Knoppix 5.0 on a IBM Thinkpad 600E

[Mankal]

I have a Thinkpad 600E that I'm trying to run Knoppix 5.0 on it. The problem is that during the boot is hangs when it comes to checking the CD ROM drive. Does Knoppix 5.0 not work so well with older hardware?

[Harry Kuhman]

5.0 was only released on DVD. 5.0.1 is available on both CD and DVD versions. So if you really have 5.0 then it is no shock that a DVD does not boot in an old CD drive.

[wolfgang-s]

I have a Thinkpad 600E that I'm trying to run Knoppix 5.0 on it. The problem is that during the boot is hangs when it comes to checking the CD ROM drive. Does Knoppix 5.0 not work so well with older hardware?

I had the same problem... try "knoppix nodma" at boot - that worked for me....

[Harry Kuhman]

I had the same problem... try "knoppix nodma" at boot - that worked for me....
nodma was a useful cheat code around version 3.7 or 3.8 wnen Klaus made dma the default option. But it caused so many problems that he made nodma the default again in the 4.x versions. I have not seen mention that this changed again, so I think niodma is still the default and the cheat code will do nothing. One can always try it though. And some systems do indeed need dma to read the optical drive properly, so knoppix dma is worth trying.

[wolfgang-s]

Harry,

what you say may be true, but ...

whan I boot the TP600E without any cheatcodes (KNOPPIX 5.01 EN - CD), I get the following:

Scanning for USB/Firewire devices.... Done.
Enabling DMA acceleration for /dev/hda [IBM....] <-- this is the hard drive
Enabling DMA acceleration for /dev/hdc [MATSHITA....] <-- this is the DVD ROM

and then

Looking for CD in /dev/hda

When I boot with "knoppix nodma" then the Thinkpad boots happily.....

Edit: I tried with "knoppix dma" - same result as without cheatcodes... looks like the dma is default again.....

I'm far from understanding what lies behind the cheatcodes, however as long as the machine boots with this, I, personally, don't care whether its not supposed to do this....
:wink:

Wolfgang

[ckamin]

It appears tha DMA might truly be ON by default again in Version 5.0.1. I noticed that there is a DMA setting tool in the menu and all devices come up checked to "enabled" by default. Might need to investigate this further when I can find the time when at home. In the meantime, if the "knoppix nodma" code works for you, then by all means use it.

[man0l0]

Wonderful!

knoppix nodma works for me.

Before knoppix hang's on boot.


I have a HP Compaq nx6115

[ckamin]

DMA is back on by Default. I looked at a few different systems and verified it. The "nodma" option might be the trick for drive issues once again.

[posmanet]

Hi,

i also have a TP 600e with Knoppix 5.0.1 CD HD-installed Debian-like, and i encountered problems using 'apm -s'. This one used to work fine on the older 4.0.2, but now it doesn't put the Computer into sleep mode anymore and makes some beeps. I gave it some experiments and have found out that i have to leave X (i.e. switch to text console on strg-alt-f2) AND have to remove possibly insertet PC-cards. (I have an Enterasys/Cabletron/Orinoco 11MBit WLAN) THEN the TP goes to sleep.

Does somebody have a hint for me what to do so that i can use apm like in 4.0.2?


EDIT:
....by the way....: When i boot my TP600e from Knoppix 5.0.1 CD with 'nodma' this works. But when i do a knoppix-installer from there, and boot the installed system, it crashes at kernel boot time.
-> But, when i boot the CD with 'pnpbios=off' instead, the Laptop also boots, and after hd-installation this system boots without any problems.


Greetings

[joe-mamma]

I came across your post and found that using the nodma cheat worked but I am still getting an error saying I only have 71036KB of ram and then boots into TWM because I don't have the required 82MB to load KDM. Now I should have 96MB of ram and it seems to detect the 97728KB of ram when booting, why is this error happening? I'll add that I do not have any experience with linux but I am pretty PC literate.

PS According to my bios it says I have 131072KB of RAM under Total but under useable it only has 97728, wtf is up with that? Is it because as soon as you use the 2nd DIMM socket it disables the onboard? Dammit I think I need more ram

[ckamin]

joe-mamma:

Tacking on a new subject/issue on the end of a previous post will usually get you no help.

More Ram could help, but you can try a different desktop with less overhead. desktop=icewm or desktop=fluxbox are a few examples. KDE requires a bit of memory to run well, for the most part. You may also have integrated video that could share memory with the system and further diminish the available ram.

I don't know for sure if the onboard memory is disabled on your system when Dimm2 is used. It sounds quite possible and some systems will do this. I would suggest that you try to obtain some documentation from the manufacturer for the syetem and see what it says. There should be some support and documentation links on their site.