Knoppix Hacks Book problem

**empress101** · 02-11-2005, 06:41 AM

ok you all know the knoppix Hacks book....good book , but i have problem..i have written about it in a few other post ..I have been attempting to create a remastered kiosk cd. I have been hammering away at getting a kiosk setup. I need a knoppix cd remastered(reduced in size dont need all that stuff) and that boots into kiosk mode.

I have managed to work out getting the cd reduced in size, thanks to tthe book and post on here on how to. And i have the bootable cd in kiosk mode working. It opens up mozilla with all the settings and goes to the exact site i want. However problem it only works on the development machine i used to create it.

I need this cd to boot into kiosk mode on other machines. When i insert it into other machines i get error at end of booting ...it says "unable to find suitable xserver for your specific card" what that mean?

ok so i thought hum if it only work on my machine perfectly and not on others when i am remastering it and making comrpessed .iso image of it i am somehow copying setting from the development computer i do not want to(specifically the xserver, XF86 stuff maybe?).

So I did some more hunting around, and reading out of book and find it says in hack#21 pg.63-64 to only save personal configuration settings if you plan to take the cd to other computers. Ok so i do this and probelm now the cd refuses to boot into kiosk mode

what wrong? even though all the setting for browser and stuff is there. I have put into kiosk mode.
by doing the

knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix] sudo sh -c "echo 'DESKTOP=\"kiosk\"' > etc/sysconfig/desktop"
knoppix@ttyo0[knoppix] sudo init 2 && sudo init 5

commands

I need it to boot immediatly into kiosk mode - no typing( the peope using kiosk are not to have access to the shell.

again i have it booting from cd into kiosk mode immediatly but only works on development machine

basically i used hack #94 to remaster cd then hack #24 to make kiosk and end of #24 hack to "Remaster a Kiosk Disc"

anyone understand what is going on...and can help please?

**raj1478** · 02-11-2005, 09:15 AM

Hi,

Check whether you have removed the file "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4" or not

. If my guess is right then the file is still lying in your remaster and it is using that file with setting of computer on which you remastered and is not creating a new one.

To solve the problem, if the file is there, remove the file XF86Config-4 from remaster source, compress and make iso again.

Post the results.......

**empress101** · 02-12-2005, 12:00 AM

ok tried that one today at work thanks for advise, but it also not work.

I get same result..error maessage sayin cannot find sutable Xserver for your card. and just hangs there.

The orginal knoppix .iso i downloaded from knoppix.org ..does work in computers i put it in no problem.

I tried just booting into one of the computers i need remaster, kiosk cd for and using it to make remastered kiosk cd.
I do all the setting up of how i need stuff and do the knoppix saveconfig and it all works. I burn the reamstered cd on the computer and it works perfect, but again only on that specific computer.

Any idea .... I dont understand why the book whould tell you to do it one way when it does not work

any help much appreciated.

**greenfly** · 02-24-2005, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by empress101

ok you all know the knoppix Hacks book....good book , but i have problem..i have written about it in a few other post ..I have been attempting to create a remastered kiosk cd. I have been hammering away at getting a kiosk setup. I need a knoppix cd remastered(reduced in size dont need all that stuff) and that boots into kiosk mode.

Glad you like the book

I understand that you don't need all the programs, but sometimes overengineering a remastered CD makes things a lot more complicated. You could even potentially create a kiosk CD without decompressing the KNOPPIX filesystem at all just by putting the knoppix.sh and configs.tbz file in the KNOPPIX directory like the hack mentions. But in either case, I think the cause of your problem is possibly sitting in the configs.tbz file (see below)

I have managed to work out getting the cd reduced in size, thanks to tthe book and post on here on how to. And i have the bootable cd in kiosk mode working. It opens up mozilla with all the settings and goes to the exact site i want. However problem it only works on the development machine i used to create it.

I need this cd to boot into kiosk mode on other machines. When i insert it into other machines i get error at end of booting ...it says "unable to find suitable xserver for your specific card" what that mean?

Basically it sounds to me that the saveconfig saved your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file to configs.tbz, which is overwriting your config that Knoppix generates, but it looks like you guys have already figured that out, and you are already on the right track:

ok so i thought hum if it only work on my machine perfectly and not on others when i am remastering it and making comrpessed .iso image of it i am somehow copying setting from the development computer i do not want to(specifically the xserver, XF86 stuff maybe?).

