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cyberoidx
03-29-2005, 04:05 PM
Hi, I'm from one of the four corners of the earth :D and have a 2Gb HDD + 64Mb ram to install Knoppix on.

Please guide me what i can do to for my partitions. I had them 1750MB Native + 250MB Swap for my RH 7.2 install, but looks like we need a change for knoppix.

Please advise me anything other than getting a new hdd.

UnderScore
03-29-2005, 04:43 PM
According to the Documentation/HOWTO http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Hd_Install_HowTo, you will have much difficulty and it might be impossible to install Knoppix to your 2GB HD. I suggest that you skip Knoppix and go directly to Debian. You can run either Debian Stable (Woody, old but very stable versions of programs) or Debian Testing (Sarge, slim chance but possibly unstable programs. Debian developers are finalizing Testing to be the next stable release in the near future).
Debian stable - http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=4
Debian testing - http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/sarge_d-i/i386/current/sarge-i386-netinst.iso 109MB

I installed Debian tesing via sarge-i386-netinst.iso within the last 2 months. The minimal install is about 200-300MB and includes only the basic shell, etc, filesystem programs, apt and dpkg programs so that you can get updates and install more packages. Debian is great because you have the choice of running a GUI that will run fast on your system.

I hope this helps.
James

cyberoidx
03-29-2005, 04:50 PM
Knoppix!! Knoppix!!! .......thats what i want.

I suppose i could ignore stuff and do the install, but please tell me how much a knoppix hdd install "acutally" takes............ so i can partition it that way.

UnderScore
03-29-2005, 05:18 PM
According to my experience, Knoppix 3.7 installed on a hard drive is over 2GB (about 2.2GB) for the root partition. Since you have 64MB of RAM you will also need a swap partition. This is why I said you might be able to do it with a 2GB HD, but it is most likely impossible. This is why I suggested you get Debian because Knoppix installed on a hard drive really Debian unstable.

Perhaps someone else can confirm the requirements.

I hope this helps.
James

cyberoidx
03-29-2005, 06:05 PM
Thanx for the info. I suppose the only way left out is to get a new hdd. :(

fingers99
03-29-2005, 06:32 PM
I suppose the only way left out is to get a new hdd.

Not necessarily: I'm told that it's possible to do a HD install of Damn Small Linux which is essentially, Knoppix. This should radically reduce the amount of diskspace you need.

Harry Kuhman
03-29-2005, 09:45 PM
Or just install Debian, unless you really want all of the "this and that doesn't work after a hard disk install" or "such and such broke after an upgrade" issues.

cyberoidx
03-30-2005, 02:48 AM
Hey, i already got DSL, that was the first live version i got since i'm on a dial-up and cant download stuff quickly.......... But to make it nice and working u need to download the MyDsl apps, and i download is what i cant do :(
So i bought a Knoppix CD.......

Is there no way to chose the apps that you want to install, and those that you dont want to? I can do without the games, and some other appz.

Anyways, can i get knoppix working on a 2GB hdd without SWAP? or put the swap file o a windows HDD? I can do that. please help me guys.....

mr_ed
03-30-2005, 04:06 AM
Hello, cyberoidx!


I'm from one of the four corners of the earth....India will soon have more English speakers than any other country - that's a big corner! :D


Is there no way to chose the apps that you want to install, and those that you dont want to?No, unfortunately. :( Knoppix doesn't give a minimum HD size because it's still designed to run from CD. But really, 3 GB is required to be comfortable. With 2.5 GB you might have enough room to work, but you couldn't save much on your drive.


2GB hdd without SWAP?No, not with 64 MB RAM. The less RAM, the more you really, really need swap space. The rule of thumb is: swap = 2 x RAM, but someone who has 2GB RAM will probably never need swap anyway.


or put the swap file o a windows HDD?Now we have some possibilities! :D How big is that HD? How much free space does it have now? How much of it could you steal for Knoppix (swap + other stuff)?

