Knoppix (3.4) won't boot - stuck at "Penguin" scre

[Download-This]

I'm having trouble booting into Knoppix from my cdrom drive.

I set my cdrom as the first bootable device. I restart with the cd in the drive. I get to the main Knoppix screen (with the logo and message telling me to hit enter to boot, etc..). I hit enter.
The next screen I see has the linux penguin in the top left hand corner. (i've seen this screen before. This is where it detects my hardware, etc..).

Except, the screen stays completely blank (except for the penguin). Nothing happens. My cdrom stops spinning. Its just stick there with a little blinking cursor.

I have 2 cdrom drives. In the bios, i have tried to boot first from each one (still no luck).

I have even disabled my harddrives so that the *only* thing that boots is my cdrom drive.
Same thing. Keeps getting stuck at the penguin.

My hardware configuration:
Asus A7V8X-X motherboard
Athlon XP 2600+
1GB Crucial RAM
ATI 9200 Vid Card
Promise HDD Controller (i'm not using RAID. I'm just utilizing the "extra" 2 IDE ports).

The way my drives are setup:


*Main HDD IDE Port on Motherboard*
HDD 1 (system)
HDD 2 (data)


*Main CD IDE Port on Motherboard*
CDR/DVD
DVDR

*Promise HDD Contronller - Card is in a PCI Slot*
HDD 3 (data)
HDD 4 (data)


When my computer boots, it recognizes my 4 drives in this order:

Primary Master - HDD 1 (system)
Primary Slave - HDD 2 (data)
Secondary Master - CDR/DVD
Secondary Slave - DVDR

It then goes to my HDD Controller and detects my 2 additional drives.

At this point, it either boots to windows, or to the Knoppix CD (which is what it is currently set to do).

Knoppix logo screen...
penguin....
thats it. Stuck at the penguin.


I am using the latest version of Knoppix "KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso" (i have verified the MD5 hash and it checks out).

I've also used the previous release: "KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-10-EN.iso". Still doesn't boot.

Has anyone come across this?
Thanks.

[turbinater]

First try this as a boot option:

knoppix nodma

If that doesn't work try a different cd-drive.

[Roble]

Something similar is happening to me :

I downloaded Knoppix 3.4 Release 2004-05-17 (KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso) via FTP, checked the md5sum and compared it with the official sum (it matches) and burned the ISO succesfully to a CD-R.

I also changed the BIOS of my PC, so that it boots first from the CD-ROM.

However, the boot process (from CD) fails in the following manner:
The Knoppix startup screen (where you can enter boot options and cheat codes) shows up, then, the startup of the Linux Kernel begins, and the message "Welcome to the KNOPPIX live Linux-on-CD!" appears. BUT there the computer freezes, nothing else happens, even after 30 min. waiting time.

I already tried using the "failsafe" option, all "no-" parameters, "atapicd", "testcd", "vga=normal", "knoppix-txt" and even the 2.6 kernel. Everytime the computer freezes at the same spot.

When using the "failsafe" option and the kernel 2.4, I noticed that the process list contained the following two message lines:


kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno=2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno=2


(These two lines do NOT appear when using "failsafe" and kernel 2.6 - the computer however freezes just the same)

I am using a machine with Intel Celeron 533MHz, 312Mb SDRAM, Quantum Fireball ATA HDD, CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device (on board), ATAPI CDROM 48X, HSP56 MicroModem (on board) and AMIBIOS 1996 Release 04/05/2000s

I have no idea how to fix this, so any ideas will be welcome.

With regards,

Roble

[kuser123]

You may have interrupt routing problems.
The APIC driver sometimes makes problems. So try the option "noapic" at boot. If this doesn't help try this:
1) Flash the BIOS if a newer is available. It may have bugs...
2) Clear the CMOS & reset ESCD
3) Try Knoppix again
Good luck!

[webjedi]

I have pretty much the same set up as the original poster but not the Promise card. Same thing happens to me - starts up fine on first screen. The next screen starts with the penguin in the top corner and then nothing else. Penguin stays there and nothing happens.

The CD doesn't spin at all. Tried both CDs (one actually DVD, one a CD-RW). Tried numerous combinations of various cheat codes (all no-, failsafe, atapicd, etc, etc).

CD is fine as I successfully used it on another box.

(Maybe not odd to others, but is to me) is that the CD doesn't spin. I've had problems installing Knoppix before due to CD issues (need to use atapcid) but noticed the CD issue always showed up the third or fourth line down - after the CD was already spinning away. I don't understand why the CD won't even start the spin after the first screen.

Any ideas??

[BillS]

I had same promlem when testing for AMD compatability. The 'noapic' didn't help; but turning off the APIC in the motherboard BIOS did the trick. Mine was an ASUS MB with an AMD 1800+ processor.

BillS

[webjedi]

I had same promlem when testing for AMD compatability. The 'noapic' didn't help; but turning off the APIC in the motherboard BIOS did the trick. Mine was an ASUS MB with an AMD 1800+ processor.

Thanks for the info, but no luck. I can get Knoppix running on every machine - except the one I really want to use it on