Knoppix 3.4 boot disk

[Fabianx]

The boot floppy itself seems to work fine, except...it won't boot into the CD or into an ISO on the hard drive.

I've tried multiple times, in multiple ways, including using the "knoppix_dir=", "knoppix_name=", and "bootfrom=" cheatcodes. No joy.

Is there something more esoteric to nuke out of minirt24 besides the SCSI modules?

Well as explained in the Cheatcodes you can't use bootfrom with _just_ a boot-floppy. What works however is to boot from CD-ROM or wiht "fromhd".

So:

Copying KNOPPIX-folder to HD (VFAT / EXT2) and then booting from there indeed should work.

cu

Fabian

[eco2geek]

Well, I altered your fine script so that all the SCSI modules got nuked except for ide-scsi.o and ide-cd.o (and a few others whose names I probably misspelled in the script), and now the Knoppix CD does indeed boot from the floppy. Yay.

(It looks like ide-scsi is the only one it's actually using.)

Hope you put a current bootable floppy image up on the official site. People will want one.

Thanks for all your work.

[joleger]

Could you post the script that works?

Thanks

[eco2geek]

Fabian and Kano wrote a script that stripped out all the SCSI modules in minirt24.gz in order to get it and the kernel to fit on a 1.44M floppy boot disk. Problem was, the resulting boot disk couldn't access the CD. Knoppix 3.3 and 3.4, using kernel 2.4, always print "Accessing KNOPPIX CDROM at /dev/scd0..." when starting up on my computers, so it was obvious that there needed to be some SCSI module(s) there.

This script leaves the modules ide-cd.o, ide-scsi.o, and initio.o intact. Call it what you want (Fabian named it "make_floppy_3.4.sh"). Run it from the Knoppix 3.4 CD or have the CD mounted in /cdrom (it grabs "minirt24.gz" off the CD). Make it executable with "chmod +x", and run it as root.

Problem: If you need a boot floppy to start the CD, how are you going to use the CD to make a boot floppy?

# Make floppy from CD-ROM
# Run this on another system from a running knoppix-cd.
# 
# License: GPL
#
# Copyright (c) 2004 by Fabian Franz.
# Thx to Kano for additions.
#
# Altered slightly (5/8/04 by Andrew Heil) to leave in the SCSI modules
# ide-cd.o, ide-scsi.o, and initio.o; and to change the success message
# from German to English.

abort()
{
  echo "$@"
  exit 1
}

[ $UID -ne 0 ] && abort "Need root-rights."

# preparations
TMPDIR=/tmp/make_floppy.$$
mkdir $TMPDIR || abort "Fatal security error"

clean_exit()
{
  [ -d "$TMPDIR" ] && rm -rf $TMPDIR
}

trap "clean_exit" EXIT

ORIG_DIR=$(pwd)
cd $TMPDIR
mkdir floppy
mkdir miniroot
mkdir old_miniroot

[ -r /cdrom/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz ] || abort "CD-ROM in /cdrom/ needed."

cp -f /cdrom/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz .

# First create new miniroot

gunzip minirt24.gz
mv minirt24 minirt24.old
mount -o loop minirt24.old old_miniroot

dd if=/dev/zero of=minirt24 bs=4M count=1
mke2fs -L "KNOPPIX Miniroot" -b 1024 -N 8192 -O none -F -q -m 0 minirt24
sudo mount -o loop minirt24 miniroot

