Problems in general with Knoppix 5.0.1

[tcohoon]

I have been using Knoppix 4.0.2 Live for awhile with little or no difficulties. I was excited to hear that 5.0.1 was released. I d/led the ISO today and burned it to DVD. when I boot off of the 5.0.1 disc it comes up ok, but, my mouse stops working as soon as I see the message "KDE is up and running" or shortly thereafter ':('. I am using a Microsoft Intellimouse 5 button that works fine in 4.0.2. As a last ditch effort I even plugged in an old school serial mouse. Unfortunately I had the same results. I was rather looking forward to checking out the new version and would appreciate any input that would be available. Thank you in advance for your time.

Actually since I first posted this, I believe that Knoppix is actually hanging up at this point not just my mouse.
I am running:
-ECS P4IBMS Mainboard
-Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
-Nvidia Geforce 6600 LE (AGP) on a plug and play monitor
-1.5GB Ram (3-512 sticks)
-80 GB Western Digital HD (system)
-120 GB Western Digital HD
- A Sony DVD Burner (DW-D26A)
- a Lite-On Cd RW (LTR-52246S)
- A Multi-Card Reader by Genesys
a Sony 3.5 Floppy Drive
-2 Printers a Lexmark all in one X75 and a Lexmark Color Laser (C510n) which dont even work in 4.0.2 I only mention them as they are connected
-a wireless keyboard by micro innovations
- and finally a Microsoft Intellimouse 5 button Optical mouse
- an APC UPS 700 battery backup with USB interface.

I thought the problem might be in the DVD I burned. I took it over to my brother's house and it ran fine on his system.
If anyone might have an idea what might be causing my problem I would appreciate any suggestions you might give. Thanks again for anyone who reads this and especially for those who might have a response.


I have now tried a couple more things. I unplugged any devices that were not strictly necessary. (IE printers and my battery backup). I then, loaded 5.0.1 and had pretty much the same results as above. Then I tried swapping out my keyboard for a corded one. when I rebooted in 5.0.1 it ran the longest it has ever ran for me (about 3-5 min) but then it locked up. It seems to me that it almost always locks up while I am in the K-menu, I dont know why. I am posting this from 4.0.2 but would like to upgrade to the new version. Someone please help.

[ckamin]

Two things come to mind. Xorg is now used rather than Xfree86 and there were possibly a few changes in the way hardware is detected. That is according toi the changelog. If your machine is locking up, it may very well be some sort of hardware compatibility issue. I would look at the cheatcodes and try some to reconfigure Video. maybe specifying a driver for your particular card. Some other controllers can be an issue. Booting with the failsafe cheatcode might help, or try eliminating devices with cheatcodes to eliminate the culprit. See the section on Cheatcodes under the "Documentation" link at the top of the page. The above is referenced to the changelog for 5.0.1 over version 4.0.2. These differences might be the key.

You also need to ensure that your disk is ok and has been burned at a slow speed to promote compatibility. The ISO file should also be checked with an MD5 Sum tool. Having the disk work on another system is no guarantee that the disk will work on all systems or be read correctly by all drives.

[tcohoon]

Thanks, I did use the cheatcode to check the disk. Everything checked out. I have an Nvidia vid card the auto-detection doesn't recognize the device in 4.0.2 or 5.0.1 and Knoppix loads a generic driver. I am new to Linux so I am not sure how to specify the driver. or where to get one at. I will check Nvidia's web site.

I will try the failsafe code. and see if that helps. Also, like you say I can perhaps find the culprit by process of elimination.

I burned the disk on the lowest setting I could set my drive to. Could you recommend a MD5 Sum tool (Windows based) and perhaps tell me where I can get one?

Thanks so much for your help. It is much appreciated.

[Harry Kuhman]

Could you recommend a MD5 Sum tool (Windows based) and perhaps tell me where I can get one?
I like md5summer from md5summer.org. Nice (although somewhat non-standard) GUI and doesn't seem to lock up like some others do when computing md5s for large files. But there are many others available also. And one other great tool, Quickpar, which does other handy things too, will check md5 checksums for you.

