Boot Knoppix 3.6 from USB key - How To (Success!)

**mlap** · 08-29-2004, 11:39 PM

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to the group, but not to Unix. I've been involved with it since the early 80's, but haven't used it consisently since then.

I've been looking thru all these forums on how to run/boot Knoppix from
a USB key and haven't found anything recent other than this:

http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb

HOWEVER.... After a bit of tinkering and looking thru source code, I have
successfully been able to boot Knoppix 3.6 from a 512MB Sandisk cruzer USB key.

I want to document the complete process because I know how many of you are interested in doing this also.

I'm in a bit of a dilema because I am leaving on a trip in the morning for a couple weeks and won't have time to describe what I did in as much detail as I'd like, but I will try and give a brief description in my next post until I return and can give a step by step description along with what pkgs I removed to fit everything on 512MB.

Cheers,

Mike LaPierre

**j.drake** · 08-30-2004, 03:59 AM

Great, I'm certainly looking forward to it. I tried this before with 3.4 and failed, and then got sidetracked with my own vacation.

jd

**eco2geek** · 08-30-2004, 05:19 AM

I'm all ears. (Almost bought one of those Sandisk Mini Cruzers today.)

**mlap** · 08-30-2004, 08:01 AM

Well it's late and I wish I could do this in more detail, but this is the best
I can do for now. I also want to give credit to the other people who've
done this with previous versions because it was their info that helped me
come up with my method. This is just a draft, and with any version of
Unix, there are always many ways of reaching the same results.

=================================

First, partition your flash drive with fdisk and set the partition type to "6".

Next format it with "mkfs vfat"

Now mount your flash drive and copy the contents of your remastered
version of knoppix from your CD or ISO file so that will fit in the capacity of your USB flash drive.

"cd" to the /boot/isolinux directory and "mv" everything up to the root of
your flash drive and remove the whole "boot" directory.

"mv" the ISOlinux.bin and ISOlinux.cfg files to SYSlinux.bin and SYSlinux.cfg. (The 1st 3 letters are only capitalized for clarification).

Now this part I'm not certain about and need to verify what I did, but I
may have modified the "linuxrc" files in both the "minirt24.gz" and "minirt26.gz" files. The linuxrc file is slightly different than described in the link in my previous message, but I don't have time to verify any
changes I *might* have made.

Try them the way they are, they may work unmodified.

"umount" your flash drive.

Next you need to run SYSLINUX on your flash drive, *BUT* NOT the one
that is on the Knoppix 3.6 disto, you'll either need to update it OR
download a Windows/DOS version from:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/

and get version "syslinux-2.11.zip" for windows

You'll of course need to boot up windows to run the program.

This needs to be the last step I believe, because *I Think* it writes the
bootsector based on info from syslinux.cfg (I'm not sure).

The syntax would be "syslinux x:" where "x:" is the drive letter
windows sees your flash drive as.

I've had to change the 1st boot device in the BIOS to "USB ZIP",
it may be different for you.

I've only been able to test this so far on an VIA Epia Mii 10000.
A couple of times I've gotten to the point where the penguin shows
up in the top left (This is just before the "linuxrc" begins executing),
and got a "kernel panic" because it's unable to mount the root filesystem
and the system halted. I've rebooted and tried again and things started right up. I've also tried just typing "knoppix 5" at the boot prompt (which
is default anyway) and that seemed to give it whatever delay or encouragement to work also.

I hope this will be enough of a guide to help some of you continue
and maybe iron things out a little more by the time I return. At that
point I'll be happy to write a How To with explicit detail and directions
and add any improvements any of you may have.

Mike

**jbreiden** · 08-30-2004, 08:36 AM

Thanks, but no luck here. The BIOS doesn't even recognize the USB drive as bootable, which seems really weird. I don't think it is a hardware problem, because this is a 1 GB PQI iStick. I can boot Damn Small Linux no problem from a smaller PQI iStick on the same Epia ME6000 motherboard. Other differences; FAT32 filesystem instead of FAT16, and I ran syslinux 2.11 from Knoppix, not Windows. I don't see why either would be problematic.

**mlap** · 08-30-2004, 05:36 PM

I'm in a little bit of a rush right now, but I hope also post a message with the boot process and messages you should see at each stage.

jbreiden, you're right, I don't think FAT32 vs FAT16 should matter, but ...

I sounds to me since you've been able to boot DSL off your stick, that
you're not even getting SYSLINUX to go yet. Are you getting any msgs
to indicate the boot process from your stick has started?

You should be able to (I think) to take a freshly formatted stick and
run syslinux against it, attempt to boot and see the "Syslinux 2.11..."
message. If you can get that, you're headed in the right direction....
Try FAT16 (type 6 in fdisk), just for kicks.

I don't expect to have net access while I'm gone, but if I do, I'll check back.

Mike

**jbreiden** · 08-31-2004, 05:20 AM

You are right, it doesn't even get to syslinux at boot. The problem seems tied to this thumb drive, since others work. Maybe my motherboard can't boot from USB2 devices, only USB1 (I should look into whether there is a BIOS upgrade). Or maybe there is something special about the 1GB PQI iStick or how it lays out the tracks/cylinders or something. I tried filesystem type 6 (FAT16), I tried making the partition smaller (511MB), I tried syslinux 2.04 and 2.11, I tried giving the -s flag on syslinux /dev/sda1, and I tried marking the partition bootable and non-bootable. Nothing gets me to the isolinux prompt. Weird how the smaller USB 1.1 PQI stick works fine.

**drmarathe** · 08-31-2004, 07:48 AM

I have a Toshiba Sattelite 1805-S274 and I just bought a 128 MB Transcend Stick USB 2.0. Can anyone help me get it to work on Knoppix. [My Hard disk controller has crashed and I have to use Knoppix. And I have to save my work on this Stick. Real urgent.] I am supposed to mount it but what works, I don't know. I have alsready formatted it on a Win98 and have transferred some files on it. And they are visible under Windows 2000. Does anyone know how to get my Notebook modem to work under Knoppix.

Thanks

**eco2geek** · 08-31-2004, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by drmarathe

[My Hard disk controller has crashed and I have to use Knoppix. And I have to save my work on this Stick. Real urgent.] I am supposed to mount it but what works, I don't know.

Assuming you're running Knoppix from the live CD: plug the USB key in and boot Knoppix. Knoppix will automatically show an icon for it on the desktop. From the context menu, you can mount it and change its read-only status to read/write.

Assuming you're running a hard disk installation of Knoppix: plug in the USB key (it shouldn't matter whether it's before you boot or after KDE's up, since Knoppix uses "hotplug"). As root, in a console, type

mkdir /mnt/sda1
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

and you should be good to go. It should be mounted on /mnt/sda1.

(Note: If you have more than one storage device connected, for example a USB key and a USB hard drive, they usually show up as /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1, etc. in my experience.)

**jbreiden** · 08-31-2004, 09:35 AM

I got excited when I saw a report on a Debian page about a successful boot VIA EPIA-M 10000 mainboard, BIOS Version 1.0F, 512 MB USB 2.0 stick. Flashed my BIOS to 1.0F and... no change. I think I'm going to give up. (I also tried the other tricks on that page: install-mbr and even putting the filesystem on /dev/sda instead of /dev/sda1)

http://d-i.pascal.at/