :D recommend getting the information straight from the front end of another horse: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q289022.

And you're absolutely right, you need your production system to keep producing for you.

Here's the scoop on size: Knoppix-on-CD is highly compressed, and when it runs as a "live CD" it does decompression on the fly. Ditto for when the file /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX is just copied to HD and run from there.

But when Knoppix is installed to HD as a regular Debian LiGNUx operating system, the ~2GB of software in /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX is unpacked and laid out in all its glory so that it can be run without needing the CD to do the decompression.

No LiGNUx needs to be this large. Even with a GUI, stripping out stuff like OpenOffice.org and KDE would make for a smaller installation. But Klaus Knopper wanted a complete work environment that he could carry around on CD and pop into any computer that he found nearby.

So Knoppix has to be seen in terms of its fundamental design philosophy: everything on a CD (with top-of-the-line hardware detection). It doesn't look as good when viewed with other requirements, such as a first LiGNUx to study; a small, out-of-the-way second OS; something easily updated and maintained, and so on.

I hope this helps!

-- Mr. Ed ("Now Wilburrr.....")

jmort
03-15-2005, 04:10 AM
Hello,

I'm learning tons of new stuff here today, (which of course is my goal in all this), thank you for your input so far. I have some more questions. It is amazing how one question can unfold into several new questions isn't it?

Okay, I'm a little confused. you mentioned:


Here's the scoop on size: Knoppix-on-CD is highly compressed, and when it runs as a "live CD" it does decompression on the fly. Ditto for when the file /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX is just copied to HD and run from there.

But when Knoppix is installed to HD as a regular Debian LiGNUx operating system, the ~2GB of software in /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX is unpacked and laid out in all its glory so that it can be run without needing the CD to do the decompression.


I understand that by installing kNOPPIX onto a hard drive fully expanded it becomes a Debian installation, but surely that is different from just copying /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX to the hard driive and running that. This leads to more questions. Their answers should hopefully be extremely beneficial on the webpage somewhere or in the FAQ section:

First, from what I underestood from the Winpartition configuration, one must copy the actual CD image to the hard drive. This mentions nothing about the /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file. Now, you are saying that it is the KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file that needs to be copied to hard drive. Your statement also makes it sound extremely simple:


when it runs as a "live CD" it does decompression on the fly. Ditto for when the file /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX is just copied to HD and run from there.

How is this different from booting off of the CD image?

I also don't understand the need for more space. My KNOPPIX CD runs just fine before and after creating a FAT32 partition, so it clearly is not decompressing to the HD as it can not write to NTFS (i initially only had a NTFS partition). In addition, the CD is read only and filled to capacity, so it is clearly not being decompressed there. This must mean that the kNOPPIX is decompressed to some other medium, such as RAM. Therefore, I conclude based on this information that the only thing I need a FAT32 partition for is so that I can actually save the things that I am working on in KNOPPIX. To clarify, if running KNOPPIX from CD works witih NO HARD DRIVE SPACE, what is there to prevent it from running off of the Hard drive with NO HARD DRIVE SPACE beyond what i would want to use to save documents and stuff. This is my logic for creating only a 1GB partition. I do not see myself doing too much with this other than playing with Linux initially. (Until the day may come when I may shun Windows altogether and go with an ACTUAL Linux distribution)

I hope the information in the above paragraph further clarifies my goals. In addition, thank you once again for you help. Any further information that you or anyone else can provide will be a great help to me and other users with these very same misconceptions or misunderstandings about KNOPPIX.

James

mr_ed
03-15-2005, 09:46 AM
Okay, now you're figuring out more about Knoppix than what I know. :D There comes a time when a kindergarten teacher has to say, "Gee, no, I don't know what follow-up work they've done on that subatomic particle that travels backwards in time."

In other words, I haven't actually done the kind of installation you're talking about. (Do you have to be both poor and a man to do it?) But here's what I can tell you:

Yes, decompression happens in RAM.

Saying that /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX gets copied to HD was a sloppy shortcut. But it's still a good description in essence.... :)

Think of an ISO image as a wrapper that includes a bunch of otherwise normal files. If the image gets burned to CD, then the wrapper disappears and you can see all those other files when you dir - I mean, ls - /cdrom.

If the image stays on your HD, Linux can mount it as a file system of type isofs, and then you can see all those files that way.

One of the files inside the Knoppix iso is not so normal, though. Looking into the image, either on CD or on HD, you see /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX, and it's been compressed with cloop tools, which are available as Sources for the special components of the KNOPPIX-CD at http://developer.linuxtag.net/knoppix/i386.

What's the difference between running Knoppix as a live CD (with some persistent storage on the HD) and booting from the CD and then running from the compressed image on HD (with the same saved work files)?

Three things that I can see (but remember that I'm a nearsighted kindergarten teacher): - with the image on HD, you can take the CD out of the drive after you've booted and so use the drive for something else;
- the image on HD doesn't have to be identical to the boot CD (except for the kernel and maybe some other stuff to support it) - you can add, subtract, and update in the process Knoppix calls remastering;
- reading from HD should be faster than from CD - especially if your CD drive likes to spin down often.What's the advantage of running a more traditional installation over iso-on-HD? Besides speed (decompression time), you can change the software and not have to then recompress and rewrap stuff back into a CD image.

Note that if you do then remaster, you'll need up to twice as much space on the HD as with a traditional install so that there's room to work with the image.

Okay, now ask me the atomic weight of carbon-14. :D

-- Ed

ruymbeke
03-15-2005, 10:07 AM
Please have a look at this link: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17648

jmort
03-15-2005, 06:11 PM
Okay, now you're figuring out more about Knoppix than what I know. There comes a time when a kindergarten teacher has to say, "Gee, no, I don't know what follow-up work they've done on that subatomic particle that travels backwards in time."


heheh, I know that Carbon-14 weighs more than hydrogen.

Thanks for clarifiying about the /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file and the iso.

We may want to consider terminating this thread, as the above link in the previous post will take us to more posts regarding this topic, and I see no reason to have two threads on essentially the same topic.

jmort
03-15-2005, 06:17 PM
Okay, now you're figuring out more about Knoppix than what I know. There comes a time when a kindergarten teacher has to say, "Gee, no, I don't know what follow-up work they've done on that subatomic particle that travels backwards in time."


heheh, I know that Carbon-14 weighs more than hydrogen.

Thanks for clarifiying about the /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file and the iso.

We may want to consider terminating this thread, as the above link in the previous post will take us to more posts regarding this topic, and I see no reason to have two threads on essentially the same topic.