Unusual install error question ??

**gnukish** · 08-07-2005, 09:45 AM

I had reinstalled knoppix to hd with some 10-20 or 30 errors. To check them what should I do ?? How to fix the same ??

Yesterday, I ran apt-get update and updated fully . How to check whether my os is problem/error free or how to upgrade to knoppix 3.8 or 4.0 from debian repositories. I think its apt-get -u dist-upgrade ......

Regards and thanks in advance...

**mr_ed** · 08-09-2005, 11:29 AM

I'm sorry you haven't had a reply yet!

Back in the days when I did tech support I would have asked for information that might have gotten you a quicker response if it was in your posting - what version of Knoppix, what hardware, what error messages...?

But I'll tell you what - if your installation has 10 errors that you know about, it's not doomed, it's Dead On Arrival. And the odds of fixing it with an apt-get update are worse than a million to one.

(That is, unless the errors are the trivial things that you see scrolling by as the system is successfully booting up. These are usually the system griping about, for example, a startup script telling it to activate something that's already running. The errors are trivial if the system runs fine

and an update may fix some of them. But keep reading.)

Knoppix does a great job of detecting hardware and making default settings that will work on a huge variety of equipment. So getting bunches of errors is a horrible sign.

Knoppix is not designed to install to hard drive, and doing it anyway can cause errors that don't announce themselves up front. So getting bunches of errors is a terrible sign.

Knoppix is designed so each release is complete in itself and not to be updated until the next CD or DVD comes out. So apt really can't address the horrible, terrible problems and may well make them worse.

Why do you want to install Knoppix? Chances are that there are several other distributions that will do what you want. People here like to recommend Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Kanotix, Mepis ... and on and on. They can tell you what they like about them.

Here's what I run, daily: Debian 3.1 (sarge). A few years ago, I had tons of trouble getting Debian to work. A few months ago, the standard installer was still very lame, and the official version was way out-of-date.

But two months ago sarge became the official release, and it's a whole different world. I installed sarge while it was still in the testing phase, and it looks like the new installation documentation could be a little confusing. Information that I think should be up near the front is stuffed into an appendix.

Well, whatever. Debian runs great and can be updated easily and successfully. Progeny Debian is almost pure sarge, with some minor tweaks here and there due to goals that are somewhat different from straight Debian. But Ian Murdoch is one of the head people for Progeny, and he's the "Ian" who started and named Deb-Ian.

Want to try something that's not Debian-based (which Knoppix is) but still easy to install? Try Vector, a take-off from Slackware.

Heck, try FreeBSD! But whatever you do, don't try to live with a system that's badly broken before you can even log in. If you install other distributions and still have lots of error messages (provided that they aren't trivial), then maybe there's a hardware problem or two. Is your hard drive upside down?

I hope this helps. If not, post more info!

-- Ed

**gnukish** · 08-09-2005, 12:26 PM

Thanks, Im counting on Freesbie or Slack. Iam not going for based distros anymore. Going to the real distro itself. I will try to get 'em and get 'em working. But my situation has gone a step further, coz If a normal user in my knoppix isnt included in the root group, he cant login into the machine through any desktop manager.

Iam surely gonna quit knoppix, .... its a matter of when, like surely gonna be done as soon as possible. But, until it was perfect it was fun to use knoppix. Its a good distro for me.

**mr_ed** · 08-10-2005, 02:21 AM

Heh.

Well, Freesbie is based on FreeBSD. In fact everything available today is based on something else - to get away from that you'd have to go back to at least AT&T's System V Unix, if not all the way back to Multics. But then it wouldn't run on a PC, and you wouldn't have TCP/IP to access the internet....

So sometimes it's A Good Thing to run a derivative. I can never seem to get X working completely on Slackware, so I really liked the fact that Vector installed easily and successfully on my machine.

But Slackware and Debian are the oldest Linux distros, so they've inspired a bunch of others even when the newer distro isn't what you'd call "based on" them. Debian's user friendliness has come a long, long way since the early days, and I think truly the apt/synaptic package-management system set a high - but reasonable - standard in the Linux world.

Good luck! And remember, if it ain't fun, you ain't doin' it right!

-- Ed

**gnukish** · 08-10-2005, 11:56 AM

Your review abt slack shivers me timbers..... Iam gonna use slack only from today,am gonna get it from a LUG member today.... Scary review wont let me leave slack

I will config slack and become a real slackie ....

Every distro is not as easy as Knoppix, duh .....

But I will, manage to live on as I get used to it...

Thanks .

**gnukish** · 08-11-2005, 01:03 PM

Well , just my luck ..... Slack did not install well, as the media was bad .... am now betting on bsd alone. Exactly FreeBSD and nothing else now ..... gotaa have my fingers crossed ... coz its my pc's fate really.