New Debian based Distro

[aay]

Not to belittle our beloved Knoppix, but I saw a story on distrowatch to a new Debian based distro called Munjoy Linux (http://www.munjoylinux.org/). It looks nice but what is it with Debian based Desktop distros? Why do they all have strange names. Mepis and Munjoy. Wierd. In any event I think Munjoy may borrow a few things from Knoppix.

[probono]

Thanks for the link.

Actually, this has many of the features I always loved to see in Knoppix:
- supermount (no more mounting)
- bootsplash, finally
- very professional unified and clean look

The overall look and feel is more "polished" than the Knoppix default settings (e. g. anti-aliased fonts, clean background picture). it almost looks like my own desktop :)

http://www.munjoylinux.org/munjoy11-png.html#

Now I dream of a Knoppix that looks and works like Munjoy.

[aay]

Thanks for the link.

Actually, this has many of the features I always loved to see in Knoppix:
- supermount (no more mounting)
- bootsplash, finally
- very professional unified and clean look

The overall look and feel is more "polished" than the Knoppix default settings (e. g. anti-aliased fonts, clean background picture). it almost looks like my own desktop :)

http://www.munjoylinux.org/munjoy11-png.html#

Now I dream of a Knoppix that looks and works like Munjoy.

Yeah, the supermount feature caught my eye as it's been discussed here a bit already.

[roger_girardin]

very fast os

[champagnemojo]

What does it mean by automatic partitioning? Is that just an option? I wouldn't want it partitioning my drive without my input. :?

[aay]

What does it mean by automatic partitioning? Is that just an option? I wouldn't want it partitioning my drive without my input. :?

You can choose "No" for automatic partitioning and it will start cfdisk.

[nishtya]

I was intrigued enough to dl today and burn iso. It bots but gets stuck on loading :( I burned another CD, slow. No difference. Does anyone have mb5 checksum for the download? I didn't see anything at the site.

[eco2geek]

The MD5 checksum for "munjoylinux-0.5.4.iso" is (or should be, anyway):

22c1fbd2c2ca92d3ffe5e01251bb39e0

Be advised you apparently can't actually run it from the CD -- it starts giving you installation options right after it boots. If you dump out of the installation, it runs Damn Small Linux. Unless I'm missing something...

What does the "supermount feature" do?

[Durand Hicks]

It makes popping and mounting cd's and floppies easier. You don't have to type the mount commands if you have supermount, it does it automatically for you in the background. Nice, eh? Btw, if you're into compiling kernels, there's a supermount patch out for 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. I have it compiled in my 2.4 kernel and it makes it easy for me to take out my cd's without having to run mount/unmount especially since I forget to do that sometimes.

[champagnemojo]

What does it mean by automatic partitioning? Is that just an option? I wouldn't want it partitioning my drive without my input. :?

You can choose "No" for automatic partitioning and it will start cfdisk.

Ahh, ok. Thanks for the info. In that case it sounds like a nice feature.

[champagnemojo]

Cheat codes don't seem to work. I have to run noscsi to boot up my laptop but it won't take it. You can access the screen to type in cheatcodes if you're fast enough...but I tried knoppix, knoppix26, munjoy etc. and none of it worked. Oh well. :D

[nishtya]

Thanks, eco. That thing boots so fast, in three shots hadn't seen a pause/prompt just the damn small linux and stuck on loading.

Sounds like you have installed it. Does it offer a chance to decline lilo/grub on mbr and boot with a floppy? My present setup is a dual boot with 98 and kanotix. Knoppix is still on a partition of the linux disc and I boot that with a floppy. Was thinking about replacing the knoppix with this munjoy for a testrun until new knoppix is out, anyway :D

oh, Durand, I have retired from kernel compiling :lol: no more...nonononononono :wink:

[eco2geek]

Sounds like you have installed it. Does it offer a chance to decline lilo/grub on mbr and boot with a floppy?

I tried to install it on a virtual machine within Win2K. So far I've been unsuccessful as it doesn't like my virtual machine's virtual hard drive and ends up in a kernel panic. Going to have to try a virtual boot floppy. :)

It does give you the choice of either installing LILO or nothing to the MBR (but doesn't offer GRUB).

(I downloaded the "plastik" theme from KDE-Look.org and installed it on Knoppix and it looks very nice.)

