How does Knoppix handle "home=" when booting "

[GCMartin]

I am in the planning phase of a Knoppix CD use system.

If I boot "Knoppix toram" it will load so that I am running total in ram without CD assistance.


My QUESTION:
If I create a "persistent" Home directory and I specify it at boot time (via Knoppix toram home=/dev/sd5) will Knoppix load just the CD contents or will it load the HOME directory into memory as well. too?

I would like to load my system's programs-package needs to memory, while I would like to keep user information on the attached disk.

Help if you understand this. Thanks in advance.

[krishna.murphy]

I am in the planning phase of a Knoppix CD use system.

If I boot "Knoppix toram" it will load so that I am running total in ram without CD assistance.


My QUESTION:
If I create a "persistent" Home directory and I specify it at boot time (via Knoppix toram home=/dev/sd5) will Knoppix load just the CD contents or will it load the HOME directory into memory as well. too?

I would like to load my system's programs-package needs to memory, while I would like to keep user information on the attached disk.

Help if you understand this. Thanks in advance.

Hey-

That sounds like a solid plan to me. The cool thing about Knoppix in this case is that you can try it without losing anything; if you have trouble let us know and we'll try to help.

Krishna :wink:

p.s. Another option would be to use the HD for both, as I do, e.g.

knoppix tohd=/dev/sd5 which will copy the system to the HD, then use it. You'll also be prompted to create a "persistent image" (which is more than /home, allowing modifications like installing another browser) with a password (very secure, using AES). Afterwards you would use
knoppix fromhd=/dev/sd5 to boot into that saved system.

[GCMartin]

@krishna.murphy - Thanks for your reply and yes I am aware of the TOHD & FROMHD options. But, I am interested in using my Knoppix CD approach.


On a side note, would you answer the following 3 questions for me.
are you using your CD or do you use a boot manager where the FROMHD option is employed?
AND
do you use the "toram" option when booting "FROMHD=" definition?
AND
if I use your persistent image suggestion, can I still separate my "HOME=" definition from the information that is saved persistently?

Thanks in advance for your responses on these questions.

Anyone else have any experiences to pass along in the "toram" area and how Knoppix handles either the "home=" or krishna's "persistent image" when you specify it on the knoppix boot line; namely, Knoppix toram home=/dev/sd5? I need to understand what will be populated in memory so that I can adequately plan the system's memory requirement(s).

Help!...Anyone....

[klaus2008]

As far as I know Knoppix 6.2.1 does not use the home=/dev/sd* boot parameter. It makes use of a persistent image, usually knoppix-data.img in knoppix_dir. If you use the toram option everything from knoppix_dir is copied to RAM. If you have a persistent image in that directory it is also copied and its contents is united with the filesystem. After having copied all the files to RAM the system forgets where the files came from. This has one disadvantage: All changes are saved inside that persistent image but they are lost after shutdown or reboot because there is not procedure to save the persistent image back to disk. If you can solve this problem then toram might be an option for a ramdisk based system. The modifications I think can be made in /etc/init.d/knoppix-halt.

Another approach would be to modify the init inside minirt.gz so that one can tell the system to use a persistent image somewhere else instead of knoppix_dir. Maybe one can introduce two boot options datahd and data_dir with datahd the device name and data_dir the directory name of the persistent image's location.

[GCMartin]

The information posted by Klaus2008 does NOT seem to be consistent with the way Knoppix currently
works at BOOT TIME. I caution anyone reading this thread to place ANY value on what you're seen here

Look here because I am requesting assistance in a different fashion http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/28315-Cheatcodes-do-NOT-seem-to-be-working-for-home-todd-or-from-Versions-6.2?p=119874#post119874

[klaus2008]

What is wrong with you???

As far as I know Knoppix 6.2.1 does not use the home=/dev/sd* boot parameter.

[GCMartin]

An apology to @Klaus2008.

In combination, the responses contained in this thread confused me as it appears that their is combined responses talking about different version of Knoppix with inconsistent functionality. Up until this thread was opened, I was not aware that there are 2 different implementations. and that the functionality of Version 6.2+ does NOT MATCH prior versions. Further, I have not seen ANY information that explains that there is a departure. No documents anywhere that I have seen thus far. It could be more strongly noted somewhere so that I wouldn't have spent the past 3 weeks walking away and coming back and walking away and coming back and ... until I discovered by holding several version up, side by side, with version 6.2+ only to see how signigicant the changes were. ....Sad.

