Faster - Smaller Boot Floppy!

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Sorry, if you already saw this posting, but I posted this in a reply on the lounge and noone had an answer. So I thought it would get more exposure here.

I have my students boot the compressed KNOPPIX image file from hda1 on a WONDOZE partition using the kernel-based (slow) boot floppy. Is there any way to speed booting the image from the hdd? Maybe I could partition about 1GB, call it hda2, and use the http://btmgr.sf.net (fast) boot disk to boot that? 1GB should be big enough as the image file is about 695MB - would a 700MB partition be enough?

I think that http://btmgr.sf.net can boot from any bootable partition you tell it to look for. I'm using this method to boot my MORPHIX CDs now. Its very quick, that's how I rediscovered this little gem (see http://www.morphix.org). I think I reviewed btmgr months ago for use with KNOPPIX and found it a bit buggy then, but its very nice now. Well, I've been using the version on http://www.morphix.org, is that different from the one on http://btmgr.sf.net?

BTW, the powers that be at my school do not want me setting up a dual boot situtaion, ie: knx-hdinstall and lilo are out. The KNOPPIX boot floppy is OK (to boot the CD or from /mnt/hda1/knoppix), the MORPHIX boot floppy is OK (to boot CD) and loadlin is OK, but that's about it! BTW, what they don't know won't hurt me. So if I have to make a 1GB partition, I will. But, I'm sure they don't want me doing that either, so if I could do this without partitioning, let me know!

Frustrated Teacher,

[baldyeti]

Hi Jorge,

Since you said you use the so-called poor-man's install,
I guess we can assume you use win9x, can't we?
If so, you could use loadlin to boot with no diskette at all.
Create a C:\Linux directory, into which you copy the whole
content of the boot floppy. Add loadlin.exe (easy to find)
Then you can use loadlin to start your kernel instead of
ldlinux. Select from syslinux.cfg the set of parameters
you need, possibly complemented with the needed lang,
keyboard, screen....values. This list of parameters is too long
for a dos command line, so we'll feed a parameter file to
loadlin: (beware: this is supposed to be *one* long line)

----------> c:\linux\loadlin.par <----------
c:\linux\vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=be vga=791
initrd=c:\linux\miniroot.gz apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi
hdd=scsi screen=1280x1024 home=scan myconfig=scan nomce
----------------------------------------

Then we can take advantage of the multi-config possibility in win9x.
with a config.sys like the following:
----------> c:\config.sys <----------
[Menu]
MenuItem=Win98, Windows 98 (second edition)
MenuItem=KNX, Knoppix 3.2 (debian based linux)
MenuItem=KNX2, Knoppix (console)
MenuDefault=Win98,5

[COMMON]
Device=C:\Win98\Himem.Sys /Testmem:Off
Device=C:\Win98\Emm386.Exe Noems
Dos=High,Umb

[KNX]
Shell=C:\linux\loadlin.exe @C:\linux\loadlin.par

[KNX2]
Shell=C:\linux\loadlin.exe @C:\linux\loadlin.par 2

[Win98]
rem your normal config.sys comes here...
--------------------

If you are afraid the mutli-config menu might confuse users,
you can still use the same principle booting off a floppy.
Since the kernel and miniroot live on the hd, they'll be read
real fast, and only the tiny loadlin.exe (32k) has to stay on the
floppy.
I am using this happily, and I only need to refresh c:\knoppix
every once in a while when I feel like checking a new release.
I don't even need to burn the CD, just extract from the iso image
to the vfat partition. I wanted to write a FAQ about this but never
got around to it. I hope this is detailed enough.

[monkeyman]

(beware: this is supposed to be *one* long line)

----------> c:\linux\loadlin.par <----------
c:\linux\vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=be vga=791
initrd=c:\linux\miniroot.gz apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi
hdd=scsi screen=1280x1024 home=scan myconfig=scan nomce
----------------------------------------


Ah-ha! I was looking for just that - thanks.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Yes, I've done exactly that on my WIN95 lab. I added an ICON on the desktop to start-up loadlin. However I'm using two other labs, one has WINME which doesn't use DOS the same way, and the other I don't have security to modify the desktop (or anything else in windows).... So, I hope you see my problem.