[eco2geek]

Well, I tried installing Munjoy on the partition where I had Knoppix. It had the same problem that Debian Sarge did: it doesn't automagically configure X to work with my AGP 8x NVidia Geforce 4 video card. So when kdm starts, I get a blank black screen and the monitor quickly goes into power-saving mode.

One of these days, I'm going to ask for help with finding the solution to that problem...

But for now I installed Kanotix 05/2004.

[nishtya]

Hope you like it, Eco :D I am running BH4 myself and am enjoying it very much. I already upgraded KDE to 3.2.2 and fixed the resultant bugs so don't want to bother starting over with BH5 right now. Even have ALSA behaving within reason with aRTS. I really should though as it is a bughunter release and I suppose it doesn't help Kano any unless I am running his latest. I also should keep better notes :oops:

I had the blank screen problem on one nvidia install on my knoppix. In that case it was the common "no screens...whatever" error. All I had to do was change inittab to default to start "3" instead of "5" and then from console mode edit the xconfig for nvidia and made a couple of changes in resolution. DDC never worked properly with this monitor with that X setup. If you try sarge again you might want to start in 3 and see what error message you get when trying to start X. I didn't have the problem when I installed nvidia 5336 on bughunter. Worked with no editing of xconfig and is picking the right refresh. Like I said, very happy with it though willing to take a look at munjoy.

Suppose I really should have a go at the man10 I have, but I looooove debian. Apt is like so much shopping :lol: without the heavy price to pay.

BTW...how are you managing to run two linux distros on the same disk if you are? I am unable to get lilo configured to "triple boot". I can have two linux distros on my secondary disk and w98 on the primary disk. But I have to boot one of the linuxes with a floppy. Have tried a couple of times, but wind up with lilo trying to boot one of the linuxes with the kernel of the other, or something weird like that. Frankly not sure lilo can do it and the floppy solution for one of them isn't really that big of a deal.

[eco2geek]

Truth be told, I've just got the one distro on here. (I managed to screw up Knoppix by trying to install the kde-games package and forgot to specify version numbers, so it began upgrading all of KDE to the latest version. For kicks and grins I followed it to its logical conclusion, and it still ran, but it did install/change some low-level init scripts that conflicted with Knoppix's init scripts, so I just decided to start over with a fresh install.)

I'm very wary of LILO and GRUB. I have an old computer that used to be my main one, that had Win9x on it, where for some reason neither would work. Both would hang. I had to repair the MBR on it three separate times after various experiments. The last time, I had carefully made a GRUB boot floppy and it worked just fine, so I knew "menu.lst" was correct, but it didn't work once on the hard disk. Ended up using LOADLIN from the DOS prompt.

This can be nervewracking when you don't have a backup... :wink:

On this Win2K box I use a version of GRUB for Windows, made by the Topologilinux guys, that lives on the NTFS partition and is accessed through NTLdr. (I also upgraded the version of Windows on that old computer mentioned above, and use the Topologilinux GRUB on that one to boot into Red Hat.) Using it to triple boot would just be a matter of editing "menu.lst".

The only downside to it is that you have to reinstall it after you defrag your NTFS partition. And it doesn't work with Win9x. :(

[nishtya]

ahh, Eco, here I always figured you for having a herd of linux testbed boxen or 160 gig disk with a dozen different distros :lol:

BTW, how did you get a successful plastik install? Last night I did a whopper of a KDE upgrade and/or update (newbie, don't forget I use many linux terms interchangably :oops: ) and plastik was the one failure. I ended up having to do dpkg --configure -a to get the others finished. The plastik error was something about being unable to change/overwrite some plastik already installed/configured. I gotta start writing these errors down but so much is done clandestinely, middleofthenight nosleep :roll:

[kansas]

BTW...how are you managing to run two linux distros on the same disk if you are? I am unable to get lilo configured to "triple boot". I can have two linux distros on my secondary disk and w98 on the primary disk. But I have to boot one of the linuxes with a floppy. Have tried a couple of times, but wind up with lilo trying to boot one of the linuxes with the kernel of the other, or something weird like that. Frankly not sure lilo can do it

Lilo can do it. I have run as many as 20 different versions of Linux and MSWindoze from the same HD, all booting with lilo. This is how I do it. There are probably other ways.