So I did some more hunting around, and reading out of book and find it says in hack#21 pg.63-64 to only save personal configuration settings if you plan to take the cd to other computers. Ok so i do this and probelm now the cd refuses to boot into kiosk mode

what wrong? even though all the setting for browser and stuff is there. I have put into kiosk mode.
by doing the

knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix] sudo sh -c "echo 'DESKTOP=\"kiosk\"' > etc/sysconfig/desktop"
knoppix@ttyo0[knoppix] sudo init 2 && sudo init 5

commands

You are right, since you aren't just using this disc as a kiosk for a single class of machine (a lot of kiosks are often run on almost identical hardware) you don't want to copy that XF86Config file. Copying just the personal configuration almost gives you all the files you need, except for 2. /etc/sysconfig/desktop and /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession. So what you can do is run saveconfig and save only your personal configuration. Let's say that you save the configs.tbz file in /mnt/sda1. All you need to do is add the two extra files:

Code:

knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo bunzip2 /mnt/sda1/configs.tbz
knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo tar -rpPf /mnt/sda1/sysadmin/configs.tar /etc/sysconfig/desktop /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession
knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo BZIP2=-9 bzip2 /mnt/sda1/configs.tar
knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo mv /mnt/sda1/configs.tar.bz2 /mnt/sda1/configs.tbz

This basically unzips the config tarball, appends those two files, then zips it back up. Now you can put that configs.tbz file on a newly-remastered CD and the X config files shouldn't get in your way any longer.

**empress101** · 02-24-2005, 04:27 PM

Hi thank you for very good responce...was concise .. I will attempt your solution and post result here.

thank you again

**empress101** · 02-24-2005, 11:07 PM

ok I tried your instruction, but it not work

It may be because my setup abit different and i modified your instructions to fit my setup.

ok here is what i have.

hda1 - windowsXP (nothing is to be written to this. DO NOT TOUCH) hehe
hda2 - linux swap for 3.7 i have installed on harddrive( DO NOT TOUCH) hehe
hda3 - knoppix 3.7 HOME Hardrive install(DO NOT TOUCH)
hda5 - this is free space fomated as ext2 have about 10gb I use this to make the .iso image and write the configs.tbz and knoppix.sh to

Now i modified the commands you gave to fit my situation.
After booting with knoppix 3.4 (i use this cus i noticed in later knoppix there is no 45xsession file and could not find out how to do kiosk with newer version. Plus the KNoppix hacks book uses 3.4).

Ok so i boot up computer with knoppix 3.4. I then follow book and make .kiosk.html page and make the changes i want to browser settings. And i do the 45xsession change exactley as book tells you. I then boot at shell type:

sudo sh -c "echo 'DESKTOP=\"kiosk\"' > /etc/sysconfig/desktop"
sudo init 2 && sudo init 5

and computer then switches to kiosk mode and works perfect

I then do the ctrl+alt+F1 key to get to prompt and I mount the hda5(free space to write sutff formated ext2).
do su to get root prompt

root@ttyp1[hda5]mount -o rw /dev/hda5/ /mnt/hda5
root@ttyp1[hda5]cd /mnt/hda5

then i issue command mkdir master
then rysnc -a /cdrom/ master/

ok so next then i do save the configuration so i can get settings for computer to boot into kiosk mode immediatly when booted up.

su -knoppix saveconfig

I then make certain that i only save the personal settings and destop. No other choices is marked.
I then save it to the hda5. And it does I check and there are now 2 files there configs.tbz and knoppix.sh

Now i come to your instructions.

I get myself out of root and want back into KDE desktop were i started. So i do the:

echo 'DESKTOP="kde"' > /etc/sysconfig/desktop
init 2 && init 5

then computer flips to kde desktop

I open shell and do:

sudo bunzip2 /mnt/hda5/configs.tbz

then

sudo tar -rpPf /mnt/hda5/configs.tar /etc/sysconfig/desktop /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession
( in your instructions you have sudo tar -rpPf /mnt/hda5/sysadmin/configs.tar the computer not like this complains about no file found. I fugure it is cus of the sysadmin. when i look no such file)

so having removed the sysadmin from command the computer happy

and appears to work.

