First impressions of Knoppix 3.8 (CeBit Edition)

**eco2geek** · 03-19-2005, 10:23 AM

OMG, with a persistent home, you can use apt-get!

(Thanks to the magic of Unionfs and the wizardry of Klaus Knopper.)

After creating a 300MB persistent home on hda2, then rerunning Knoppix using the cheatcodes

knoppix lang=us keyboard=us home=/mnt/hda2/knoppix.img

Knoppix brought up a new (to me) ncurses-based dialog box warning of the danger of scripts that can be run from it. It asked if I really wanted to use that image. It said, these capabilities can be selected separately; check the boxes if you want to

"Mount persistent Knoppix-Homedirectory"
"Add as persistent, writable system area"
"Overwrite/update stored system configuration in image"
"Start INIT-bootscripts (network, printer etc.)"

It waits 20 seconds, and if you don't choose "OK" (the default is "Cancel"), it continues booting without mounting the persistent home. Also, it has options 1, 2, and 4 checked by default. Apparently if you don't check off option 3, though, you can't use apt-get (I ended up hanging the system and having to run fsck on "knoppix.img" the first time because I tried to install something but hadn't checked off option 3).

After it mounted the persistent home image, it displayed the message

>> Read-only CD/DVD system successfully merged with read-write /mnt/hda2/knoppix.img.

The image file now contains much more than just /home/knoppix.

You can now use "apt-get update" and "apt-get install <packagename>", etc. as root.

In a word, wow.

**Cuddles** · 03-20-2005, 07:33 PM

Sweet Eco2Geek,

Another point for the "Linux" side

Just as a side note, another point to Linux for having a 64bit OS before Windows can come up with one...
( as a matter of fact, from what I heard, Linux had a OS for the AMD 64 bit processor before the processor ever even hit the market - I think the distro was Suse. )

I think "linux", as-a-whole, has proven that it will not only be around for a long time, but, that, it is "really" going to go more places than where "Microsoft" may ever tread, imho.

The "talent" behind Linux, is, constantly, proving that they are extremely talented - and as, we, the users of that talent, may find, it has a lot more than what "we" could ever have imagined.

A day doesnt go by, that I am not intrigued, and flabergasted, by what Linux is, and has been, all this time. I kind of think of it like a "never-ending Christmas present", that, when you think you have gotten everything out of the box, you find, that more and more, are still in it.

The "gift" that keeps on "giving"

Ms. Cuddles

**nishtya** · 03-22-2005, 01:57 AM

Hiya Cuddles!

As for *nix's native 64-bit support I believe it precedes what we know as linux. Solaris (no?) was/is a 64bit environment. As was HP's True(64?).

I am not sure about Linux's 64 bit entry being SUSE (close - maybe Redhat who I don't care for and call the Linuxofthenorthpole- Bill Gate's next purchase if you ask me)

I was close to building a an AMD64 just two weeks ago. Have since been given notice on my temp job and happy to be with my crappola little XP1500 (yeah, he is getting a bit sluggish but I don't have any options at present, and hey, OO is still 32bit, isn't it?)

**jackashe** · 03-23-2005, 03:56 PM

Hi eco2geek,

I really want to be able to do what you posted about. Thanks so much for all the information you gave so far.
I have a few questions I was hoping you could answer. When you said you created a persistem home on hda2, I assume this is the file called knoppix.img. Is that a file on your drive, or is it its own partition? Because I have a 18 gig hard drive but it is one big NTFS partition and I don't think I can resize it w/o some advanced tools (because linux cannot yet deal with NTFS, right?). I want to make a persistent home and be able to use apt-get and all that jazz with unionFS. I guess if the knoppix.img were just a file then you would not have said it was 300MB. Thanks for helping!!!

**UnderScore** · 03-23-2005, 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by jackashe

I don't think I can resize it w/o some advanced tools (because linux cannot yet deal with NTFS, right?)

I can't help you with the persistant home because I have never ever done a persistant home. But I can help you with resizing NTFS.

Before you view my post you will need to know two key warnings:
1.) Partitioning & resizing ALWAYS has a risk of losing data regardless of operating system or filesystem.
2.) Always backup ALL important data to separate media (a different HD, CDRs, DVDs, a network share on another PC) before attempting to install an OS or partition a HD.

That said, see my post here http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=72540#72540 where I resize an NTFS Windows XP-SP2 partition with Knoppix using qtparted. I would suggest that you defragment the NTFS C: drive before attempting to resize it.
I hope this helps.
James

**eco2geek** · 03-24-2005, 10:31 AM

back´-up, noun
1a. A copy of computer data on storage media, which can be restored in case of system failure.
1b. That which everyone recommends, but hardly anyone does.

QTParted can resize NTFS partitions. Make a backup, though, just in case something bad happens.

If you don't intend to install Linux, you could create a FAT32 partition at the end of your NTFS partition. Knoppix can create a persistent home image on a FAT32 partition just fine, and you could still use the rest of the partition's space from within Windows (something you can't do if you format it as ext2/ext3).

More notes about Knoppix 3.8:
- In previous versions of Knoppix (e.g. 3.3 and 3.4), you'd use a cheatcode similar to home=/dev/hda2/knoppix.img, but in 3.8 you have to use mnt instead of dev.

- Persistent home works fine off of a USB thumbdrive ("home=/mnt/uba1/knoppix.img")

- Knoppix 3.8 is having problems unmounting the persistent home partition cleanly and shutting down on the two computers I've tried it with. Leads to a few inode errors on the next boot.

**jackashe** · 03-24-2005, 03:58 PM

thanks for all your help guys!
I just resized my partition and rebooted into windows to make sure it worked. and just as UnderScore said I got the blue screen for CHKDSK and it analyzed everything and rebooted and then windows was ok.
I was only able to resize it a little. I guess windows always puts *some* data near the end of the partition, because I am only using about 3 gigs of the 18 in windows, but qtparted thought that ~17 gigs were used. so I made a 1 gig ext3 and a 300 meg swap. maybe I'll change it to FAT32 now that I read eco2geek's post.
Thanks for the warning about unclean unmount of the persistent home. I can deal with some inode errors and know that it isn't because I did something bad every time.

One funny thing is when I created the ext3 partition, qtparted output to the terminal:
"This ext2 filesystem has a strange layout! I cannot resize it yet."

I guess that is because it was ext3. in any case, I am going to try rebooting now and making a persistent home on the new partition!

In regards to backing up... this is my work PC so I can't really back anything up. if windows had decided it would not boot with the resized partition, I guess I would have tried to undo the resize, and if that failed I'd tell the computer management ppl at work that my PC crashed and they would have redone everything..... so I could try again!! hahahaha. Linux rocks.

**jackashe** · 03-24-2005, 04:19 PM

ok, I am dumb. I found it in KNOPPIX => CONFIGURE => Create a Persistant KNOIPPIX image

**drb** · 03-25-2005, 11:03 AM

* "Mount persistent Knoppix-Homedirectory"
* "Add as persistent, writable system area"
* "Overwrite/update stored system configuration in image"
* "Start INIT-bootscripts (network, printer etc.)"

How do you select option 3? I can 'cursor' to the position but not managed a keystroke to check it?

drb