Download sends CD drive thrashing after 80mb

**rollo11** · 03-02-2006, 01:19 AM

Trying to download the Kanotix .iso using Knoppix.

Tried using Firefox and Konqueror, and different mirrors, but the same thing happens. After about 80Mb of download, the CD-DVD drive jumps into action and the system grinds to a halt. The first time I had to do a hard reset.

Is this something to do with disk space allocation..? This is a brand new laptop with a hard disk partitioned into four, being three ReiserFS partitions and a swap.

Help really appreciated.

**UnderScore** · 03-02-2006, 01:34 AM

Are you running Knoppic from CD or are running Knoppix from the HD?
Are you saving the ISO to the Knoppix home directory /home/knoppix/, which uses your system's RAM as a RAM drive to store data?
Are you saving the ISO to a place on the hard disk, /mnt/hda3 perhaps?

**rollo11** · 03-02-2006, 08:45 PM

Thanks for your help.

I'm running Knoppix from the CD. My aim is to download and burn a disk image. I assumed it wouldn't be necessary to customise or remaster the installation in order to do this. Maybe that's not correct? My machine has 256Mb RAM.

Tried downloading a 700Mb file using Firefox without specifying the download destination. Crashed after 80Mb.

Tried downloading the same file using Konqueror and specifying the download destination /disk, which I had previously mounted to point to /dev/sda3 (a ReiserFS partition of my SATA hard disk). Crashed after 80Mb.

Any idea what I have to do to make this work? The simpler the better, or I will just trip up again...

Thanks.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-02-2006, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by rollo11

This is a brand new laptop with a hard disk partitioned into four, being three ReiserFS partitions and a swap.

Is there some reason why you want to keep using a Live CD based system rather than install a Linux distro intended for Hard disk on this system? It would seem ideal for Debian, which would resolve this problem and load a lot faster.

**rollo11** · 03-02-2006, 09:15 PM

I can't install anything until I am able to:

1. Download an installation .iso
2. Burn it to a CD

All I have is this machine. And all it has is Knoppix.

**OErjan** · 03-02-2006, 09:35 PM

try downloading the Debina netinstall.
like this. it is a minimal Netinstall iso that boots and downloads the instalationfiles over the net during install, it is 40Mb or so.
check the MD5sum and burn slow (just like Knoppix). have fun. OErjan
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/...sinesscard.iso
read more here
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

**rollo11** · 03-02-2006, 10:21 PM

Thanks for that, I have noted it. But I want to download and burn Kanotix!

What do I need to do to make this work? All I am trying to do is download an .iso long enough to burn it. Details of what I have tried are above.

PS - Harry: Debian is probably not ideal for me. As you can see here, I can't even download a file under Knoppix.
PS - OErjan: Net installs are probably out - if you remember, I have an issue with my ethernet card which complicates things.

I have been at this for two weeks now. But I plan to get there in the end.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-02-2006, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by rollo11

I can't install anything until I am able to:

1. Download an installation .iso
2. Burn it to a CD

All I have is this machine. And all it has is Knoppix.

Now that's just crazy talk, since what you indicate you are trying to do is download another Live CD, even if it is known to be somewhat better at working when put on a hard disk than Knoppix. But you have plenty of memory to download the baicc Debian Internet Installer. Assuming that you can then make a CD (and having that Knoppix CD stuck in the drive at this point presents it's own problems), then you could install Debian after just downloading and burning a few meg, far least that the 80 meg threshold that you seem to have limiting you.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-02-2006, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by rollo11

Thanks for that, I have noted it. But I want to download and burn Kanotix!

Kantonix, being a Live CD, is not what you indicated that you wanted to do above.

Originally Posted by rollo11

What do I need to do to make this work? All I am trying to do is download an .iso long enough to burn it.

Well, one thing that would help would be to be running a real hard disk distro. Then the ram disk issue would not hit you. Once you had Debian installed you could download and burn Kantonix and all the other Live CDs that you like.

Originally Posted by rollo11

PS - Harry: Debian is probably not ideal for me. As you can see here, I can't even download a file under Knoppix.
PS - OErjan: Net installs are probably out - if you remember, I have an issue with my ethernet card which complicates things.

I'm not clear why Debian is not ideal for you, since Knoppix is basically Debian with a lot of extra packages loaded, many of which you will never use. OK, it's a mix of different Debian flavors that often causes people problems if they add or update anything, but that only favors Debian, not Knoppix.

Forgive me for not remebering all discussions or knowing what your ethernet issue is. Yea, that might be a problem, but I don't know what the issue is and it doesn't sound like you have tried Debian to know if it would be an issue or not. By the way, I have an 8.03 meg "mini.iso" file sitting on my hard drive and burnt to a CDRW on another system right now. It boots fine for me, discovers my network and configures itself, and lets me download and install my choice of the Debian Stable, Testing or Unstabe versions from a wide variety of download servers.

I do think you should be able to download files to your Linux partitions, but if you are not able to do this or the Live CD insists on writing them to a temporary file on the ramdisk first, then it might be wiser to use the Line CD to download something useful.

**rollo11** · 03-02-2006, 11:30 PM

Thanks Harry for your help.

So downloading and burning CDs is always problematic under standard Knoppix? And there's no fix to make it possible?

This is turning into an ordeal... The problem with net installations is that I have to issue a command to change the MAC address of my ethernet card. (Yes, I know ideally I should have a router, but right now I don't.) Does the Debian net install give access to a Bash command line before attempting a network connection? This wasn't possible for the net install of Suse.

When I tried a net install of Ubuntu (which is basically Debian, right?), I didn't even get that far. I got an error ("Permission denied") when trying to run ./debootstrap. I have no idea what I am doing with Debian, and searching on this error produced nothing.

At this point I am just looking for the path of least resistance to a HD-installed Linux. It's in order to keep my sanity. Downloading and burning a user-friendly distro looked like the best idea, but even that turns out impossible...

Thanks for more pointers, I do appreciate you helping me.