Then i move to next command

sudo BZIP@=-9 bzip2 /mnt/hda5/configs.tar
(computer complains about this one to . It says BZIP@ does not reconize as a command

i check with conquer and use ARK to look at file and i see it has moved 45xsession in /ect/ file and has desktop file in there also so ok thought worked.

so i do next command

sudo mv /mnt/hda5/configs.tar.bz2 /mnt/hda5/configs.tbz
(Does not like this either. So i do a su to get root and repeat command. It changed it then to that extension no complaint).

OK so after all that i then move both the files the configs.tbz and the knoppix.sh into the /hda5/master/KNOPPIX/ directory
as the book instructs on page 79 hack #24 which was created when i issued the command up top at first : rysnc -a /cdrom/ master/

everything looked ok

I then make iso image of file by doing instruction in book same page.

i make sure i root and mounted hda5

root@tttyp1[hda5]# mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V "KNOPPIX" -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -o knoppix.iso master/

Everything looks dandy

then i reboot computer with 3.4 disk still in cdrom and at the knoppix promt i tell it to use the iso image to boot into.

knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hda5/knoppix.iso

unfrotunatley it does not work....

has my browser settings but does not boot into kiosk at all boots into kde desktop

sniff

any help much appreciated..

thank you

**greenfly** · 02-24-2005, 11:52 PM

You are so close. Just one minor mistake.

Originally Posted by empress101

ok I tried your instruction, but it not work

---snip---

I get myself out of root and want back into KDE desktop were i started. So i do the:

echo 'DESKTOP="kde"' > /etc/sysconfig/desktop
init 2 && init 5

then computer flips to kde desktop

^--- This is where the mistake comes in

I open shell and do:

sudo bunzip2 /mnt/hda5/configs.tbz

then

sudo tar -rpPf /mnt/hda5/configs.tar /etc/sysconfig/desktop /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession
( in your instructions you have sudo tar -rpPf /mnt/hda5/sysadmin/configs.tar the computer not like this complains about no file found. I fugure it is cus of the sysadmin. when i look no such file)

Wow you are so close, but that extra echo command you ran to get to KDE changed /etc/sysconfig/desktop so that the default desktop was KDE. This means that when you added /etc/sysconfig/desktop to the configs.tar file, it said DESKTOP="kde". There are two fixes:

1) If you boot the CD you already burned with

Code:

knoppix desktop=kiosk

it will likely boot into kiosk mode.

2) Add those two files back to configs.tar, but this time make sure that inside /etc/sysconfig/desktop it says DESKTOP="kiosk" before you run the tar command.

**empress101** · 02-25-2005, 05:16 PM

SUCCESS!

..Thank you for last post. After I posted details on how i did it. I thought it might have been something like that so i went hunting around and discovered the desktop file had "desktop" in it instead of "kiosk" and thought to change it and see if work. After your post confirmation I did and SUCCESS! hehe

Thank you much for hints, advice and how to

I will write up how i did it and post abit later. Maybe it can help someone in similair situation.

Thanks again

**davea0511** · 03-10-2005, 11:31 PM

Empress101 - I am really looking forward to your "How to" write up!

**davidbear** · 08-10-2006, 12:07 AM

I downloaded the lastest knoppix iso, (july 2006, v5.0).

I then used the installer script to create a knoppix installation on the hard disk. So far, this is great. Then I wanted to create a kiosk so I followed the instructions in the knoppix hacks book. The instructions were straightforward. I did question the last section becuase there were no expanatory notes as to why the section to modify 45xsession was listed twice.

However, the changes seem to make sense. In short the hack does the following:
1) creates a .kiosk.html file that has javascript that opens a browser window with specific controlls
2) set the mozilla prefs to permit javascript to close a window
3) set the home page to be the .kiosk.html
4) modfies the 45xsession file to include a section to start mozilla
5) modifeds /etc/sysconfig/desktop to start the kiosk section created in the 45xsession file

The problem is that when I start in kiosk mode knoppix opens mozilla and then closes it again -- and again and again without permitting any user interaction with the browser. And since the xsession file specified to restart mozilla if it ever closes -- I have an infinite loop.

I thought I had a problem with the javascript created in step 1 so I removed any reference to window.close -- and finally remove ALL javascript. This didn't help. Finally I set the mozilla home page to be a completely different file. This didn't help.

I am hoping someone here can suggest a fix. The issue is that mozilla starts, the closes -- and starts and closes...

Any pointers?