1) Set up a Linux distro. Use Lilo. (If you are planning to dual-boot with MSWindoze, it is easiest if you install Windoze first.) Lilo can now boot the Linux distro that installed it, but can't boot another Linux because it can't find that Linux's kernel.
2) In the distro that is set up to boot with Lilo, make a directory for the kernels of whatever other Linux distros you want to install. I call mine "kernels".
3) Copy the kernel of the other installed Linux to this directory.
4) Edit /etc/lilo.conf and make a "stanza" that applies to the second (or third, or fourth) Linux. Write it like the stanza of the first Linux, but path to "image=/kernels/vmlinuz---" (whatever the name of the other kernel is). Set "Label" to reflect the name of the new distro, and set "Root" as the path to the new distro.
5) As root, run "lilo" after you have edited and saved the config file.
6) Reboot. If there was a line in the first part of lilo.conf that said "prompt", you should now get a menu of all the distros set up in lilo. Choose one.

[nishtya]

ahhhhhhhh :idea: 2&3 are why my previous stabs at it didn't work. I did not copy the other's to the booting linux. So lilo would try to boot a different distro with another's kernel?

Since I have only three partitions on my linux hard drive, I am not doing too badly with using a floppy for second linux distro. I have kanotix & knoppix and they share a linux swap partition. I figure if I install a distro that I only want to play with and it does overwrite mbr I can just use my floppy to get back into knoppix and run lilo to overwrite it back :D

Not sure if I will try it, but adding to my humungous "information" folder. I am thinking about setting up a real searchable database for myself with all my linux information now - it really is getting big. Anybody have any suggestions on what to use? (in my previous IT life I was an access dba & analyst, yeah, I know boohiss :wink: ) I haven't tried mysql or anything yet in linux, still learning way much basic stuff.

[eco2geek]

ahh, Eco, here I always figured you for having a herd of linux testbed boxen or 160 gig disk with a dozen different distros

Oooooh I'd like to! :) Gonna get another hard drive for this computer and then the sky's the limit! (I've got Debian Woody on a third computer by itself, but it's only a P266, so that's about as far as it'll go.)

(After Cuddles' experience with my last suggestion, that WMF thumbnail viewer :oops: -- dunno if you want to follow any of my suggestions....) On Kanotix 05/2004 plastik is part of "kdeartwork-theme-window 3.2.2-1" and I don't know how or if you could separate it out for removal or upgrade.

On Knoppix I just used the Debian Sid package "plastik_0.3.7_i386.deb" available here (http://www.kde-look.org/content/download.php?content=8043&id=1) and it installed (and uninstalled) fine.

[nishtya]

Now, Eco, you musn't blame yourself you know that. Linux and forums like this are about people helping each other. We are running unstable, we musn't forget that. (though see my new post here). I am turning into an update/upgrade phobic :roll:

And so much of my updating and/or upgrading is done just dling packages at work and burning them to a cd to bring home because I am poor and on stinking miserable dialup. I throw the debs into my archive folder and run apt-get update and hope that something I want to install, I already have the packages there :lol: I went to install those KDE games last night, didn't have the what, 100 pkgs? it wanted and I saw a 3 hrs of downloading and went nooooooooooooo.

[eco2geek]

It's either premium cable TV or cable modem for me; can't afford both. Whichever you choose, it costs waaaay too much.

OTOH, when CompuServe opened its doors to the Internet back in the mid 90's, it took me an hour to d/l a 1.44M floppy disk image on dialup. Now I can suck down a Knoppix ISO from a local mirror in a half hour.

Oh, per my notes, installing that plastik package from KDELook.org on Knoppix required the installation of both "libqt3c102" and "kwin4", and installed it under the package name ""kde-themes-plastik".

[nishtya]

It is neither for me, Eco. I got rid of my cable tv to the point where it is just "broadcast basic" in other words, up to channel 13. :(

I toyed with the idea of signing up for a six month half price trial of cable, it would've been only 10US more a month than I pay for my dialup. But I figured the pain of going back to dialup after six months would be too much for me :cry:

I just think back to when the only puter I had was a handmedown omnibook with like a 14.4 modem in it and AOL even said "you can't get on the internet with that". Oh, I did, yes I did 8)

[Durand Hicks]

LOL,

Oh man, Nish, you cracked me up! I remember when I was on dialup, my phone lines were so bad, that even though I had a 56k modem, I couldn't get speeds higher than 14.4k, and I was jealous of my friends regularly getting 42-50k out of their dialup. One friend of mine had an even worse phone line where he was able to get a measly 1.6k out of aol, and I saw it with my own two eyes. No matter what init strings we came up with, it just flat out couldn't crank out anything higher than that. Imagine downloading anything, much less a web page, and you'll be grateful for what you're getting now.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, don't flame me, but what's KANOTIX all about. I haven't had a chance to play that!

