No bootprompt

[RossBoylan]

I have tried Knoppix 5.1 CD and Damn Small Linux 4.4.1, but I never get to the system boot prompt.
System is an old Dell Dimension with a Pentium 100 processor; I have set it to boot from CD. It boots windows, and can read the CDs from Windows. Only 64M of RAM.

It has a network card (intel?) and I have a DHCP server running; it shows no sign of getting requests when I boot. Video is a Number 9 card.

My interest is in using the machine as an X terminal.

I saw the FAQ saying that some Dell systems had problems booting after running Knoppix. Although that is not my problem, I tried the suggested fix of unplugging for a few seconds. It didn't help.

Any ideas?

[Harry Kuhman]

I have tried Knoppix 5.1 CD and Damn Small Linux 4.4.1, but I never get to the system boot prompt....
Any ideas?
Thats a pretty minimal system for current versions of Knoppix, may be a bit memory hungry and very likely will need a swap partition or swap file, but you should certainly get to a boot prompt (the Linux kernel isn't even loaded at that point). If you can't get that far I would question if the disc is any good, was the md5 checksum confirmed? Was the disc burnt at low speed? Do you know how to burn an ISO file properly as an image? If the answer to all 3 of these questions is yes then I would suggest trying another disc, this time using a CD-RW to change the read gain of the disc drive during booting. If you can't say yet to all 3, follow the documentation link near the top of this page and read the downloading faq.

Just what do you see when you try to boot the Knoppix disc if you don't get a boot prompt? Too much information is better than too little at this point.

[RossBoylan]

I just ran md5sum /dev/hda and got the same answer as the one on the download site for DSL.
Also, I would have to have burned 2 bad disks if that were the problem.
I did not burn at low speed; I used the k3b defaults for burning an image.

I don't have any CD RW disks.

The screen shows the usual BIOS check messages identifying hardware devices. It then scrolls up a bit and sits there. Initially there is a lot of whirring; I'm not sure from what, since after the start the access light for the CD drive is off.

[RossBoylan]

I was able to boot off an old (linux 2.2) rescue diskette.
I was not able to boot (that is, didn't get the boot prompt) a CD with a 2.4 based Debian installer.

Using an old Linux boot disk I saw messages the system was uncompressing, and then the machine restarted.

[Harry Kuhman]

I just ran md5sum /dev/hda and got the same answer as the one on the download site for DSL.
I'm not at all concerned about the md5 of hda or hda1, I'm concerned about if the md5 for the ISO file matches the published md5 for the ISO file. I wasn't too concerned about DSl either, it's pretty old and out of date. Since this is a Knoppix forum I was talking about the Knoppix disc.

However, if the disc that you made (that you seem to call hda) matches the md5 that was published for an ISO file, then I can assure you that you are burning the ISO file improperly. The disc produced by properly burning an ISO to a disc will have a completely different md5 than the ISO file itself.


Also, I would have to have burned 2 bad disks if that were the problem.
I did not burn at low speed; I used the k3b defaults for burning an image.
Yup, I've seen people download the Knoppix ISO and burn a lot more than 2 CDs, only to find out that the ISO they downloaded was bad and was never going to make a good CD. As for using the default settings, what can I say? We have seen over and over again that high speed ISO file burns are marginal, might boot, very often do not or give strange errors (or when they do boot take a lot longer to boot than expected due to repeated rereading of the disc). Burn speed is important.


I don't have any CD RW disks.
That's a shame, I would suggest buying a few, for cases like this. And quite frankly if you plan on working with Live Linux CDs they can be a handy way to test different distros, or keep your Linux distros of choice up to date without a lot of waste. Still, if you don't care about how many discs you go through then you shouldn't need CD-RW. Knoppix certainly does not require CD-RW.


The screen shows the usual BIOS check messages identifying hardware devices. It then scrolls up a bit and sits there. Initially there is a lot of whirring; I'm not sure from what, since after the start the access light for the CD drive is off.
Well, at least it sounds like it's looking at the CD drive.

