Knoppix 5.0.1 on HD hangs at boot w/ PCMCIA wireless card

[jbreazeale]

I have Knoppix 5.0.1 install on my hard-drive. I have an IBM ThinkPad 390 2626-70U laptop. When I boot from the hard-drive and a certain PCMCIA wireless card is installed, a "Netgear 802.11b Wireless PC Card 16-bit PCMCIA MA401" v2.5, the kernel hangs with the following error:

Unexpected IRQ trap at vector 30

If I boot from the Knoppix 5.0.1 CD I don't experience this problem.

This problem sounds similar to what's described in a message with the subject, "2.6.17 - hostap_cs: unexpected IRQ trap at vector b0 and kernel freeze " at this URL: http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...06.2/1640.html

The workaround for this problem is to pull the wireless card while the system is booting then after booting insert the card and run 'sudo pump -i eth0'.

Can anyone give me a solution or better workaround for this problem?

Thanks!
Joel

[Harry Kuhman]

I have Knoppix 5.0.1 install on my hard-drive. .......
Can anyone give me a solution or better workaround for this problem?

Well, sure, install something actually intended for use on the hard disk, and something that has good Wireless support too.

[jbreazeale]

I have Knoppix 5.0.1 install on my hard-drive. .......
Can anyone give me a solution or better workaround for this problem?

Well, sure, install something actually intended for use on the hard disk, and something that has good Wireless support too.

It just so happens this version understands the quirkiness of my sound card and works with my wireless card, at least from the live-CD. I only have 2GB of hard-drive, so I really need a small footprint. I had Slax 5.0.6 on the HD and stopped using it due to hangs. I had an earlier version of Knoppix on my HD and made one too many updates and hosed the system. This time around with Knoppix my plan is to just install the live-CD and leave it.

The kernel is likely the issue in this case. Did you read the posting referenced by the URL? What distribution would you recommand that is intended for use on a HD that won't be a lot of trouble making it fit into a 2GB partition?

[Harry Kuhman]

What distribution would you recommand that is intended for use on a HD that won't be a lot of trouble making it fit into a 2GB partition?

Asuming that you are talking about a real install and not a PMI that uses the compressed image (an assumption I make based on the other things you say), Debian, the distro that Knoppix is built on, should take no more space than Knoppix for the same applications, even less if you omit installing things that are in Knoppix but that you will never use. Let me ask this, did you try installing Debian Etch and decide that there are issues that you would rather fight with Knoppix than resolve in Debian, or are you making the choice to install Knoppix without looking at Debian?

[jbreazeale]

What distribution would you recommand that is intended for use on a HD that won't be a lot of trouble making it fit into a 2GB partition?

Asuming that you are talking about a real install and not a PMI that uses the compressed image (an assumption I make based on the other things you say), Debian, the distro that Knoppix is built on, should take no more space than Knoppix for the same applications, even less if you omit installing things that are in Knoppix but that you will never use. Let me ask this, did you try installing Debian Etch and decide that there are issues that you would rather fight with Knoppix than resolve in Debian, or are you making the choice to install Knoppix without looking at Debian?

No, I haven't tried Debian Etch. I didn't even know Debian Etch existed, so I should look up information on it.

You say, "for the same applications," while that's true I don't want to spend the time paring Debian down into the same set of applications. What's on the live-CD is good enough for me. I used /usr/sbin/knoppix-installer to install the live-CD onto the HD and confired it as a Debian install with full user login support (maybe this was a mistake). Perhaps I actually did what you suggest -- I believe I do have a Debian install.

As I said earlier, I've installed Knoppix (3.7?) and Slax (5.0.6) installed on this particular laptop before with mostly satisfying results. My first concern was getting the wireless card working (Slax worked) and then having a system that didn't hang (Knoppix didn't hang like Slax). Finally, getting the audio to work out of the box was also desirable (Knoppix live CD was working -- have yet to see if the HD install of Knoppix will work). I'm not giving you all the sordid details as I can't remember them all and it's not clear the history.

What I hoped to get was the audio & wireless detection capability of the live-CD. Apparently I'm missing something in the equation as I have to run 'sudo pump -i eth0' or somesuch to get DHCP to work off the bat. I also get the original problem, the subject of this thread (at least so I thought), which I trust is a kernel issue that'll eventually get worked out.

[I've just refreshed my memory and I see I have a 3.8GB partition with 1.7GB remaining after putting around 17MB of my own files back onto the laptop.]

Thanks for the information.

[Harry Kuhman]

No, I haven't tried Debian Etch. I didn't even know Debian Etch existed, so I should look up information on it.

