Request for username and password after software upgrade!

[labero]

I am trying to remaster Knoppix 5.3.0 in order to upgrade the audio software to be able to listen to most radio stations and to play downloaded audio streams.

That means upgrading most of the software in the "Multimedia" menu option.
I also want to upgrade the webbrowsers in Knoppix to eg. show maps provided as a result of a telephone number search (instead of showing only an empty square).
This often means an upgrade of the flash plug ins.

I have tried the upgrade process in three different surroundings, a "chrooted" source directory in preparation of the remaster, in a hd-install (the Knoppix CD-like option) environment and in a "fromhd" with a "persistent home image" environment.
The same thing happens again and again. This is what happens:
I do the software upgrade from KDE through Synaptic.
When the upgrade is done the programs start as expected.
When I restart Knoppix the problems however arrive.
Upon startup Knoppix now show a light blue display demanding a username and a login password.
I have tried to get around this anticipating the event and issuing a user "knoppix" password (sudo passwd knoppix) and also after the event "chrooting", setting a knoppix password.
When I have done this the light blue screen seems to seriously consider the password, then turn into a black screen with the familiar mouse pointer visible, but then reconsider and turn back to the light blue screen once more demanding a password.
I have not been able to find a way around this. I am also not eager to try issuing more user accounts. The problem does however not affect all upgrades.
I seem to be able to predict the trouble when "cups" functionality is involved. That is, when filenames containing the letter sequence "cups" occur in the upgrade process. When cups is not involved it is possible to restart knoppix without the impossible login demand. That means I am not able to upgrade Konqueror, Amarok, Kaffeine as an example but can upgrade Iceape, Iceweasel, Totem and Mplayer. I have only tried upgrading the audio software and the web browsers. Does anyone has an explanation to this odd behavior and hopefully also a solution.

[labero]

Would be nice to know if anyone at all, even if you do not have a solution, has encountered this kind of problem.

Or if you have upgraded or added software packages of the kind i did without any problem at all.

Seems odd to be the only one in the Knoppix world with this experience.

[hal8000]

I've remastered knoppix 5.1.1 and 5.3.1 following both how-to's on the wiki and have not had this problem.

After running apt-get update

you are advised not to run ad-get dist-upgrade otherwise something will break. I'm not sure what is breaking the
system in your case, but you must be updating too many programs.

Start with the Remastered CD version of knoppix 5.3.1 by alpha systems in Japan. Change the locale to US english
and then follow this how-to from the wiki

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Remaster..._Install_HowTo

The link for the remastered 5.3.1 CD version is on this thread:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117860

look halfway down the thread for the link by maybeway36 the Japanese 5.3.1 version already contains
Kde 3.5.9, openoffice and kernel 2.4.24 in addition to LCAT acceleration and compiz fusion.

You may be able to get by by just installing w32codecs and streamtuner for playback.
Hope that helps.

[labero]

Thanks hal8000 for the respons!
I will look into your suggestion and maybe also use apt-get from the command line not using the Synaptic gui.

The remastering process I experienced most successful is:
1. Start Knoppix from the original DVD with a "tohd" alternative, then creating a persistent knoppix.img.
2. Making the kde changes and other software upgrades in that environment.
3. Creating incremental knoppix.img backups along the way to get a smooth fallback.
4. When satisfied with the changes I do a "sudo knoppix-installer" in a terminal window with the "knoppix like from CD alternative".
5. That install brings along the changes and upgrades to the Hd-install.
6. Without ever starting the the Hd install I there make the etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig changes (language), the /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession changes (add ".config" and delete "{.kde*,Desktop}" and delete the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
7. I then rsync (in the Hd install) /home/knoppix/ with /etc/skel.
8. From this Hd install I make the new master using "mkisofs".
9. If the new compressed Knoppix file gets to big (around 4 Gb) it is split into Knoppix and Knoppix2 (using exclude list and graft points). I believe one may also "mv" out the files intended for KNOPPIX2 if using exclude list and graftpoints gets to "messy". In the case of big files I run the new Knoppix from a DL DVD.
10. I have also experienced that "mkisofs" did not like to work from the reiserfs with the Hd install.
11. In that case I simply created a new source from the Hd install as is done when copying files from the original DVD (according to the remastering WIKI).
12 From the new source I then do the compressing with mkisofs.

It was in step 2 I experienced the problem with upgrading software, that is, in the first orignial environment when no remastering efforts were made.
I upgraded about 4 audio applications, Ice Weasel and Ice Ape and added Mozilla mplayer and Flash plugins for Ice Weasel. That went well. I had to back off any upgrades (order in the upgrading sequence was of no significance) that promised to change (cups functionality - printing I believe) lib*.*- files that contained the letter sequence "cups" or else I got stuck with the Knoppix login prompt. Amarok was such an example, Konqueror another.