I think I've broken it

[terrybull]

I have installed Knoppix 7.2 to the HDD of an old laptop (Pentium 2 mobile CPU @ 300Mhz and 200 Mb ram). All works pretty well considering the low spec. I installed a few things fine then I did a mark all upgrades in synaptic. The upgrade failed and now it's broken and anything I try to install fails. I have trawled the forums and saw reference that you should not try to upgrade the installed packages. What have I done, why shouldn't I have done it and can I fix this. My Linux knowledge is beginner. Many thanks.

[Werner P. Schulz]

.. why shouldn't I have done it and can I fix this.

No, you cannot repair the broken installation.
HD install warning

[terrybull]

I should have read that in the first place. My laptop cannot boot from USB and running from cd is too slow. Knoppix runs really well from the hdd install on this slow system so it is a shame it is not 'suitable'. It runs as well as any distro I have tried which is limited by the limited hardware. Thanks for the answer.

[Werner P. Schulz]

.. so it is a shame it is not 'suitable'.

Knoppix is a Live Linux CD ..

[terrybull]

Why does it have a hdd installer.

[terrybull]

I meant that my laptop is not suitable for running knoppix as I cannot boot from USB. But it does beg the question why is there a hdd installer.

[Werner P. Schulz]

You can do the HW install, but it remains a Live system with all the limitations I've told you. HW install isn't a conjuring trick to change the action of Knoppix.

[utu]

.
Greetings terrybull & Werner.

I have a similar situation where I'd like to do something like a
"poor-man's hdd install" of Knoppix. That is use a Knoppix LiveCD
to perform a Knoppix "Install to FlashDisk" but issuing the hdd descriptor
instead of a usb descriptor when asked.

I would expect this process to proceed to put something on the hdd,
but that perhaps the boot process would need some re-working, there
likely being some differences in booting hdds rather than usbs.

Somehow I expect the persistence process to be workable as well,
since that was part of the essence of the original "poor-man's install"

I was planning to use the following material as a guide to this
endeavor. Have I got something all wrong here or is this a viable
approach? Thanks in advance.

Read "Poor-Man's Install" at:
http://smtp.knoppix.net/wiki/Categor...e_Installation

See also this ref and its variations:
http://g33kgrrl.wordpress.com/2009/0...livepartition/

[utu]

ICPUG has a response to my post #8 at:
http://knoppix.net/forum/showthread.php?31081-Poor-Man-s-Install-of-Latest-Knoppix
--utu

[Werner P. Schulz]

I would expect this process to proceed to put something on the hdd, but that perhaps the boot process would need some re-working, there likely being some differences in booting hdds rather than usbs.

I've described this in the Wiki => Poor man's install and you'll find there how to boot this install with Grub legacy or Grub2.

With this installation method you can install Knoppix for example on a NTFS partition with Windows7 on it or on a ext3 partition with Ubuntu on it. Windows7 or Ubuntu (my examples) will not be damaged by this "Poor man's install" and when your are booting this install for the first time, you'll be asked to create persistent memory (overlay file - not overlay partition).