You say, "for the same applications," while that's true I don't want to spend the time paring Debian down into the same set of applications. What's on the live-CD is good enough for me.

Etch is the "testing" version of Debian, but it is the version that Knoppix is mostly based on and is due to be the official "stable" version later this year. Start here to get a copy. Apparenty they are doing some changes to the distribution system so you can't do a net-install at the moment, but you can still install from CD #1. One big problem with installing Knoppix is that it has been an incopatable mix of three different Debian versions, so updating or installing anything else breaks lots of things. Installing a real Debian system will avoid this.

You don't spend time paring Debian down. Just the opposite, you install Debian and then build on it. You can apt-get install any of the packages on the Knoppix CD from the CD or from the Internet. Since you are not likely to use all of the applications on the Knoppix CD, installing just what you use with apt-get install should save space, maybe a lot of space. And it literally takes just seconds to install most packages (obviously some large packages like Open Office take somewhat longer, but not much).

You indeed might find some issue that would justify staying with Knoppix rather than Debian, but I can't imagine what that would be. But most people who do install Knoppix are like you, they simply have not tried to install Debian and instead just fight with Knoppix install problems.

[jbreazeale]

No, I haven't tried Debian Etch. I didn't even know Debian Etch existed, so I should look up information on it.

You say, "for the same applications," while that's true I don't want to spend the time paring Debian down into the same set of applications. What's on the live-CD is good enough for me.

Etch is the "testing" version of Debian, but it is the version that Knoppix is mostly based on and is due to be the official "stable" version later this year. Start here to get a copy. Apparenty they are doing some changes to the distribution system so you can't do a net-install at the moment, but you can still install from CD #1. One big problem with installing Knoppix is that it has been an incopatable mix of three different Debian versions, so updating or installing anything else breaks lots of things. Installing a real Debian system will avoid this.

You don't spend time paring Debian down. Just the opposite, you install Debian and then build on it. You can apt-get install any of the packages on the Knoppix CD from the CD or from the Internet. Since you are not likely to use all of the applications on the Knoppix CD, installing just what you use with apt-get install should save space, maybe a lot of space. And it literally takes just seconds to install most packages (obviously some large packages like Open Office take somewhat longer, but not much).

You indeed might find some issue that would justify staying with Knoppix rather than Debian, but I can't imagine what that would be. But most people who do install Knoppix are like you, they simply have not tried to install Debian and instead just fight with Knoppix install problems.

Building up from a release, for me, is about the same problem as paring down from a release that's more than what I want. I really just want to make the laptop into a productive device. Therefore, I'd *really* just like to get help on the original posting of this thread. I'll note and perhaps even apply what you've told me, but for me for now I believe I'd be better off just seeing if I can get some advice on resolving the boot hang issue.

[It'd be nice to get some help on making sure my LAN/wireless PCMCIA cards use DHCP to get an IP address, but that's probably another posting for another day in the laptop forum. I've set up eth0/eth1 interfaces and have created ifcfg-eth0/ifcfg-eth1 to query for an IP address using DHCP, but I still have to run pump to the get IP address. This is all made more compilicated by the fact that I can boot with the wireless card (I can boot with the LAN card), the topic of this thread.]

[Harry Kuhman]

Building up from a release, for me, is about the same problem as paring down ...

If you choose to believe that, without even trying an install of a Linux system designed from the ground up to be installed, then I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. I wasn't talking about building a release though, just installing one that is already built and available for install. If you run into problem after problem with your "install" and start wondering why, see the faq referenced in answer #2 before you start bad-mouthing all of Linux because of the choice you made.

[jbreazeale]

Building up from a release, for me, is about the same problem as paring down ...

If you choose to believe that, without even trying an install of a Linux system designed from the ground up to be installed, then I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. I wasn't talking about building a release though, just installing one that is already built and available for install. If you run into problem after problem with your "install" and start wondering why, see the faq referenced in answer #2 before you start bad-mouthing all of Linux because of the choice you made.

Rest assured I'm not going to bad-mouth people. I just want to see if anyone will answer my question.

[jbreazeale]

I found a workaround. I exited /etc/default/knoppix and changed "SYSTEM_TYPE=debian" to "SYSTEM_TYPE=beginner" and the hang went away. The only side-effect is a slower boot, which I'm willing to tolerate. Last night when I tried this my wireless card acquired an IP address without intervention. This morning I had to manually run 'sduo pump -i eth0'. This is a slight annoyance compared to a boot hang and likely something I can work around as well.