Knoppix still may not be the best choice for you, for a couple of reasons. One is that it's still designed to run from CD, so it can be a little difficult to maintain once you have it on HD. Another is that it will still take some hammering on the software to put some of Knoppix on one HD and some on another.

So there are some other Linuxes to think about, depending on how easily and cheaply you can get CDs without downloading them. Do you know a person or computer user group that has broadband access? Free and friendly is the best way! :D


Knoppix!! Knoppix!!! .......thats what i want. Heh. :) Yeah, but ... look at these:- Debian sarge from CDs - 1.7 GB installed - just the first 3 CDs;
- Debian woody - 640 MB installed - just the first 2 CDs;
- Progeny Debian - 1.3 GB installed - just the first CD;
- Debian sarge over the net - 1.7 GB installed - 108 MB CD + 530 MB live over the net;
- Debian sarge base (no GUI) over the net - 350 MB installed - 108 MB CD + 72.6 MB live over the net.These installed numbers (except the last one) are for a desktop environment like Knoppix - you can make them larger or smaller at installation time if you go through all the packages then, and choose what you want. Or you can make them larger or smaller after the installation completes too, of course.

The neat thing about sarge over the net is that after the CD is finished, you have a working system - it can't do much, but it works - and then everything else you want is downloaded one package at a time.

So if your connection is unreliable, you don't waste two hours of work when the connection drops and you have to start all over again. For a dial-up, you download some, install them, download more later, install them, and so on.

Give it some thought, okay? Do you want a Knoppix that doesn't work very well, or do you want a Linux that does? :D

-- Ed

cyberoidx
03-30-2005, 07:38 AM
Thanks a lot, Ive understood some stuff. But need to know more
I've got the following partitions.

Windows Drives
hda1: 4.5GB :1.5 free C
hda5: 4.5GB :1.5 free E
hdb1: 1.97MB : Just for the sake of it, or i would lose all my shortcuts and fil addreses. D

Linux Drives:
hdb2 : 1900000 KB ~ 1.9GB Linux Native
hdb3 : 150000 KB ~ 128MB Linux Swap

When i use knoppix from CD, i put the swap file on hda1, cant i do that after installation?
I can partition and even destroy HDB, but not HDA, can only use HDA for storing files, cause my fathers files lie on it.

Also i ran IGNORE_CHECK=1 sudo knoppix-installer

It runs till the part where it asks me what kind of installation i want. I chose Beginner. After that i get a window with a huge textbox with stuff about Xdialogbox written inside it. and i suppose info on how to run some program by passing variables / options / cheat codes. Three buttons below the text box : Prev. Next and Print. I hit Next, the dialog box closes and i have the same text in my Bash shell terminal. Then nothing happens. It becomes a normal Knoppix with a bash shell.

I'm totally confused, and i thought installing Knoppix would be as easy as RH 7.2...........

PS: i cant run the installer from the terminal emulator thats there on the shortcut bar. I have to use a shell, bash in this case. why is this so? I cant enter any terminal as root, it asks me for a passwd, which i just hit RETURN for, and it tells me invalid password.

Help me guys, you people seem better than the customer support of some really good companies.

mr_ed
03-30-2005, 10:52 AM
you people seem better than the customer support of some really good companies
Wait until you get our bill! :D

Don't change hdb - hdb1 isn't causing any harm, and it isn't enough space to help Knoppix. And hdb3 is just right for swap.

You'd have to take 500MB - 1GB away from Windows on hda to install Knoppix - it could be from either hda1 or hda5 or both. You're probably using partitions hda2 and hda3, right? So making another logical partition would be the easiest.


i thought installing Knoppix would be as easy as RH 7.2...........
Klaus Knopper created Knoppix so he could have a portable work environment without carrying around a laptop - he wanted a CD that he could run in any computer that was nearby. And have 2 GB of software (compressed onto that one disk) with him at all times.

So Knoppix just isn't designed to be installed to HD. But people who want to install it anyway have to understand that it's a big, solid glob that unpacks into 2 GB and then needs working room besides that.