# -- begin alteration by AEH
# rm -rf old_miniroot/modules/scsi/
# mkdir -p old_miniroot/modules/scsi
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/B*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/N*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/a*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/d*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/e*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/f*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/g*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/h*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/ie*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/m*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/n*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/o*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/p*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/s*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/t*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/u*.o
rm -f old_miniroot/modules/scsi/w*.o
# --- end alteration by AEH
cp -af old_miniroot/* miniroot/

umount old_miniroot
umount miniroot

gzip -9 minirt24

# Now make the bootdisk

#BACKUP=$(date +%s)
#mv -f ~/.mtoolsrc ~/.mtoolsrc.$BACKUP
#echo "drive x: file=\"$TMPDIR/boot.img\"" > ~/.mtoolsrc
#mformat -C -t 40 -s 36 -h 2 x:
#rm -f ~/.mtoolsrc
#mv -f ~/.mtoolsrc.$BACKUP ~/.mtoolsrc
dd if=/dev/zero of=$TMPDIR/boot.img bs=1k count=1440
mkdosfs $TMPDIR/boot.img

mount -o loop boot.img floppy

FILES="boot.msg f2 f3 german.kbd isolinux.cfg linux24 logo.16"
(cd /cdrom/boot/isolinux/; cp -f $FILES $TMPDIR/floppy/)
cp minirt24.gz floppy/
mv floppy/isolinux.cfg floppy/syslinux.cfg
[ -n "$LANGUAGE" ] && perl -pi -e "s/lang=de/lang=$LANGUAGE/g" floppy/syslinux.cfg
[ -n "$LANGUAGE" ] && perl -pi -e "s/lang=us/lang=$LANGUAGE/g" floppy/syslinux.cfg
umount floppy
syslinux boot.img

cp -i boot.img $ORIG_DIR

# --- begin alteration by AEH
# echo "Die erzeugte Datei boot.img kann jetzt mittels des Befehls dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 auf Diskette geschrieben werden."
echo "The file this script created, boot.img, can be written to a 1.44M floppy disk by using the command dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0.  Note that all data currently on the floppy will be erased."

[fredrikj]

Problem: If you need a boot floppy to start the CD, how are you going to use the CD to make a boot floppy?

Exactly. So we're basically back where we started. Still noone have been able to explain how to create boot floppies withouth being more or less a wizard with linux already, alternatively having an extra computer. Doh.

Ok, I'll stop whining. Knoppix 3.4 is free and great and stuff. It is just to bad it wont boot my old laptop as well as 3.3 did. I really needed that 2.6 kernel.

[Kumagoro]

I have the same prob i have an old laptop no CD drive just a floppy.
In 3.3 i did the poor mans install using Loadlin.
*I copied the knoppix folder over to the laptop, then use loadlin which
makes it act like the live CD*

Anyway in 3.4 9th of may version. I can boot using the old boot disk
i.e the vmlinuz and miniroot from 3.3. It loads up and runs but i have a problem. It doesnt detect my WiFi card. in 3.3 it automatically detects and sets it up (its an orinoco classic gold) but in 3.4 it doesnt even think
its there. Is this becasue im using the old vmlinuz and miniroot?

Can i make loadlin work using the new 3.4 files?

[eco2geek]

So we're basically back where we started. Still noone have been able to explain how to create boot floppies withouth being more or less a wizard with linux already, alternatively having an extra computer. Doh.

You can download the Knoppix 3.4 (05-10-2004) floppy boot disk images from here:

http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/eco2g...pix-stuff.html

Danger! Beware! Turn those pop-up blockers on first! Turn off those cookies!

(I hate Angelfire. Ads, pop-ups, and cookies galore. But it's free. Suggestions?)

Update: Turns out there are two sets of boot floppies -- one for kernel 2.4 and one for kernel 2.6. Plus, the second disk of each set doesn't have a filesystem on it, just a low level format. So all of you Windows users out there are going to have to use RawWrite for Windows to copy it.

[softwaretester]

I just use Smart Boot manager to boot from floppy to get booting to work on some CD's.

It helped me boot the larger kernel'd live cd distros like Knoppix-STD and Clusterknoppix.
(yep, my laptop's drive doesn't support anything larger than 1.44 emulation for booting. Bios doesn't like it)

[Kumagoro]

I was told in the HDD install forum that the files you need for loadlin
are linux24 with minirt24.gz or for the 2.6 kernel files with 26. Which are
found in the isolinux folder.

It worked and my wifi card worked again.

[raver]

why do i keep getting this error messsage?
"Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit."


thanks