TIA,
AJG

[nishtya]

Hi A. Jorge :) Kanotix is another live CD based on knoppix. Very closely related, uses the same knoppix installer even. My reason to switch was Kano's fabulous scripts (some of which work on knoppix too) to "fix" it after a HD install. What pulled me in was the script to fetch and install the kernel source which made made installing things like (drumroll) lm-sensors possible for me. So many things I tried to install needed kernel source and all my attempts at getting source for knoppix and running were failures. So I bailed out and got Kanotix. It is also more "debian" then knoppix. Take it for a spin: http://kanotix.de/ his scripts: http://kanotix.com/files/. There are some there similar to klik for installing things to the live CD as well.

Kano is still working with the 2.4.2X series, he does put out new releases pretty quickly (his May bughunter release came out around 4-23 :lol: )

I am running bughunter 4 and have been very pleased. It also has acpi and alsa.

How we get to kanotix here? I thought this was the munjoy thread? :roll: which I gotta try installing again today.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Just curious, why is it called bughunter? I've always used KNOPPIX to install debian. I suppose KANOTIX is easier to deal with on an hdinstall because its based on debian stable, right?

Regards,
AJG

[nishtya]

It's not based on stable. I believe similar mix of unstable and testing as with knoppix.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

>>
KANOTIX BUG HUNTER 05/2004 is out now (23.04.2004)! This time the complete distro is based on Debian/sid (even XFree) - optimal for HD Install! Most of the drivers have been updated and new hardware is supported like Tekram DC395. New Kernel 2.4.26 (has already XFS) with some patches. The latest Debian XFree 4.3.0-3 (bugfix release) is included.
<<

Then what is meant by "Debian/sid"?

TIA,
AJG

[garyng]

versioning convention of debian. They took those name from the film 'Toy Story'. Sid is unstable, Sarge is testing, Woody is stable. That is at the moment. When the finalize Sarge to be stable, Sid would become testing but I don't want would be called for the unstable branch.

[nishtya]

sid is the code name for unstable

[nishtya]

back to original topic of this thread: munjoy=nojoy for me, at least

Checksum is good. It just won't load though it boots. I have watched carefully at least a dozen times and I get no pause/prompt for input. It boots, there is a grey screen that goes by very quickly where I catch loading vmlinuz blah blah, then onto the the black screen with little penquin, says "munjoy linux install CD...blah blah knoppix...init version 2.8 knoppix booting? blah blah.....then loading"

and there it sits. I have kept it up as much as a half hour but there is no progress. Tried in both my cd and burner drives. Not sure what else is left to try until I get my spare box back together for a go in that.

[aay]

I see that the Munjoy site now has it's own forum section so folks may want to post questions and give feedback there.

http://www.munjoylinux.org/forums/

[nishtya]

thanks Aay. I just signed up and posted there.

[Joe999]

I'm typing this on it right now. So far I'm mostly happy with it as an actual item, and very happy with it as far as being an initial release. Considering the complexities of something like this, what problems I've had seem pretty minor.

The good: Great alsa setup, I like the little touches to try to make it more desktop friendly.

The bad: I tried dist-upgrading to sid and afterward it wouldn't boot anymore.

But, all in all, I think they've got a good thing on their hands.

[nishtya]

Joe, have you tried Kanotix? A little closer to sid than even Knoppix. I have upgraded more than I ever tried with knoppix and haven't broken it yet though I am very cautious.

My munjoy=nojoy continues, to date no response to my problem. I did put my spare box back together yesterday and booted munjoy on that. Happily it did boot and LOADED and I got to the installer. Then it failed, repeatedly saying no disk was chosen to partition when I repeatedly chose hdb2.

No idea why it won't load on my newer machine. Thought the error on the spare was due to the ancient and much abused 5 or 6 yo HD in there. But afterwards knoppix installed fine on same disk. Will have to just put away munjoy for now and hope there isn't some sort of hopeless incompatibility with my amd herd and the 2.6 kernel. :?