Regards,

[garyng]

I know people use some lilo tricks which is the kernel and initrd still sits on the HD but the lilo boot sector(and/or the map file) is written to the floppy. This should greatly speed up your booting.

In fact I used a similar setup but instead of the boot floppy, I tell lilo to write to /dev/loop0 which I mount to a file and take out the first 512 byte of it to give it to XP loader.

To summerize, you can use lilo to write just the boot sector to a floppy with everything else still sitting on a VFAT partition.

To simplify the management, I just put all of them under \KNOPPIX, this is completely non-intrusive to a Window environment(just give me a directory to store my files).

The only downside of lilo is that you need to do this on every machine as the map files are raw disk sector numbers and it doesn't understand file system at all and if you ever move the files(vmlinuz and miniroot.gz), the whole thing needs to be redo again.

Another alternative is to use a CD-ROM as the boot floppy, that is to build the CD-R which contains only the boot image etc. but not the real 700M KNOPPIX which will sit on the HD. Since the vmlinuz and initrd seldom changes(I can use the CEBIT version on all KNOPPIX till now), it should be allright. The size is also very small(only about 1.44M) so you can use mini-CD(or even business card size CD) and it is very fast to burn.

[baldyeti]

However I'm using two other labs, one has WINME which doesn't use DOS the same way, and the other I don't have security to modify the desktop (or anything else in windows)....

Then you can do as I suggested above, and boot from a floppy with
just loadlin.exe on the diskette, the rest (kernel+miniroot) read from
hd will give you exactly what you asked for: a faster bootup.

[garyng]

Then you can do as I suggested above, and boot from a floppy with
just loadlin.exe on the diskette, the rest (kernel+miniroot) read from
hd will give you exactly what you asked for: a faster bootup.

Ah, very smart. A good old DOS bootable diskette :)

A side note, what is the implication about licensing/copyright etc. ? Or are there any free DOS available on the net like some left overs from DRI ?

[baldyeti]

As a side note, what is the implication about licensing/copyright etc. ? Or are there any free DOS available on the net like some left overs from DRI ?

You do own a license for those WinME installations, don't you ? :wink:
Create a boot/install floppy from the CD, make some room for
loadlin.exe, invoke it from autoexec.bat, and be done.
Now if you've "lost" the cdrom, there's always http://www.bootdisk.com/.
I do not know whether their freedos/drdos disks have fat32 support,
though...

[garyng]

As a side note, what is the implication about licensing/copyright etc. ? Or are there any free DOS available on the net like some left overs from DRI ?

You do own a license for those WinME installations, don't you ? :wink:
Create a boot/install floppy from the CD, make some room for
loadlin.exe, invoke it from autoexec.bat, and be done.
Now if you've "lost" the cdrom, there's always http://www.bootdisk.com/.
I do not know whether their freedos/drdos disks have fat32 support,
though...

Um, are there still DOS in ME ? I know one can still create bootable floppy from 98 but seems that it has gone in ME.

Even one has a valid DOS license, would the described usage violate that ? We are talking about making bootable floppies and distributed it to others. In fact, I am wondering how can www.bootdisk.com distribute such thing without violating the license.

Seems that FREEDOS does support FAT32.

[monkeyman]

If possible MS licensing problems are worrying you, you can always use DR_DOS, which is free for non-commercial use.
A naked DR_DOS boot disk can be had here:

http://www.geniussystems.net/files/drdflash.exe

and the DR_DOS FAT32 driver can be found here:

http://stud3.tuwien.ac.at/~e0225895/drdos/drdown.htm#fat32

The FAT32 driver is pretty darned flaky and I wouldn't want to use it for regular use, but it works just fine for something like a Knoppix boot disk. In fact, Power Quest uses that driver to read FAT32 partitions while loading Partition Magic.

