By making substantial use of KNOPPIX-DATA on a reiserfs formatted /dev/sda3 I have managed to customise KNOPPIX at boot pretty well as preferred.
However: one final (almost trivial) alteration eludes me.
I would like to tweak the boot init executable file which I think is the one that resides in minirt.gz.
Using a temporary ext2 filesystem as my vehicle for managing this:
1) copy minirt.gz to temp and de-compress minirt.gz using gunzip: this yields a file minirt
2) move to a dofferent subdirectory under temp and extract minirt here with the command cpio -idm < {pathto}/minirt
3) the init file is seen here: edit it - (I'm just tweaking the messages sent to screen at boot) - and save it
4) chmod a+x init and chmod a+w init, as originally found
5) wrap the while thing as a revised minirt to a different subdirectory under temp using find . | cpio -o > {newpathto}/minirt
6) compress the new minirt using gzip --recursive --rsyncable (not sure whether either switch is actiually required)
and finally
7) save the old minirt.gz as minirt.orig.gz in case of failure (see below!)
8 ) copy the new minirt.gz to replace the original.
Then reboot, hoping for success.
But actually get failure at boot with the error message:
"kernel panic - not syncing - unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)"
I feel I'm almost there at my ideal customised KNOPPIX, and without the hugely complex time-consuming and likely error-prone process of re-mastering.
Has anybody else tried this easier approach and successfully replaced minirt.gz with their own version?
Thank you for any insight or refined practice for 1-8 above .. ..
Dell Precision 7910 Xeon E5-2623 v3 3.0GHz 32GB RAM 512GB SSD Nvidia GTX 980
$299.00
Matched Pair _ Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 2.3GHz 18-Core 145W LGA2011-3 CPU SR1XD
$74.99
Dell Poweredge R230 Xeon Choose Your v5 v6 CPU & RAM Configuration
$174.99
Intel Xeon Gold 6254 3.1GHz 18 Core 24.75MB 200W 2nd Gen Processor SRF92 MINT
$199.97
Intel Xeon E5-2680 V3 2.50Ghz 12 Core 30MB Cache LGA 2011-3 CPU SR1XP Tested
$5.99
Intel Xeon E5-2667 V2 LGA 2011 3.3GHz 8 Core 130W 25MB 8GT/s CPU Processor
$12.99
Intel Xeon E5-2667 V4 3.20GHz SR2P5 Socket LGA2011 Server CPU
$15.00
Intel Xeon E5-2698v4 SR2JW 2.2GHz 20-Cores 50MB 135W LGA2011-3 CPU Processor
$69.50
Lenovo RS160 Xeon E3-1230 V5 16GB Rack Server – Powerful, Scalable, Reliable
$179.70
Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4 2.2GHz 55MB 22 Core 9.6GT/s 145W CPU Processor SR2JS
$149.99