6.4.3 hangs on "Booting the kernel"

[marlas]

I'm new to this formu, so I would like to say hello to everyone.

I'm playing with knoppix from 6.0 and everything worked fine until now.
When I try to boot 6.4, I get:

Probing EDD (edd=off to disable) ... ok
Decompressing Linux ... Parsing ELF ... done ... ok
Booting the kernel

and everytging hangs.
As i sad no problem with knoppix 6.0. and 6.2 on the same hardware.
CD with 6.4 is good - on different machine it boots with no problem.

My hardware
Laptop Asus V1V
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600
4GB Ram
Ati Radeon HD3650

[krishna.murphy]

Have you tried the self-test? - i.e.
knoppix testcd/testdvd One can do that on an alternate machine, e.g. your mom's desktop, etc. Also - It's wise to test the integrity of the downloaded ISO (if it's not from a torrent, which is self-tested.) Look up "md5 checksum" on the web to see what's involved Finally, burning at SLOW speed is the easiest way to ensure the integrity of the final disk.

Cheers!
Krishna :mrgreen:

[utu]

@ marlas

If krishna's suggestion doesn't solve your mystery, look at this post:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads/27621-what-is-edd

and try adding 'edd=off' to your cheatcodes, as that poster did.
Then let us know if this helps.

I also get the probing message, but in my case there is no ill effect.
I have not discovered how to get the message to go away yet.

And welcome to this forum.

[utu]

Here's my solution for the cosmetic problem, that of
just getting rid of the boot phase edd message line.

I found that interrupting boot right at first with
knoppix edd=off
effectively removed the 'probing for EDD' notice.

I expected syslinux.cfg might serve as well to automate this.
I expect mods to its APPEND line was the more appropriate for kernel keywords.
I expected its DEFAULT line more appropriate for knoppix cheatcodes.
Wrong, two out of three.
Here's what worked for me, referring to the first lines of
/home/knoppix/Desktop/KNOPPIX/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg:

#DEFAULT adriane
DEFAULT knoppix edd=off
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 lang=en vt.default_utf8=0 apm=power-off (etcetera)
TIMEOUT 100

edd=off didn't work for me at either end of the APPEND line.

I don't know if this solution will get around the more objectionable
cases of not booting at all or booting with unnecessary delays.
I'd like to hear, either way.

[marlas]

I found knoppix version 6.4.4 on repos.
I downloaded and .... it works.

[utu]

Based on don999's idea at

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads/29056-bootfrom-cheatcode-doesn-t-work-so-use-tohd-and-fromhd-cheatcodes-instead,

it may be worth a try to dictate the location of KNOPPIX in this way, if you know it,
and EVEN if that location is not necessarily an hdd, such as /dev/sdb1, the location of a LiveUSB.

You can test this at the command line, and if it helps,
you can add it by modifying the previous DEFAULT suggestion to

DEFAULT edd=off fromhd=/dev/sdb1.

This is unnecesary in my case, surely redundant, but I've not observed any ill effects.

I'm working toward a single (hopefully simple) work-around that does the following:
1--Removes an unnecessary comment 'Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)', where it's not needed;
2--Removes as well an unnecessary delay which is not needed; and
3--Supplies the device designation to boot-with, when needed.

It would be nice if this work-around didn't create any new problems.

For the hopelessly curious, this 'EDD problem' of Knoppix 6.4 seems
just to be our current manifestation of a persistent linux problem
going back many years. One usually characterized as the sometime
failure of automatic linux installation processes to correctly deduce
the device designation linux needs to boot properly.

Ubuntu experience on this problem goes back to at least 2004.
IMO, the attempt to use of EDD to help solve the the device assignment
problem may in some ways have made the problem more ubiquitous.
Compounded by the facts that some of us HAVE it and some don't,
and some of us NEED it, and some don't.

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub/+bug/8497.

[utu]

@ marlas

Glad your problem went away. How do you explain that?
Are there really any Knoppix 6.4 cases of 'won't boot at all'?
Most distros have this as THE case of interest, understandably.

@ anyone

I'm interested in whether fromhd=/dev/sdb1 would work, sdb1 not
being an hdd.

Also interested if anyone can give a concrete example, not in
shorthand, using the cheatcode knoppix_dir=/path/to/KNOPPIX/Directory,
which I take to be shorthand by a much more experienced person
than myself.

[krishna.murphy]

I'm interested in whether fromhd=/dev/sdb1 would work, sdb1 not
being an hdd.

Yep, that works fine (assuming sdb1 is in fact the correct designation for your e.g. flash drive.)

Cheers!

Krishna :mrgreen:

[ICPUG]

utu

Here is an example of real usage of knoppix_dir in the menu.lst file used with grub bootloader

title Knoppix 4.0.2
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.402/linux ramdisk_size=100000
fromhd=/dev/hda1
knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.402 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX
init=/etc/init lang=uk nomce dma
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.402/minirt.gz
boot

The version of Knoppix is a bit old but the same applies today.