Here is the non-commercial license for your perusal:

http://www.au.horde.org/pub/drdos/LICENSE.TXT

Here is the full version of DR-DOS if someone wants to play with it:

http://www.au.horde.org/pub/drdos/DR-DOS.703/

[A. Jorge Garcia]

As a side note, what is the implication about licensing/copyright etc. ? Or are there any free DOS available on the net like some left overs from DRI ?

You do own a license for those WinME installations, don't you ? :wink:
Create a boot/install floppy from the CD, make some room for
loadlin.exe, invoke it from autoexec.bat, and be done.
Now if you've "lost" the cdrom, there's always http://www.bootdisk.com/.
I do not know whether their freedos/drdos disks have fat32 support,
though...

I see said the blind man! Just make a rescue disk for WINME and modify it to include loadlin. Also, since loadlin takes very little space on the diskette, my students don't need a separate data diskette anymore either!

Very nice!

Next year, I'm getting a new lab where every PC will boot from the CD - so no more boot disk. I'll set up one server for my students to log-in to where they can save their work - so no more data disk. However, I may still use this boot floppy method so I don't have to burn so many CDs!

OK, so I tried what you said. I made a WINME Startup Disk (rescue disk) and replaced the contents of autoexec.bat with

c:
cd \knoppix
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz screen=1280x1024 BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

which all fit on one line. I also got rid of all the sections in config.sys except [common] and voila, it booted from hda1 properly.

The only thing I don't like is all the rescue files on the disk. Which of these files can I get rid of? Also, it says WINME Startup Disk on the screen when it boots - can I get rid of that?

Thanx,

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, this is what I'm going to try to do today:

*** A: Get KNOPPIX BOOT Disks Ready ***
Step A1:(if you have a linux box)
cdrecord knoppix.ISO and dd boot-en.IMG
or
Step A1:(if you DO NOT have a linux box)
burn knoppix.ISO with EasyCD Recorder and copy boot-en.img to a disk with rawrite

Step A2:
Find and download loadlin.exe from the NET to boot disk

*** B: Use above disks to setup any PC (including this one if its NOT a linux box) ***
Step B1:
Boot CD with boot disk, mount hda1, make it rw

Step B2:
mkdir /mnt/hda1/knoppix
cp /mnt/floppy/loadlin.exe /mnt/hda1/knoppix
cp /mnt/floppy/vmliunuz /mnt/hda1/knoppix
cp /mnt/floppy/miniroot.gz /mnt/hda1/knoppix
cp /mnt/cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX /mnt/hda1/knoppix

Step B3:
Use WIN95 to make bootable DOS disk and place autoexec.bat in it with the following lines (note, loadlin line is one line).
c:
cd \knoppix
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz screen=1280x1024 BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

*** C: How to boot PC from now on ***
Step C1:
Reboot without CD but with DOS system disk.

[garyng]

The only thing I don't like is all the rescue files on the disk. Which of these files can I get rid of? Also, it says WINME Startup Disk on the screen when it boots - can I get rid of that?

Unless things have changed a lot for the DOS world, it needs only 3 files to function : IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM. All the rest are not needed.

[Henk Poley]

The only thing I don't like is all the rescue files on the disk. Which of these files can I get rid of? Also, it says WINME Startup Disk on the screen when it boots - can I get rid of that?
FORMAT A: /S /U
That's the command to create a bootfloppy with just io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com, and ... (?)
You can also use the floppy formatter in windows and check "copy system files" checkbox (or something like that).

[A. Jorge Garcia]

On my WIN box, format a: /s is no longer supported. So I either format it with system files or I create a rescue disk!

I tried formatting with system files from a WIN95 box and tried booting on a WIN98 machine. This did not work as the c: was not found. I think this is because it was missing io.sys and msdos.sys.

So, I tried formatting with system files from the WIN98 box and everything now works with only the following files on the DOS doot disk:

autoexec.bat
command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys
drvspace.bin

What is drvsapce.bin???

