Knoppix Live 3.7

[grandad]

Hi there. My aplogies for being a pest, but I am 72 years of age and have just obtained the Knoppix Live CD. The adddies state that you just pop it into your CDROM drive and away you go. But this is not so.

Okay I changed my CDROM drive to boot and popped in the Cd and away it went. It seemed as though everything was okay as it picked up a number of things, only to stop and remain stopped.

The last thing it did was to tell me that it was looking for the CDROM in /dev/scd0 which it okayed. Then it began looking for the CDROM in /dev/hdb and that was as far as it would go.

I really would love to get Knoppix to work for me. I have cancer and time is not on my side. If I can only get a little help then things might work out. Please accept my apologies again both for my lack of technical knowhow and for taking up your vaulable time. Grandad Walt.

[Harry Kuhman]

Information that will help people help you: How did you get your copy? If you downloaded it yourself and burnt it, did you check the md6 sum, what software and choices did you use to burn it (did you burn it "as an image"), and did you burn it at a slow speed like 4x? Assuming Knoppix was downloaded and burnt properly, you might need "cheat codes" with your particular hardware. It would be helpful if you mentioned what that hardware was. Just on a hunch, and this is only that without the above information, you might try typing in knoppix nodma at the prompt when knoppix starts booting (I think from what you said that you are getting that far but I'm not quite sure).

If you decide to download and try burning again, I would suggest using Bittorrent and downloading version 3.8.1. Bittorrent does it's own checking, you will get a good iso that way. The mirrors sometime corrupt the downloads, which is why checking the md5 sum is so important.

Information on your medical history shouldn't be required or have any bearing.

[grandad]

Hi Harry. Thanks for the sympathy on my illness. I merely mentioned it, not because I wanted or expected sympathy, but because I wanted to impress on readers the urgency of my request. Oh why did I bother? Anyway Harry, heartless world or not, I did state in my plea for help that I had obtained the Knoppix Live CD. I bought it professionally produced(is that the correct term?) and paid for. No download. No burning. No missed or corrupted files.
Anyway Harry, since then I have tried again and this time I booted up and entered 'Failsafe'. This time everything loaded in onto my system, in a few seconds at most. I was presented with a lovely desktop and all the relevant screens, etc, BUT.....no mouse. The mouse pointer was on screen, but inopperative. This obviosly was not the way to boot the CD.
So back to the original boot again and sure enough the boot begins but stops, telling me that it is looking for CDROM in /dev/hdb.
Thanks for reading so far. Grandad Walt.

[grandad]

Hi again Harry. Nodma it is and what a genius you are. Typed in Knoppix nodma and away it went. No problems whatsoever. Have now got the printer set up and the wordprocessor is working fine. Konqueror and Mozzilla are great. All I need to do now is to find how I can get my CD Copier set up and I shall have no more problems. Thank you again for all your very useful advice. Whatever time I have left will be all the happier because I have Knoppix working for me. Regards Grandad Walt.

[Harry Kuhman]

Hi Harry. Thanks for the sympathy on my illness.
We help people get started in Knoppix here. It's doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, sick or healthy, handicapped or not, black or white, and so on. The first thing I did was try to respond to your question. At the end of my post I added one line to say that your health was not an issue. I really don't think we need to see people start including in every post heir own stories of personal tragedy, either as "human interest" or as an attempt to get more and better responses. The first thing you responded to was that. Too bad about your illness, but I've got my own problems and I don't bring them here. If you want help with Knoppix that is freely offered. If you want to post about your health there are likely other places on the Internet that it would be better received, it is off topic here. I don't appreciate being called heartless just for point this out.


"I did state in my plea for help that I had obtained the Knoppix Live CD. I bought it professionally produced(is that the correct term?) and paid for. No download. No burning. No missed or corrupted files.
Anyway Harry, since then I have tried again and this time I booted up and entered 'Failsafe'. This time everything loaded in onto my system, in a few seconds at most. I was presented with a lovely desktop and all the relevant screens, etc, BUT.....no mouse. The mouse pointer was on screen, but inopperative. This obviosly was not the way to boot the CD.
So back to the original boot again and sure enough the boot begins but stops, telling me that it is looking for CDROM in /dev/hdb.
You mentioned failsafe but didn't mention if you tried the nodam cheat code. If not then you should really try that. If you did, and your likely not going to care to hear this, then I think that your problem is that you "bought it professionally produced". We've seen a large number of problems from people burning the CD's at high speed, they just don't boot, or don't boot right. Here are just a couple of many links I could provide: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17788 and http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=78925#78925
When someone is cranking out CD's to resell and make a few bucks, he likely is writing them as fast as his little CD writer will go. So my best guess in that, if you already tried the nodma cheat code, that your system just will not boot properly from that fast burned CDR.

I can't do anything about the guy who sold you the disk (if that really is even the problem). There is plenty of information about how to download a copy of the ISO and burn it properly on this site. You can start with the documentation link at the top of this page and read the downloading faq. Key things that might help you get a good result: Bittorrent is a much better way to download the iso than from the mirrors. If you do download from the mirrors it is absolutely critical that you check the md5 sum, if you are unwilling to do this then do not use the mirrors. The iso that you download must be burnt "as an image", not just drug into the file area of you software. It must not be "unpacked" (don't extract any files from the ISO). Do not use any feature in your burning software to make the CD bootable, if burnt properly it will be bootable, but any option to make it bootable will assure failure. I can't give you the exact burning steps without knowing what burning software you have and use. The burning software that comes with XP does not burn ISO files properly by itself, but there are several free packages that can be used to burn ISO files on various OSs. Ask if you have doubts. And, obviously, burn the iso at a slow speed (4x if available on your drive and media, no faster than 8x in any case). Use a 700 meg CDRW if you have one for your first test, otherwise use a 700 meg CDR blank. The ISO, if the md5 sum is correct, will fit on a 700 meg CDR, although some people misread it's size.

[Harry Kuhman]

You posted your last response between the time I started writing my above response and when I sent it. Not sure why you didn't try the nodma cheat code when it was first suggested (maybe you were focused on something else that took away your attention from the issue and my offered suggestion?). One additional point: You are not alone in needing the nodma cheat code, and as a result of problems people have had, nodma is the default in version 3.8.1 (DMA was the default in versions between 3.4 and 3.7). So if you do download and make your own copy of 3.8.1, then you will no longer need to use the cheat code.

Thanks for posting back that the issue was resolved.