editting knoppix image with inside windows

[krazynesphreak]

is there a way i can edit knoppix with inside windows?
thanks
ryan

[UnderScore]

What do you mean?
Do you mean to edit the ISO image file in Windows? You can use a program like WinISO or ISOBuster to edit the ISO image.

Do you mean to remaster a new customized Knoppix CD while running in Windows? As far as I can tell, it would be impossible unless you use a virtual machine like VMWare or QEMU.

[Harry Kuhman]

You can use a program like WinISO or ISOBuster to edit the ISO image.
James,
I have no idea what he was asking either. I know you can use paid programs like ISOMagic and MagicISO (gotta love the originality of the competing names) to edit an iso, but as far as I know I can't edit an ISO with IOSBuster. I've been an long time user and advocate of the program, I think it's great for the many things it does. It's wonderful for extracting files from an ISO, as well as for recovering data from a CD when Windows can't. But if it can edit an iso then I'm really missing something. Can it (the free version) edit an iso and if so how?

And, of course, you can edit an ISO with many of the hex file editors. Of course, this takes a lot of dedication and understanding of what you are trying to do, but it does answer his question.

[UnderScore]

Yeah you're right. ISOBuster is a sweet tool but not a ISO editor. heheh, I forgot about hexediting too. :)

[krazynesphreak]

the "KNOPPIX" file image in the iso is there a way i can edit that with inside windows. so i can remaster it as Harry Kuhman saids. i`m a big fan of linux but i`m to lazy to use it from day to day so live CDs are great but there are a few things i would like on them at my figher tips at boot.
thanks
ryan

[UnderScore]

No. The Knoppix file inside the ISO is its own compressed ISO image. The technical term is compressed loopback or cloop image file. I not heard of any method of opening a cloop file in Windows. This not to say that it could never be done but it would require someone to take the existing e cloop filesystem code and translate that to Windows. See http://am.xs4all.nl/phpwiki/index.php/cloop for more info.

[krazynesphreak]

thanks, what a/b editting when u boot knoppix is there a way to edit the image from inside knoppix or edit another knoppix image from knoppix using a cd-rw. i don`t really what to edit knoppix its self i want to edit DSL (Damn Small Linux) a diffenet version of knoppix but knoppix none the least.
thanks
ryan

[UnderScore]

To "edit" the ISO & making your own Knoppix CD is done through a process called remastering. I wrote a HOWTO document about it called HOWTO: Remaster the easy way using menu based scripts (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13867). There is the wiki based HOWTO http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_Remastering_Howto. There is also an alternative method here http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18222. If you intend to remaster Knoppix then I would recommend that you use Knoppix 3.8.2.

As for remastering DSL, I am not postive that either of those methods will work for DSL. Have you asked around the DSL forums for help with remastering?

I hope this helps.
James

[ilovelinux98]

Actually, I can think of a way that should work. I have not tried it, so please do not attempt it without confirmation by someone else. THIS IS ONLY OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD. I'm assuming you can boot Knoppix, but your only partitions are Windows, at least one of which is FAT32. If all of them are NTFS, then this will not work (insufficient RW support in Linux). I will assume that your Windows partition is /dev/hda1, mounted at /mnt/hda1.

Boot Knoppix and mount your Windows partition RW (under KDE, rightclick the icon and click "Mount read-write".
Open a console.
Execute the following commands (root is required):

dd if=/dev/null of=/mnt/hda1/knoppix_remaster bs=1024 count=3M
mke2fs /mnt/hda1/knoppix_remaster
mkdir /mnt/knoppix_remaster
mount -t ext2 /mnt/hda1/knoppix_remaster /mnt/knoppix_remaster -o loop,rw
cp -pr /KNOPPIX/* /mnt/knoppix_remaster

This should work, and then you can "chroot /mnt/knoppix_remaster" and modify your system. You have to create a permission-supporting filesystem (such as ext2, which is smaller than ext3 or reiserfs) on your hard drive without repartitioning. This filesystem will be stored as a file (knoppix_remaster) on your windows partition, and when mounted, will be available through /mnt/knoppix_remaster from Knoppix. First, let's review what the above commands do (make sure you have no typos, or you could destroy your Windows data):

1. Create a 3-gig file to hold your ext2 filesystem (it must be sufficiently large to hold the largest, uncompressed, your filesystem could become at any point in time during remastering. Give yourself some breathing room, since APT .deb packages can use space if you don't clean them out periodically.
2. Create the ext2 filesystem (journaling takes up space, ext2 supports permissions, is Linux-native, and doesn't journal).
3. Create a directory to mount your temporary Knoppix remaster filesystem.
4. Mount it, loopback, read-write. (loopback is necessary, read-write is if you intend to modify the data (probably)).
5. Copy the KNOPPIX filesystem into that ext2 filesystem recursively, keeping permissions. (These options are necessary.)

Once you're done, just compress the data into a KNOPPIX cloop iso image, like you normally would (outside of the chroot):


mkisofs -R -U -V "KNOPPIX.net filesystem" -publisher "KNOPPIX www.knoppix.net" -hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes -no-bak -pad /mnt/knoppix_remaster | nice -5 /usr/bin/create_compressed_fs - 65536 > /mnt/hda1/KNOPPIX
That was copied from the Knoppix remastering howto, note the 2 changes. If you are using a different command to do it, make sure you apply the two changes to the paths.

If you have to shutdown and return to your work, when you reenter Knoppix, all you will have to do is:

Open a console.
Execute, as root:

mkdir /mnt/knoppix_remaster
mount -t ext2 /mnt/hda1/knoppix_remaster /mnt/knoppix_remaster -o loop,rw
And then you can chroot into that filesystem again. The rest is mostly the same. Again, keep in mind and please do not attempt this unless someone else verifies it, I would hate to be responsible for loss of data on your part. BTW, you should always backup your data before doing something like this. Bye!

[UnderScore]

Your methods & theory sounds like it would work great if he wanted to RUN knoppix. In the original poster's case, he did NOT want to run knoppix. Thus, I fear it is impossible.

[ilovelinux98]

I thought he wanted to remaster Knoppix on a Windows machine without installing Linux, rather than do it under Windows. In that case, I agree. Unless you use qemu (or similar), or maybe cygwin (I don't know too much about it), its impossible (or you could spend hours porting cloop to Windows and using cygwin to chroot into it).

[krazynesphreak]

thanks, i will try it and i will report back and if it dosen`t work then i will guess i will just instill linux. then reson i wanted to use windows to edit the image is b/c i`m to lazy to use it. but it appears to be more work then if i was running linux. LOL
thank u`ll
ryan