TIA,

[monkeyman]

drvspace.bin is a handle for reading volumes compressed with Drive Space, a disk compression utility which is found in DOS 5.01 or higher. Stupidly, it is a required file for DOS 7.0 or higher, it was optional with DOS 6.22.

[Henk Poley]

On my WIN box, format a: /s is no longer supported. So I either format it with system files or I create a rescue disk!
Expected that, since ME "doesn't" include real mode DOS.


I tried formatting with system files from a WIN95 box and tried booting on a WIN98 machine. This did not work as the c: was not found. I think this is because it was missing io.sys and msdos.sys.
Unless it's Win95B or C it won't read FAT32 (wasn't invented yet). So probably that's your problem.


So, I tried formatting with system files from the WIN98 box and everything now works with only the following files on the DOS doot disk:

autoexec.bat
command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys
drvspace.bin
Yup, seems correct to me :-)


What is drvspace.bin???
This is the DriveSpace driver for MS-DOS. DriveSpace is an extended version (bigger disks, long filenames) of DoubleSpace, a disk compression program shamelessly ripped from Stacker by Microsoft somewhere in the mid '80s.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Do you think I can get rid of drvspace.bin, or is it required to boot the DOS disk for some reason?

BTW,
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz screen=1280x1024 BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
did not work in both my labs at school (unsupported vert refresh rate?).

However,
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
did work in both labs and at home. TADA!

Oh, one more question. vga=791 means what exactly? I'd like to know how to tweek that a bit. I'm sure the 7 sets something and the 9 something else, etc.

Again, many thanx to you all,

[garyng]

you may hit the command line cannot be longer than 128(160?) char limitation in DOS. I forget if that can be fixed by some config.sys setting.

as for vga=791, it is a mode that support 1024x768 at 24 bit(?) color, if memory serve. You may google for that term and it will show up somewhere what you can specify.

[monkeyman]

Do you think I can get rid of drvspace.bin, or is it required to boot the DOS disk for some reason?

BTW,
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz screen=1280x1024 BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
did not work in both my labs at school (unsupported vert refresh rate?).

However,
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
did work in both labs and at home. TADA!

Oh, one more question. vga=791 means what exactly? I'd like to know how to tweek that a bit. I'm sure the 7 sets something and the 9 something else, etc.

Again, many thanx to you all,

Unfortunately, you can't dump the drvspace.bin file if you are using 32 bit DOS. In DOS 6.22 you could, like I said - stupid.

Here is a vga= list:

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga = 791

# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787

# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784

# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, I was going to experiment and see if I could get rid of drvspace.bin, but I guess I better not!

Thanx for the info on vga=791. I thought there would be some algorithm to get from 1024x768x64k to 791 and visa versa, I guess not.

BTW, I have this DOSboot disk working on all my PCs and find the following approximate time savings:

Lab1: Pentium MMX 233Mhz with DOSboot
boot-up: 2 min 30 sec
openOO : 1 min 30

Lab1: Pentium MMX 233Mhz with KNOPPIXboot
boot-up: 3 min 30 sec
openOO : 2 min

Lab2: Pentium III 866Mhz with DOSboot
boot-up: 1 min
openOO : 1 min

Lab2: Pentium III 866Mhz with KNOPPIXboot
boot-up: 1 min 30 sec
openOO : 1 min 30 sec

So, how's that?