I initially thought, incorrectly, that the Cheatcodes were the gospel that outlines functionality within the Knoppix release. I appears that this is NOT TRUE.

What I have been able to determine thus far after holding versions up side-by-side; namely before V6.2 and after V6.2, is that there is a sharp departure in functionality of this area of the systems

So anyone reading this thread should NOT use its contents because, NOW, with version 6.2, functionality in this area is version specific! As the author of this thread, If I could delete or close this thread, I would now that I understand that there are 2 entirely different Knoppix implementations!

[krishna.murphy]

An apology to @Klaus2008.

In combination, the responses contained in this thread confused me as it appears that their is combined responses talking about different version of Knoppix with inconsistent functionality. Up until this thread was opened, I was not aware that there are 2 different implementations. and that the functionality of Version 6.2+ does NOT MATCH prior versions. Further, I have not seen ANY information that explains that there is a departure. No documents anywhere that I have seen thus far. It could be more strongly noted somewhere so that I wouldn't have spent the past 3 weeks walking away and coming back and walking away and coming back and ... until I discovered by holding several version up, side by side, with version 6.2+ only to see how signigicant the changes were. ....Sad.

I initially thought, incorrectly, that the Cheatcodes were the gospel that outlines functionality within the Knoppix release. I appears that this is NOT TRUE.

What I have been able to determine thus far after holding versions up side-by-side; namely before V6.2 and after V6.2, is that there is a sharp departure in functionality of this area of the systems

So anyone reading this thread should NOT use its contents because, NOW, with version 6.2, functionality in this area is version specific! As the author of this thread, If I could delete or close this thread, I would now that I understand that there are 2 entirely different Knoppix implementations!

Actually, there are quite a few, but 6.2 is the latest one can download now. Cheatcodes are indeed version specific, and included on the disk; there was a fairly big change when microKnoppix was ushered in around version 6.0, so we were telling you how this version works.

[Capricorny]

....
So anyone reading this thread should NOT use its contents because, NOW, with version 6.2, functionality in this area is version specific! As the author of this thread, If I could delete or close this thread, I would now that I understand that there are 2 entirely different Knoppix implementations!

As Krishna writes, you have to look up the specific cheat codes for the release you are using. There is a main change with version 6.0, so you should not build on any 5.X or earlier strategies, however well they worked, without checking out that they are still valid. There are changes in the 6.X sub-versions too. I would in fact rather consider this a feature than a bug, as Klaus Knopper does every change to fix problems or improve functionality. But of course, improvement may be in the eye of the beholder ;)

[GCMartin]

@Capricorny. thanks for your insights, too.

Here's what I've found. for the area of persistence, there needs to be a NEW section written. It does not seem to provide the kinds of service that other documents on the internet provide.

The Cheatcodes for Version 6 dated 11/2009 is what I was also using. If there's anything that is the gospel, I would expect that to be it. But, (sad) it is not. So as excited as I was when I started weeks ago, I'm trying as best i can to get the fire back. My problem is that if I cannot get the Cheatcodes to be behave consistent with the documentation, where is the creditable information I should use. So I turned to the forum. But, as you can see ...

@krista - I was able to get a good tohd=/dev/sda6 to work to ext3. The hurdle was that you cannot specify anything other than a device that resides in /dev. When I used a "link" as in the /mnt directory, it does not work even though I found documentation that indicates it works. I gotten so much time invested in all the 50 or so reboots, that I have run out of time to address the initial project. I DVD based system where the user files and configuration files exist on the HDD while the system boots from CD and runs from RAM. This now looks impossible with the NEW version of Knoppix. Thanks for your staying with me and offering your insights, tests, help, and guidance.

[GCMartin]

@klaus2008

I owe Klaus2008 an apology. When I responded to this Thread earlier I did NOT know enough about Knoppix and the Knoppix departures between prior to version 6 and after version 6+ releases. Further, I was treating the Cheatcodes that I was operating from as the Gospel; THIS WAS INCORRECT and my knowledge at the time was not consistent with the releases of Knoppix I was working with.

Klaus2008, I wholeheartedly am sorry for the outburst. (and that what it was).

Even though there is useful information in this Thread, I would like to know how I can have it removed. If anyone knows how and can help in removal or instructions that I can use to remove this thread, please advise.