Knoppix 5.3.1 Live CD -- Error message during booting

[bigspanner]

Can anyone tell me why I had the following error message on my screen when I tried to boot my PC using the Knoppix Version 5.3.1 live CD,
which I downloaded and burned, from the site http://www.knoppix.net/get.php.

/init: line 1013: cannot create /user/run/utmp: nonexistent directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!


I am not so techie so would appreciate a step by step explanation from anyone here!




http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/...39a50bfe5g.jpg

[Harry Kuhman]

Could be any of several reasons.

For starters, are you aware that there is no version 5.3.1 Knoppix CD? 5.3 1 is only available at this time in a DVD version, or by unofficial hacks.

Next, the link that you gave as the place where you got it is just this website's list of ways to get the ISO. So I have no idea where you really got it or how you downloaded it, but I'm guessing that you didn't take the advice to use BitTorrent and instead used one of the mirrors. Mirror downloads of Knoppix tend to be extremely problem prone (about 50% of my mirror downloads were bad before torrent downloads of Knoppix became available) so if you did use a mirror it is extremely important that you do the simple md5 test on the downloaded ISO. Did you do that?

It is also extremely important, if the md5 test confirms that you have a good ISO, that you burn at low speed. Did you do that?

Once we get past all of that there are things that can be typed in during the booting process to get past hardware compatibility issues, but I'm guessing that the problem is somewhere in the listed issues above.

See answer #1 for more details.

[bigspanner]

Thanks Harry,

To clarify, I did download the torrent, as suggested, from http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/

I clicked the first item to download, which is:
KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN

Again, to clarify, after I had downloaded the torrent, I used utorrent to download the following files:

KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso
KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso.md5
KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso.md5.asc
KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso.sha1
KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso.sha1.asc
knoppix-cheatcodes.txt
packages-dvd.txt

Hope what I did is correct. Can you tell me what you meant by md5 test?
By the way, to let you know, I did not burn at low speed but at fast speed. Maybe this is the problem.

[Harry Kuhman]

The md5 test is a quick test that confirms that your ISO is good. It's less important when using a torrent download, since torrent downloads don't suffer from a known corruption problem that I've repeatedly seen on the mirrors, and because BitTorrent includes file block checksums that check each part of the file as it downloads. Still, there are ways to screw up a BitTorrent download so it's worth doing the md5 test, particularly if you are having any problem. Details are in the FAQ that I pointed you to in my last message.

I'll assume that you are using a DVD and not a CD since you skipped by that par of the reply.

Yea, a lot of problems are seen due to high speed burns. I recommend burning any DVD (not just Knoppix but it's particularly important with Knoppix and with important data) at 4X speed. Might not be the issue, but I can give you links to many times that this is what the problem turned out to be. Different media sometimes helps too, as does using erasable media during this testing phase if you have it.

Once you get past those, look at the file knoppix-cheatcodes.txt that came down with the torrent download.

[bigspanner]

I went to download the recommended winMD5sum software from Nullriver and did a compare of the checksum by copying the md5 file "KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso.md5" into the software and did a compare. Unless I am not using the software correctly, I received the feedback "MD5 Checksum is different" when I did a compare.

So, now I am downloading the torrent and using BitTorrent to download the Knoppix files all over again.

By the way, as the ISO is more than 4GB in size, it cannot be a CD but a DVD, isn't it? I am using a DVD and to burn it, I am using the burn feature of PowerISO software.

This time I will burn using low speed of 4x, which I hope my DVD-writer can handle. And yes, this time I will be using DVD-RW format DVD, so even if it does not work, at least I do not waste my DVD.

[Harry Kuhman]

It's unfortunate that you started the download all over again. When a BitTorrent client is restarted, it will check the integrity of what it has and download any bad parts again, repairing the download. The only way that I know of to screw up a BT download is to stop the download when the display reaches 100% rather than let it really complete a few seconds later. There of course may be other ways, or something might go wrong in the download that would be corrected just by restarting the client and let it check the files.

I'm not sure about a Nullriver program, don't think I ever used it. But many programs will work and the choice is a matter of personal preference. With a file as large as the Knopix DVD ISO, some poorly designed programs seem to just "lock up". They are actually computing the md5 sum but show no progress as this happens. I avoid such programs, as I like the comfort of seeing that something is happening when a large file's md5 is computed.

Since your post seems to indicate that you're just not certain about how to use the Nullriver program, I think I would have downloaded and tried another MD5 program before going for the full DVD ISO again. Just that you could do that a lot faster, md5 checksum programs tend to be a meg or less in size, while the ISO is 4 gig +.