Regards,

[monkeyman]

The solid state machines I set up with the DOS boot take about 30 sec/30 sec. They all have P-III 1.4 Ghz processors with 512KB cache, so your numbers look right on the money.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

You mean DOSboot =30 sec and startOO = 30 sec on your PCs? Wow! What exactly is a solid state machine? Can I have one please? :lol:

Regards,

[monkeyman]

You mean DOSboot =30 sec and startOO = 30 sec on your PCs? Wow! What exactly is a solid state machine? Can I have one please? :lol:

Regards,

You will have to build one yourself. All you need is an appropriate mini-ITX or mini-ATX case and motherboard, one of these solid state hard drives: http://www.bitmicro.com/products_edisk_35_ide.php
768 MB RAM, passive cooling and a fanless power supply. No moving parts. Yeah, it is pretty darned speedy. :D

[baldyeti]

OK, so I tried what you said. I made a WINME Startup Disk (rescue disk) and replaced the contents of autoexec.bat with

c:
cd \knoppix
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz screen=1280x1024 BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

which all fit on one line. I also got rid of all the sections in config.sys except [common] and voila, it booted from hda1 properly.

Glad to hear I helped. I'd still advise using the loadlin parameter file,
keeping as many of the original syslinux.cfg parameters as posiible
without them being silently swallowed by the (DOS) command line interpreter.




The only thing I don't like is all the rescue files on the disk. Which of these files can I get rid of?
Also, it says WINME Startup Disk on the screen when it boots - can I get rid of that?


Yes you can: I just came across a freedos boot disk, apparently prepared for
installing slackware (a linux distro), with fat32 support and loadlin.exe included:
http://www.userlocal.com/dosslack/
Just delete/rename config.sys + autoexec.bat and replace them with a
plain loadlin invocation, and you'll be using nothing but GPL'd software!

Btw, which rescue files are you talking about?

[garyng]

Yes you can: I just came across a freedos boot disk, apparently prepared for
installing slackware (a linux distro), with fat32 support and loadlin.exe included:
http://www.userlocal.com/dosslack/
Just delete/rename config.sys + autoexec.bat and replace them with a
plain loadlin invocation, and you'll be using nothing but GPL'd software!


That is great. There is no SCSI support but it shouldn't be a problem for most desktops and for those machine using SCSI, they are less likely to be the target for KNOPPIX(only power user opts for SCSI and they would know where to get debian, Redhat etc.)

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Oh, never mind about the rescue files. I just created a DOSboot disk in WIN98 and I don't get all those files anymore!

These are the files I use:

/mnt/floppy/autoexec.bat
/mnt/floppy/command.com
/mnt/floppy/msdos.sys
/mnt/floppy/io.sys
/mnt/floppy/drvspace.bin

and

/mnt/hda1/knpppix/loadlin.exe
/mnt/hda1/knoppix/vmlinuz
/mnt/hda1/knoppix/miniroot.gz
/mnt/hda1/knoppix/knoppix

BTW, one added benefit of all this is that my kids only need one disk now.

You don't know what a nightmare its been! I was runing bigslack on a DOS partition until most of the hdds in my lab started to fail. So I ran to knoppix and made 3 disks for each student (one boot floppy, one data floppy and one CD). I saw this as the only way to help my students right away on an emergency basis. I can't even knx-hdsinstall (as the hdds are failing and too small).

I used to have to bring into each lab 25 CDs, 25 KNOPPIXboot disks and 25 data disks for my students to save their work per class (3 such classes). With the KNOPPIX image on hda1, I don't need the CDs anymore. Now that I've switched to the DOSboot disks, not only does KNOPPIX boot faster and run smoother, but there's plenty of room left on the DOSboot disk to save files too, so no more data disks! Well, the boot disk doubles as the data disk.... So, I need a DOSboot disk for each of my students and that's all. That's still 75 "data/boot disks," but no more KNOPPIXboot disks or CDs.

TADA all over again!

Next year, I'm supposed to get my lab replaced. We'll see about knx-hdinstall then for at least one server to save their work and to ftp files from me. I like this DOSboot disk set-up, though. I may keep this kind of set-up with the latest copy of KNOPPIX on my new Pentium IVs. They should fly! I had an intranet running with slackware (for the last 5 years or so) and we had it all set-up nice with file servers, ftp servers, print servers.... I even had to move my ftp server files to http://www.geocities.com/calcpage2000/pub just to share files again!

Thanx,

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Somewhere along the line I stated that one disadvantage of running the huge compressed KNOPPIX image file from hda1 is that you can't mount hda1. That's not correct. You can mount it, but you can't make it rw.