And it runs KDE, so it wants lots of memory. Here's from http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-info/index-en.html:


20 MB of RAM for text mode, at least 96 MB for graphics mode with KDE (at least 128 MB of RAM is recommended to use the various office products)
Knoppix is a sweet distro, but it's not very kind toward the lower resources of vintage equipment.

-- Ed

cyberoidx
03-30-2005, 01:14 PM
What i was thinking was that i could remove hdb3 and make hdb2 almost 2GB, if there was a way to put the swap file on hda1 or hda2 . Is there a way to do that?

mr_ed
03-30-2005, 10:26 PM
Yes and no. :D

Knoppix (or any Linux) needs a dedicated swap partition - it looks for an entry in the drive's partition table with an ID of 82. (When you're running Knoppix from CD you can see partition tables by typing $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda and $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hdb - that's a lower-case "L" as in "list.")

So yes, Linux swap can be moved to hda. No, it can't be inside a Windows or DOS partition like your hda1.

I hope this helps....

-- Ed

cyberoidx
03-31-2005, 02:00 AM
I shifted all my contents in hda2 to hdb1 and now have 3.6GB lin native + 300MB sawp space. I did the install once, but i put the lilo on the partition instead of MBR..... how do i access it now. I used a lilo cd i had to boot up. used Linux root=/dev/hda2 Knoppix booted, showed Hd-install instead of live CD, but then X11 never started correctly. Will try once again, and tell you the errors.

Thanks for now.

mr_ed
03-31-2005, 07:31 AM
:D Congratulations - you've got Knoppix! :D

You'll need to edit the file /etc/fstab - do you know how to use vi or emacs?

-- Ed

mr_ed
03-31-2005, 07:32 AM
:D Congratulations - you've got Knoppix! :D

You'll need to edit the file /etc/lilo.conf - do you know how to use vi or emacs?

-- Ed

cyberoidx
03-31-2005, 07:55 AM
Thanks ed. I just did a re-install, and its working nicely. Now i'll be experienting with the bootloader. I put Lilo on the MBR, but now i am thinking of removing that, and booting from a cd/floppy. So some changes will be there........ All in all thanks for your help guys.

One more thing. I had done hd install so that knoppix runs faster.... but i see no change in speed, comparing win98 to knoppix is like trains to running.........

Is there anything like disabling animations, etc? cause i think the transparency effect might be doin this?

mr_ed
03-31-2005, 09:46 AM
Excellent! Your persistance is really paying off!


removing that, and booting from a cd/floppy
You probably don't have to remove LILO from the MBR - booting with a floppy or CD in the drive should override booting from HD, depending on how you've configured your BIOS. For my machine that has a FD, I set it to check for that first, then for a CD, and then to boot from HD.


i see no change in speed....
This is almost certainly due to running KDE. Remember that http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-info/index-en.html says you need at least 96 MB for it.

When your system doesn't have enough RAM to hold the programs that are running, it uses the swap space as extra "memory." The less RAM, the more the system has to write stuff to HD, read more stuff from HD, then write still more stuff to HD, then read even more stuff from HD....

So no, you're not seeing an increase in speed because instead of doing lots of reads from CD, you're doing lots of read/writes to HD.

The answer would be to use one of the so-called "lightweight" window managers instead of KDE, which is not only a window manager but also a Desktoop Environment - something that knits together all your desktop stuff with a consistent "look and feel" and uses lots of memory in doing it.

You can have more than one window manager installed, but you can only run one at a time. I forget whether Knoppix installs any besides KDE by default. But if you can run kpackage, look in the section called X11, or synaptic in Miscellaneous - Graphical.

Everything that ends in *wm (except selectwm) is a window manager. And a bunch of the other packages in those sections are, too - check blackbox and fluxbox, metacity, sapphire, sawfish, xfce/xfwm4 (another desktop environment and its window manager - but smaller than KDE) ... and many others!

-- Ed

cyberoidx
03-31-2005, 12:25 PM
Yes i know all that you said this time. :) Finally i'm a PRO....