I copy the KNOPPIX, linux, minirt.gz files from the Live CD to the following directory on my hard disk 1st partition:
/boot/knoppix.402

This is a 'poor man's' install (on a FAT32 partition).

[utu]

So, where are we?

I think my post #6 may be a reasonable workaround for the problem
which named this thread, plus a few lesser annoyances.

marlas' miraculous self-cure muddies the picture. It now appears
noone is apparently complaining of the BIG problem, not booting.

The Ubuntu record on their bug 8497 makes me believe we've just not
YET recorded a truly valid case where 'Knoppix 6.4 hangs on boot',
and where EDD might have something to do with that.

Klaus K. does not like the edd=off idea other than as a workaround,
since he expects EDD may do more good than harm in most installs.
(my interpretation of brief comments of his on the matter)

Thanks to other posters, there are apparently several cheatcodes
that might help some Knoppix installs find what they need to boot.

[utu]

The use of 'fromhd' to point to the LiveUSB itself
removes its most useful basic intention of allowing
the alternative designations of other storage media
to serve as locations of compressed KNOPPIX files.

Reason enough to relegate its use this way as only
a work-around for the problem at hand.

[Fiodor]

Hi everyone !

I have a similar problem with knoppix 6.4.3 and my ATI HD 2600 xt (very similar to HD 3650).

I think my system start and I hear female voice but is all black, I tried several cheat like no3d, no composite ecc. but nothing happens...

Then I tried with nomodeset and finally saw the System setup green bar and the Desktop, but..... but falls into a loop !
It reboot x-server infinitly! :-(

I found an half solution and it works for me !


knoppix nomodeset xmodule=vesa

I tried with xmodule=radeon but it falls in the loop.

Have You an idea for how to make them work ?

sorry for my English (I will try to understand your answers :-D), Bye.

[Fiodor]

OK ! :)

I found this command on the forum:


knoppix nomodeset nocomposite

and now I have the radeon Mesa driver active (Direct rendering YES).

...but non Compiz :(

[Forester]

ATI

radeon

Oh dear oh deary me.

My understanding is that ATI Radeon is an outfit that fears GPLng their drivers will put them out of business. As a consequence, there are two drivers available from Debian (on which Knoppix is based). An Open Source driver written by guess work, which I don't think does 3D acceleration so no Compiz and a repackaged Closed Source driver that quirks more often than works. You probably have the first and count yourself lucky you do.

I had a machine at work with an ATI Radeom graphics card. It was a Leprechaun. Not one of those crock of gold Leprechauns but the other kind. It was a three wish Leprechaun: I wish I had an Nvidia card, I wish I had the right to mess with the company's hardware and I wish I'd never laid eyes on this machine. I wasted hours and hours and hours over months and months and months trying to get it to work properly. SABENA.

I think you are out of luck but maybe, just maybe, some one else will take exception to what I've just written and give you the answer you seek. I suspect you got no answer because you added your question to a thread that had drifted off onto some other topic. My answer will bring your question to people's attention and maybe you'll be lucky. At least I hope so.

[Fiodor]

On knoppix 6.2.1 my video card works great without cheats and compiz ON.

It works great also on Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 with radeon open source driver and goes ever better with closed driver fglrx.

I don't understand nothing about the green gnome that You have called leprechaun....

someone else knows how to enable compiz?

Thanks.

[Forester]

Thank you sharing the information that you laptop works fine with other versions of Knoppix and even with Ubuntu. That paints a very different picture.

I have nothing to suggest other than I have the impression that these drivers are very sensitive to kernel versions and even whether the code is compiled for a i686 or i386.

You have it working, but without Compiz. You could try 6.4.4 to see if it goes any better.

[Fiodor]

I think maybe you're right, ubuntu 10.04 and knoppix 6.2.1 has the same kernel 2.6.32, while ubuntu 10.10 has 2.6.35 and knoppix 6.4.3 has 2.6.36 and related xorg-server-drivers.

I have read in another thread that knoppix 6.4.4 is Beta version, can you confirm this ?
Do you know when the stable version will be out?

I don't want burn a CD for a beta... :-)

Bye.

[Forester]

I don't want burn a CD for a beta... :-)


Cheapskate you are in luck.



Do you know when the stable version will be out?


The releases notes have been published so it looks like it is out .... http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix64-en.html.



I don't understand nothing about the green gnome that You have called leprechaun....


Never heard Krishna called that before. :mrgreen:

[Fiodor]

It's all ok with knoppix 6.4.4 :)

ATI works great and now NO more tearing !

Thanks.

http://img195.imageshack.us/i/knoppix.jpg/