Regards,

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Don't miss HOWTO: Upgrade the Poor Man's Dual Boot
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12040

I strongly recommend using the faster DOSbootdisk with the Poor Man's Dual Boot. I have reinstalled all my PCs (100 on a LAN, 5 others off the LAN but on cable modems) this way, works great!

Enjoy!

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Actually you can:

' mount /cdrom -oremount,rw '

--I've done it a bunch of times. It's a good idea to remount RO though when you're done writing to it tho.


Somewhere along the line I stated that one disadvantage of running the huge compressed KNOPPIX image file from hda1 is that you can't mount hda1. That's not correct. You can mount it, but you can't make it rw.

Regards,

[Dave_Bechtel]

--I have a question! I visited the site and found NO information on how much they cost or where to order them... Where can I get a 20GB model for my laptop??



You mean DOSboot =30 sec and startOO = 30 sec on your PCs? Wow! What exactly is a solid state machine? Can I have one please? :lol:

Regards,

You will have to build one yourself. All you need is an appropriate mini-ITX or mini-ATX case and motherboard, one of these solid state hard drives: http://www.bitmicro.com/products_edisk_35_ide.php
768 MB RAM, passive cooling and a fanless power supply. No moving parts. Yeah, it is pretty darned speedy. :D

[monkeyman]

20 GB? Whoa! I don't think so. They are deadly expensive. I got a SimpleTech 1.8 GB which is a rebranded Bitmicro for $1,139.61 U.S.
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.asp?EDC=450930

I partitioned it 1GB FAT32 for the boot up and ROM and 720MB for Persistant Home. Storage is a share on a Win2K server.

Oh, I should mention that I built three boxes and sold two to off-set the cost.

[garyng]

Can I use off-the-shelf CF card and a say USB 2.0 enclosure to somewhat 'lower' the cost ? 512M CF is relatively cheap.

[monkeyman]

I'm afraid compact flash isn't bootable. You could mount the ROM on it and boot by an ide drive I suppose. I'm only guessing here. I wouldn't be surprised if that has been discussed in the Hardware forum at some point.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

ARG, way too pricey for me! Sounds cool though. You wouldn't want to donate one to a school would you?

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Regards,

[Henk Poley]

I know that smaller flash chip == cheaper, so...

A bit off topic, but you might be able to use PXES (http://pxes.sourceforge.net/) (mentioned somewhere on this forum), remastered with an openMosix kernel? PXES is only 5MB, though you could off coarse boot it using PXE (network boot). Don't think the server is going to be quite happy with ~25 thin-clients. openMosix won't help you that much, since all I/O needs to go though the server.

I don't know what purpose you wanted to use Flash for booting? Speed? I think using a dedicated Knoppix PXE server with loads of RAM (so it can cache everything) would help more. And that would be pretty cheapo compared to 25x ~1000 EUR for the Flash drives. btw, since you better not put the swap on a Flash drive (writes wear the memory), you would probably need lots of RAM on each machine already.

[monkeyman]

ARG, way too pricey for me! Sounds cool though. You wouldn't want to donate one to a school would you?

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Regards,

Yeah, normally way too pricey for me too. Geeze, you can buy a kick-ass computer for that kind of money. But, I was tasked with comming up with two absolutely silent pcs for a client running a custom QNX RTOS , so I made enough to get a drive for myself. Otherwise, forget it.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

j.drake, you may want to look at this too!

Good Luck,

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, I got sick of this machine that came preinstalled with WINXP and NTFS. So, I reinstalled WINXP on VFAT32.

Now, not only can I place the compressed KNOPPIX file on c:\KNOPPIX, but its really easy to make a DOS Boot Disk! Just go to My Computer and right click on the floppy. Then if you click on format there's a choice for formatting a boot floppy! All you have to do is add the autoexec.bat file.

Works like a charm!

