Major problem in HD installation of knoppix !

[gopikrish]

After creating a linux partition of 2 GB, I started knoppix-installer.It said something like "Your configuration is not suitable for hard disk install.You need atleast 2GB or more.Also we need a swap partition with atleast 128 MB, if you don't have 512 MB memory or more.If you want to ignore this and still install do IGNORE_CHECK sudo knoppix-installer at your own risk" or something like that.In the next window it asked to repartition or quit.But when I started with that "IGNORE_CHECK sudo knoppix-installer" command it didn't detect and asked which type of install you want with some options and I selected the preferred one hd-install and next window appeared (i think xdialog configuration) and it showed how to use xdialog with many options and at the bottom the following was written,
(1) This Xdialog binary compiled with lpr -P <Printer> /tmp/xdialog.tmp to the print command. If <Printer> is "" (an empty string), the -P is not used.
Then when I clicked next it returned to the original shell from where I entered knoppix-installer command and the above same thing was written in that too.
And initially When I did partitioning using qtparted the following was displayed in the shell.I forgot to mention this at first because this is the first step I did even before installation.
No implementation: This ext2 filesystem has an rather strange layout! Parted can't resize this (yet).

So why is this happening.Actually mine is a 4 GB harddisk, with 2 partitions of 2 GB each.I have windows installed in one of the partitions and I wanted to install linux in the other one.But when I wrote linux partition table in this drive using "qtparted" originally it was 2 GB but after writing partition to disk its size reduced to something like 1.85 GB. So maybe is this the cause its not proceeding with installation? I have some free space in windows drive.Maybe is it possible to add that free space to this linux drive and make it like 2.5 GB ? I am really struggling.Please help me.Thanks.

[tcollinson]

Hi there,

I am new at this however I think I can give you a quick helping hand. The most important part of your post in my estimation is the last part. You received a message stating that the partition had a rather strange lay out. I am guessing you started with one partition and made it into two.

Windows doesn't treat its filesystems very well (imho) and fragments things all over creation. Thus before you partition you will want to run a full defragmentation cycle on your windows system in order to get all the information into one part of your harddrive. Then partition. Now you have already partitioned... so I am not exactly sure how this will behave. I would suggest deleting the one partition which you were going to install Linux on making a single partition with your current windows installation. Run defrag thoroughly. Then try to repartition again and see if the error doesn't disappear.

That being said let me give a word of warning. When messing with Windows... remember to make a VERY THOROUGH BACKUP before trying any of this. That way if the whole thing blows up you will be able to restore it and try again. NEVER try this without a BACKUP!! It's dangerous... it's stupid... it gets very old to read about on newsboards like this one... PLEASE BACKUP WINDOWS!!! before doing anything else. In fact right now turn off IE (or whatever browser you are using) and backup... then comeback and try the rest... Good luck!

[robwelch100]

The size discrepency is normal, in my experience. You buy a 60 gb drive and after is formated and a file system is made you computer may show 58.3 gb. That is because before formating it is 60 gb. formatting the file system takes space. So when you set asside 2gb and knoppix needs at least 2 you need to set asside 2.1 or such to make the drive after formatting meet the size minimum. Try this with any fs and you will get the same result.

Either that or I'm wrong.

[Radagast]

Do you have enough memory? Did you create a swap partition?

I have had similar errors due to insufficient memory/swap space. You might try this:

1. Create the swap partition first using fdisk.
2. Use mkswap to format the swap partition.
3. Use swapon to turn the swap space on.
4. Try the hard drive install now.

later,
radagast.

[eco2geek]

My advice: Go buy another hard disk. They're cheap, especially if you go to a surplus store and buy a used one. You don't want to install Knoppix on a 2GB partition, even if you can. Give it some breathing room; give yourself some space to install other software after you're done.

Go get a 10GB hard drive, install it as a slave (check the jumper settings on both drives), install Knoppix on that, and you'll be much happier with the results.

By the way: QTParted can create, but can't resize, ext2 and ext3 partitions per its author. Also, I got the "This ext2 filesystem has an rather strange layout!" console message when examining an ext3 partition in QTParted. So maybe that's what you are getting, too.

Another interesting point: Hard drive manufacturers -- all of them, AFAIK -- represent hard disk space in terms of base-10 bytes (i.e. 1GB = 10^9 bytes). However, your OS and the software that runs on it (including QTParted) represents that space in terms of base-2 bytes (i.e. 1GB = 2^30 bytes).

What this means in practice is that when they sell you a 4GB hard drive, it has a capacity of 4,000,000,000 bytes even -- 4 * (10^9) bytes. But since QTParted thinks of 4GB as 4* (2^30) bytes, or 4,294,967,296 bytes, it'll tell you your so-called 4GB partition only has a capacity of ~3.72GB. Thus when you split it in half, QTParted tells you the partition only has a capacity of ~1.86GB. (And that's before any space the file system needs to keep track of files is used.)

This is also why your OS will tell you that your new 80GB drive only has a capacity of ~74.4 GB.

[merlot]

Hi all, I have the very same problem as gopikrish...
I made two partitions of my hda and I've planned to make a Knoppix HD install into hda6 with hda7 as swap partition. hda6 is 3.3GB formatted in ext3 and hda7 is 256MB formatted in Linux Swap, both were FAT32 partitions made with Partition Magic from a previous *defragged* bigger FAT32 partition. Every time I run "sudo knoppix-installer" I finish up with the Xdialog configuration windows, even with "IGNORE_CHECK=1 sudo knoppix-installer", and the "This ext2 filesystem has an rather strange layout! Parted can't resize this (yet)" message in the console. Still it says every time that my configuration dont' full fill the minimum requirements...

I was impressed with live CD, it made almost all my hardware work but I have an ADSL modem on PCI slot with iTex Apollo 3 chipset and I've found on the Internet that is possible to make it work by recompiling the kernel to recognize the driver. Sadly, the PoorMan Install will not work I think. The Linux distribution that has more chances to make it work is Debian so I thought to install Knoppix to have at least the graphic interface to start from.
I tryed even Debian: at the end of installing configuration a window said "Have fun with your new Debian distribution" and then all that was available was the shell with blinking cursor. For a newbie is not the perfect idea of fun... But I guess I'll have to start liking that way of fun...
Thanks for the attention!