Dazed and Confused New Old User

[Chuck E]

I know I've got a lot of reading to do but I just need to vent about my frustrations at this point.I've used a Knoppix version 5 something to recover some lost files and more recently was using a version 7.1? on a 16GB flash drive to get some use out of a Dell Latitude D610 laptop that I can't afford to fix properly ($ is an issue in my life).

That version of Knoppix started going weird when the task bar at the bottom of the screen disappeared and was not to be found anywhere. There was some kind of pulsing activity at the bottom of any screen which caused any menu that needed another mouseclick to make a choice disappear. So I saved my documents to a different flash drive and found Knoppix 7.4.2 and tried that out.

I used UNetbootin 1.1.1.1 to get it on the drive and selected a persistent space of 5000 mb even though I'm not sure if this works for Knoppix as usually the first time I run the drive it gives me about 10 seconds to enter an amount for the space I would like for files to be preserved through boots. None of my attempts (I'm up to about 6 now) have been able to make a drive that remembers anything between uses.

I've been using the Universal-USB-Installer 1.9.6.0 for the more recent attempts and still no luck. I'm not a programmer and don''t have a lot of experience editing boot files so I'm looking for a simple solution for this issue. I know I've got a lot of reading to do and it's going to take more than 5 minutes for me to get up to speed.

I'm impressed and confused with the amount of things in this version and can't figure out why I can't see any of the files when I put the drive in a windows machine. I can't figure out why the Xscreensaver keeps telling my at boot that my screen saver (which I disable anyway) is out of date and that where ever I got my "distro" from is doing me a disservice.

At nine hours to download (2 times now) I take it from where I can get it which turned out to be England (I'm in the US).

Another issue I have is that the Synaptic package manager seems to be wonky. I try to update the list of packages and get :

An error occurredThe following details are provided:W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:9D6D8F6BC857C906W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:7638D0442B90D010W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:9D6D8F6BC857C906W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:7638D0442B90D010W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:7638D0442B90D010W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:7638D0442B90D010W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:7638D0442B90D010

After the above messaged is closed and the screen loads again the following message comes up:

An error occurredThe following details are provided:E: The value 'wheezy' is invalid for APT:efault-Release as such a release is not available in the sourcesE: _cache->open() failed, please report.

When that message is closed Synaptic Package manager explodes and will not run again without the wheezy error again.So it's been weeks now that I've been messing with this. On the positive side, with version 7.4.2 I don't have to set the computers time ahead four hours to make it read Eastern Standard Time....


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Little format by mod

[Harry Kuhman]

I can't solve your problems, have been having more and more myself with Knoppix lately and have switched to Linux Mint for a lot of uses. Hopefully someone else will help.

As to the two nine hour downloads, that can depend greatly on your Internet connection and maybe you really need to take 9 hours (I remember when downloading the CD took 24 hours if I was lucky). But I expect that you are not downloading from the torrents which are much faster than from the mirrors and much much more reliable (no reason to ever download the same file from the torrents twice). If you are not using the torrents to download then download a torrent client and start using them, or at least embrace your 9 hour download times and refrain from complaining about them when you could be downloading a lot faster.

One hint on using the torrents. Don't panic when you see an estimate of the download taking even more than 9 hours as the client first starts and abort the download. The client will start slow but then pick up speed. The download time estimates should pick up speed and finally level off. Watch the numbers and ten to fifteen minutes in to the download you'll have a much better idea of how long things are going to take.

Learn to do the checksum test too if you are not doing that. If the md5 checksum matches then don't bother downloading again, your results will not improve.

If you are using the torrents and it is still taking 9 hours, please post back what download speed you are paying for and the name of your ISP. You might have something seriously misconfigured. Or your ISP might be deliberately slowing torrent downloads on you.

[Werner P. Schulz]

Another issue I have is that the Synaptic package manager seems to be wonky.

Have a look at
Debian release changed

See also Documentation → "Hard drive installation" how to install Knoppix.

Either update or purge the screensaver.

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[Chuck E]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions for formatting. I don't use the torrents and I imagine my ISP would throttle me anyway so I don't mind the wait. I'll keep reading and studying or just go back to the other version but this new one has a lot of interesting features that I would prefer if I can get it to remember sessions and my settings. If it's too much trouble I just have to deal with it.

[Harry Kuhman]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions for formatting. I don't use the torrents and I imagine my ISP would throttle me anyway so I don't mind the wait.....

My ISP is pretty evil (AT&T) but they don't throttle me, I download many Linux ISOs in less than an hour. Not sure I remember how long the last Knoppix download took, but if it was more than an hour it was less than two. Of course, along with your speed, this depends on how many people are feeding the torrents, which depends on when that version of Knoppix was released. If you try to get it in the first hour it can take longer (but not that much longer). There are other reasons to use the torrents too, as there is automagic error recovery built in (while it seems like there is automatic corruption built into some of the Knoppix mirrors). You can also stop and restart the download, or even restart after a crash without downloading everything again. Takes five minutes to install a torrent client, and not much more than that to learn to use it. I'll never use the problem prone mirrors again. Just thought that I would mention it since you were complaining about it, but if you refuse to learn new things enjoy the wait.

[Werner P. Schulz]

An easy to use BitTorrent client is "Transmission" (within the Knoppix DVD).

From the Wiki:

Download Knoppix

• Using Torrents

Download the wanted .torrent-file. After this start your Torrent client (for example Transmission) and open the .torrent-file with it.

You can use the standard settings of Transmission. Wait and watch the progress messages. That's all.

[itman007]

Chuck E, your issue with. "An error occurredThe following details are provided:E: The value 'wheezy' is invalid for APT:default-Release as such a release is not available in the sourcesE: _cache->open() failed, please report."
Can be easily resolved by editing the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00knoppix
add the # to the beginning of the line APT:default-Release "wheezy" ; or remove the word wheezy.
All will work fine with synaptic after you have saved this edit.

[Chuck E]

Thanks itman007. I found the file and made the change but get the error "Can't open file to write" when I try to save it. I'm still learning and still haven't found out how to get a persistent overlay going so I don't have to make these changes everytime I boot up. I have been able to get my desktop background file to stay put but have to change it everytime. Until I figure out how to make changes stay (like I said, I'm not a programmer) I'll keep reading. Before long I'll know my wireless password by heart. It's nice to drive a nice car but it's a shame to have to build it and tune it up everytime you want to drive.

[rajibando]

Dear chuck E, Greetings!
You could save your file only if you are the root.
I was puzzled by the bloated writing. Skimmed to find your problem with synaptic and problem with persistent.
I have two posts on these very specific issues. For the first, you may like to find persistent ext4 usb, for the second, new user old image instal remove package.
You may like to follow the contents.

[Chuck E]

Thanks rajibando. I may have fixed the persistent problem on my own. I read somewhere about installing to flash disk and being able to select a persistent space but couldn't figure out how to do that. Then I saw "install to flash"' on my desktop so I installed to another flashdrive and was able to select a space of 6419 mb on a 16 Gig drive installing the DVD iso. It booted up OK but I haven't re=booted yet to see if it worked. As for being the root I still have reading to do. I'll look for your posts, also. Any suggestions on tutorial posts would be helpful. Sorry for the bloated writing as I can get scatterbrained when trying to describe my attempts and try to provide as much info as possible. Thanks to all who replied again.