I'm not clear on what you did with your md5 test. I'm thinking it really was a bad md5 sum, but I can't be sure from what you wrote. I would suggest playing around a bit with an md5 program, either make a .md5 file from a smaller file and then test the file against it's own .md5 file to get a feel for how your files work, or just use the tool to compute a md5 sum of the iso and then manually compare that md5 checksum against what is in one of the md5 files that you got with the download (both can be opened in any editor, they are simple text files).

Yea, it's a DVD file and it's bigger than 4 gig. That also implies that you better not be saving it on a FAT partition, need a NTFS partition (or a Linux partition or some type file system) that supports files greater than 4 gig. I don't know anything about PowerISO, but it seems that you are burning an ISO file in the proper mode, since you got it to boot into Linux at all.

Your burner should certainly do 4X. In fact with RW media it likely will insist on that or a slower speed. The important thing here is to not burn at high speeds, which increase the error rates on the discs and cause known booting problems.

[bigspanner]

Let's see if I got you correctly or not. i still am keeping the original downloaded Knoppix software even though I am downloading it again now.
I will use the original Knoppix to check if the checksum is correct or not. I think I did the md5 test wrongly after reading your post.

I took your advice and did the following again.

1. Opened the winMD5sum software.
2. Copy the KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso file into this software and let it run.
3. It took awhile to run and like you said, it did not show any visible sign of crunching the checksum but it did the job finally.
4. Checksum shown is 4ccda04355e63d1485072f8906465168
5. Next, I opened up the file "KNOPPIX_V5.3.1DVD-2008-03-26-EN.iso.md5" using DAMN NFO Viewer and read the Checksum in the text file.
6. It shows 4ccda04355e63d1485072f8906465168
7. So, will I be right to conclude that the checksum is correct and that my original download is not corrupted?

If it is not corrupted, then I will proceed to burn into a DVD-RW at low speed this time round.
Once I have done that, I will test it by booting on another PC which I have.

Hope to catch up with you again when I post my result here as your help so far has been most generous and useful. Thanks!!!

[Harry Kuhman]

7. So, will I be right to conclude that the checksum is correct and that my original download is not corrupted?

When the md5 matches you are assured that the file is good.

[bigspanner]

Got it.
I am now burning Knoppix into my DVD-RW disk and at 4 x speed (600kb/s), it is taking a very long time.
With Knoppix at a size of 4.4Gb, it means roughly 4.4 x 1,000Mb x 1,000Kb = 4,400,000Kb.
So, 4,400,000/600Kb = 7,333s = 122min = 2 hours, to burn the DVD.

Then I will test it on my PC. Hope it works this time. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
I do intend to switch to Linux once I get a hang of it. I have been hearing loads about Linux but this is the first time
I am doing something concrete about it.

[bigspanner]

Alright, an update of what I did thus far.

I successfully burned the Knoppix DVD using Nero Express - Ahead.
It was burned at 2x speed, at specified 2700Kb/s thereabout. It was pretty fast.
It takes some learning using the Nero software, as there are different options available. However, it tells you what speed you should burn the DVD, which is a good thing.

With the Knoppix DVD, I tried it on one of my PCs. It did not work even after a couple of tries. Sometimes, it does not detect there is the Knoppix DVD in the drive, and sometimes it can access the DVD to boot up but the following error message is seen:

Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to busydrop shell.
Press reset button to quit.
/static/ash: can't access tty:job control turned off.
/#

I tried the same Knoppix DVD on another PC, and it boot up successfully. So, I knew it could not be the fault of the DVD burning. It must be something to do with my own hardware. However, looking at F2 or F3 of the various commands of knoppix do not hlep me very much, as the commands are alien to me and it takes sometime to understand what the commands do as the documentation is brief. Here, I mean the cheat-codes too.

So, I went into the bios of the PC that was not booting or not booting properly and disabled two things in my bios configuration.
One, I disabled "booting from other devices". Two, I disabled "floppy booting". Even though I had set the booting sequence for boot from my two DVD drives which my PC has and then boot from Hard Disk, then Floppy drive, my guess is that the sensitivity of my DVD drive where the Knoppix DVD is must be retarded and so my PC will finally move down the sequence to boot through my Hard Disk or Floppy. By the way, my Hard Disk cannot be booted as my existing O/S is corrupted.

After that configuration change, my dos prompt will ask me to put in a system disk and press return. What I did then is to press return and wala!...my PC will detect my Knoppix DVD and boot up like smooth silk.

One question I had though, after playing and fiddling with the various software and browsers like Epiphany, Iceweasel, Konqueror, etc....I do not seem to be able to copy, move or delete any files from my existing file-system. Any way I can do so? Please help!