[tcohoon]

will check into those ... thanks much. I will post after I have had the opportunity to try some of these things to let you and others know how it went.

Thanks again so much for your time and assistance.

[ckamin]

I suggested the cheatcodes specifically because there might be a way for you to specify a driver during the boot process. I'm not sure if they will still work, but the one I would use if it were still XFree86 would be "knoppix xmodule=nv" I'm unsure whether these will work with Xorg, but it would be easy enough to google the net to see if there are any comparable cheatcodes for Xorg. One way to find out is to try it.

[tcohoon]

Will do thanks much... havent had the opportunity to try anything yet but will try that first.

Thanks again

[tcohoon]

ok folks, I've been at it again. I have tried several things. Brace youselves for a long read.

It was suggested to try to specify a driver for my vid card using:
knoppix xmodule=nv
but this was a code for the XFree86 Xserver and 5.0.1 uses Xorg.
I found a cheatcode that would allow me to use the XFree86 Xserver:
Knoppix xserver=Xfree86 | XF86_SVGA
I tried using these in conjuction with one another to get the desired effect. It was, alas, to no avail.Knoppix behaved exactly as before.

When booting with Xorg I noticed the following message:
Video is nVidia Corporation: Unknown Device 00f4, Using Xorg(nv) server



It was also suggested to check the file integrity with a md5 checker. I d/led md5summer as suggested by Harry. My ISO checked out. Which was a good thing as I accidentally damaged my disc and had to re-burn it anyway :).




Next I tried:
knoppix failsafe
This was the first time 5.0.1 had not locked up on me. I saw a glimmer of hope. I decided to next start going through the "no codes" to see if i could locate the problem. I went through all of the ones listed in the cheatcodes part of the wiki on this site. Having done this, I put the 5.0.1 DVD back in the drive and loaded the webpage in the root directory so that I could look at the cheat codes listed there. I printed this list as there were a few "no codes" not listed in the Wiki. So next on my list was to try them hoping to find my problem.

I had tried Knoppix noapic
noagp
noapm
nodma
nomce
nofirewire
nopcmcia
noscsi
noswap
nousb
nosmp (only got the penguin when I tried this)

With all of the above codes, knoppix performed as described in my original post. Sometimes it would stay running longer than others. I could sometimes play a game of solitaire or something like that but usually after I had done this it would lock up when I hit the K button or shortly therafter.
I didnt try noaudio as I really didnt think it was my problem... my sound was working fine.I was ready to try:

knoppix noddc
nodhcp
nofstab
noudev - CDRW shows up with this code
nousb2
noideraid
pnpbios=off
acpi=off
Then, I tried knoppix noaudio just to make sure my bases were covered.

When I was trying all of the codes I noticed that my cdrw drive isn't listed in the devices (minus the one exception listed above).
After doing all of this I tried:
knoppix failsafe noudev
so I would have my CDRW drive.
I tried to play some mp3's using Kaffeine and my system locked up again. I tried this twice. Then I went back to:
knoppix failsafe
thinking it was the only time it hadn't locked up. I tried this twice and Knoppix froze both times. Even this code isn't going to keep me up and running. I must not have given it enough time earlier. I wish I had as it would have saved me quite a bit of trouble. Sometimes that's just the way it goes :). It was my intention to make this post from 5.0.1. This was not going to happen. I am currently posting this from 4.0.2.

My pour computer has been up and down tonight more than a child playing on the teeter-totter :(.
Unfortunately, I still don't know what the problem is.


I would appreciate any further insight anyone might have and I'd like to thank those who have already given me suggestions yet another time.

For the moment anyway I am relegated to using 4.0.2 (which is not a bad thing). It has been a really useful tool for learning about linux.

[tcohoon]

ok people... good news I am up and running in 5.0.1 now..... I d/led and installed the driver froom Nvidia's web site and viola :)


I had knoppix boot to run level 2 with the knoppix 2 cheatcode installed the Nvidia driver then typed init 5 to load the GUI.




Thanks to all who gave suggestions and may this help someone in a similar circumstance.