I got fluxbox and TVM already there, and i suppose one more. will try both. Or is there any old version of KDE i could downgrade to?

cyberoidx
03-31-2005, 12:26 PM
Yes i know all that you said this time. :) Finally i'm a PRO....

I got fluxbox and TVM already there, and i suppose one more. will try both. Or is there any old version of KDE i could downgrade to? And what about Gnome (i think it kinda sucks, but i need something to work on..........)

mr_ed
04-01-2005, 08:26 AM
Yes i know all that you said this time.
That's great because usually I don't know what I said! :D


is there any old version of KDE i could downgrade to?
You could "downgrade" to a version of Debian.... :wink:

Gnome is another big Desktop Environment (window manager plus tons of stuff) like KDE. I don't think it'll help.

-- Ed

cyberoidx
04-01-2005, 01:15 PM
I checked out ICEWM, its more of my Win98 style and i really liked it..... Not thinking of going gack to KDE now. Also Fluxbox was the one that came on DSL, and i have used it, so i've found my comfort zone now.

I get an libcdda is trunacted erorr at boot, what is that about.

OErjan
04-01-2005, 03:41 PM
...
Knoppix (or any Linux) needs a dedicated swap partition - it looks for an entry in the drive's partition table with an ID of 82.
...
So yes, Linux swap can be moved to hda. No, it can't be inside a Windows or DOS partition like your hda1.
...
actually it CAN be inside a windows or dos partition (fat 12, 16, 32, slightly risky with NTFS).
if you know how to set it up you can use an "image", not unlike the iso you downloaded to make the CD.
just make that image on a mounted partition.
here i have made a less than elaborate Quickie howto.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/swapfile bs=1024 count=262144
mkswap /path/to/swapfile
sync
now just type the comand
swapon /path/to/swapfile to "activate" the swapfile.
You can test if you have more "memory" with the comand free

if you have a HDDinstall you can get this done each time you boot without typing any comand/s (you only need to create the file once)
how? you just put it in /etc/fstab (just example below)


/path/to/swapfile none swap pri=5,defaults 0 0

hope it helped without confusing.

cyberoidx
04-02-2005, 03:37 AM
Thanks OErjan, but i dont want the Knoppix Cd like install, i want the hdd install, and i think i may move to the debian kinda install cause i'm having problems as knoppix hdd install with multi users does not let me log in as root........

I'll also be trying out a couple of WM's i saw on the net.

Are there any good linux software download sites? I checked goofgle, but nothing good. linuxdownloads.org seems to be having articles, which contain links to downloads, nothing like what i want......

mr_ed
04-02-2005, 08:00 AM
According to http://www.debian.org:


Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with more than 8710 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
:D

Pick mirrors from these lists:
- http://www.debian.org/mirror/list
- http://www.debian.org/mirror/list-non-US
and then edit your /etc/apt/sources.list - you'll probably only need these lines (but change them to a mirror closer to you, except for security updates):


# Security updates for "stable"
deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free

# Stable
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free

# Testing
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free

# Unstable
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free
Then you can use the apt tools for easy software maintenance. See $ man sources.list and $ man apt-get for starters.

By the way, security updates are only provided for the stable release and are only available from that one site (not from any mirrors).

-- Ed

cyberoidx
04-02-2005, 09:39 AM
Will check em out.

I got my modem drivers as tar.gz file and also extracted them to a folder. Now how do i install em? just run "make install" i suppose............

I got everything running nicely now, except everything is in German (3.8 CeBit edition......) unless i specify lang=us at boot, even if KDE has Us as language....... If i edit lilo.conf to make lang=us is that enough? or do i have to run lilo to make the changes?

Acutally i suppose i should go to some other place for lilo cofiguration now.... unless you dont mind helping a dumb guy.

mr_ed
04-03-2005, 04:26 AM
Now how do i install em?
Read the source, Luke! :D Look in that directory for READMEs, configuration scripts, etc.


do i have to run lilo to make the changes?
Yes indeedy - LILO (but not GrUB) requires a separate step to write the changes to MBR or the sector record or wherever they're going. And it ain't dumb to ask! :D

-- Ed