Regards,

[jdong]

the DriveSpace driver. Used to access compressed disks. If you don't have any, feel free to delete.

P.S. I find a 'boot key' quicker.


(1) Install LILO into the boot sector of some other partition (NOT THE MBR.) This will create a 'hidden' bootsector, not a dual-boot.

(2) Insert in a floppy disk (formatted, unformatted, empty, full, WHO CARES!).

(3) Open up a cmd line, become root.

(4) Issue

dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

Replace /dev/hda2 with your knoppix partition. This copies the first 512 bytes of hda2 (the bootsector) into the first 512 bytes of your floppy.

(5) Boot with the floppy. You'll see that it's almost INSTANT. Why? Your DOS boot disk is almost 1/2 a MB. This floppy is half of a KB!

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Remember I'm talking here about the DOSBootFloppy, not the KNOPPIXBootFloppy. Except for the rescue disk, a la WINME, its been a pain to get anything related to DOS working since real DOS mode disappeared after WIN98.

Regards,

[A. Jorge Garcia]

>>
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

Replace /dev/hda2 with your knoppix partition. This copies the first 512 bytes of hda2 (the bootsector) into the first 512 bytes of your floppy.
<<

OK, what will this boot? Will this boot an install from knoppix-install or knx-hdinstall? Will this boot c:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX off a VFAT32 partition?

TIA,

[garyng]

>>
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

Replace /dev/hda2 with your knoppix partition. This copies the first 512 bytes of hda2 (the bootsector) into the first 512 bytes of your floppy.
<<

OK, what will this boot? Will this boot an install from knoppix-install or knx-hdinstall? Will this boot c:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX off a VFAT32 partition?

TIA,

It will boot anything that is defined in the lilo.conf when lilo was run. So if you have done a 'poorman's HD install', it can be booted using this method. Just modify the lilo.conf as needed.

The downside of this method is that it can only boot that particular machine as the 512 byte points to a list of specific disk sectors on that pariticular setup.

If you want flexbility(one floppy fits all machine), I would recommend :

cat stage1 stage2 > /dev/fd0

This will give you a GRUB floppy that can be used on almost any machine. Not as quick as the method mentioned above(must load about 200k images) but it is the most convenient boot loader and very easy to prepare and setup.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I just installed a new lab of 25 Dell Optiplex GX270s using the "Poor Man's Dual Boot" and this DOSBootFloppy method.

In my old lab, I used paired down WIN98 rescue disks plus the following autoexec.bat:

c:
cd c:\knoppix
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

That was for booting off hda1. Now I'm booting off hda5 and the vga=791 cheat had to be replaced with vga=normal screen=1024x768 xvrefresh=60. Otherwise I was stuck with 640x480 resolution. I can't get sound to work on these PCs, but I'll live for now. So I installed 20030726 (see http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21881) and used the following autoexec.bat from a WINXP boot disk:

d:
cd d:\knoppix
loadlin vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en vga=normal screen=1024x768 xvrefresh=60 initrd=miniroot.gz quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

I hate these onboard intell chips for video and sound. If anyone has problems with these video chips, maybe this will help. Anyone know how to deal with the sound chip? alsa didn't help....

Regards,

[tekmate]

Drvspace.bin is needed by any one unfortunate enough to have compressed their hard drive. You can safely delete it in this case.

[cryptwizard]

rescue files are those that Microsoft claim can fix you computer like scandisk etc.
to remove them open an explorer window, select the files that you know you need (eg, autoexec.bat *.sys) and go to edit->invert selection and then press shift+delete and viola, all gone no more crap

[cryptwizard]

also damn straight about GRUB. I'm using grub for my bootloader and its the best bootloader ive seen since... ever.
the proper command to make a floppy is:

dd if=/boot/grub/stage1 of=/dev/fd0 count=1
dd if=/boot/grub/stage2 of=/dev/fd0 seek=1
for the paranoid you can also put bs=512
ive just got a snapshot of grub2. i cant wait to reboot into my custom made linux distro and check it out.