What you didn't respond to all al is if you know how to burn an ISO file properly. I'm thinking that you don't and you may just be copying the ISO file to the CD. I suggest following the documentation link near the top of this page and reading the downloading faq for details.

[OErjan]

knoppix needs at LEAST 64-128M ram to even boot to command line.

[RossBoylan]

I just ran md5sum /dev/hda and got the same answer as the one on the download site for DSL.
I'm not at all concerned about the md5 of hda or hda1, I'm concerned about if the md5 for the ISO file matches the published md5 for the ISO file. I wasn't too concerned about DSl either, it's pretty old and out of date. Since this is a Knoppix forum I was talking about the Knoppix disc.

However, if the disc that you made (that you seem to call hda) matches the md5 that was published for an ISO file, then I can assure you that you are burning the ISO file improperly. The disc produced by properly burning an ISO to a disc will have a completely different md5 than the ISO file itself.
How should I check the disk? hda is the CD drive. I assume that checking the disk image I downloaded is inadequate, because it might have been burned wrong. It does have the right md5sum too.


Also, I would have to have burned 2 bad disks if that were the problem.
I did not burn at low speed; I used the k3b defaults for burning an image.

Yup, I've seen people download the Knoppix ISO and burn a lot more than 2 CDs, only to find out that the ISO they downloaded was bad and was never going to make a good CD. As for using the default settings, what can I say? We have seen over and over again that high speed ISO file burns are marginal, might boot, very often do not or give strange errors (or when they do boot take a lot longer to boot than expected due to repeated rereading of the disc). Burn speed is important.
If the md5sum checks out, is there any point in trying a low-speed burn? Or would a correct md5sum be enough to indicate the disk was OK?



I don't have any CD RW disks.

That's a shame, I would suggest buying a few, for cases like this. And quite frankly if you plan on working with Live Linux CDs they can be a handy way to test different distros, or keep your Linux distros of choice up to date without a lot of waste. Still, if you don't care about how many discs you go through then you shouldn't need CD-RW. Knoppix certainly does not require CD-RW.
I might do that, but I'm hoping for immediate gratification :)
....


What you didn't respond to all al is if you know how to burn an ISO file properly. I'm thinking that you don't and you may just be copying the ISO file to the CD. I suggest following the documentation link near the top of this page and reading the downloading faq for details.
I used the k3b "Burn CD image" project and selected the ISO file. While this doesn't represent any deep knowledge, I think it's the way to go. I've used the DVD image analogue repeatedly.

[RossBoylan]

sadly most pentium 1 systems can NOT boot from a CD or DVD, only from hdd or floppy, I think that is the simple answer, also knoppix needs at LEAST 64-128M ram to even boot to command line.
I don't think the BIOS would have an option to boot from CD if it couldn't do it. But perhaps that is now broken, though I have a little trouble imagining how a hardware failure could be confined to the boot from CD functionality. I am also pretty sure I did boot from CD in the past (years ago).

If I got the boot prompt I was going to try knoppix 2 to keep the system in text mode. But clearly I will need to run an X server at some point, and 64M is less than the 96M said to be necessary for graphics in the docs. My hope is that, since I'm only running the server and not any applications, it will fit.

[Harry Kuhman]

...I used the k3b "Burn CD image" project and selected the ISO file. While this doesn't represent any deep knowledge, I think it's the way to go. I've used the DVD image analogue repeatedly.

I have not burnt an ISO with k3b, so I don't know what's happening here for sure. If you just put the burnt disc into a drive and look at it while another operating system is running, what do you see? If it's one big ISO file then the disc isn't right. If you see a file system with multiple files in it then it may be burnt properly.

What more can I say about the importance of burn speed? If your disc is otherwise burnt properly then it is extremely important to burn it at slow speed. Of course, a slow speed burn doesn't fix other issues, like a bad md5 checksum or just copying the ISO to a disc. It is important to do the md5 test to the iso file before the burn, that's the file the md5 checks and it tells you if the file is uncorrupted as received. While there is a disktest option for testing a burnt disc (which also uses md5 sums), I have never even heard of anyone doing an md5 test on the burnt CD with the downloaded md5 file.

[RossBoylan]

...I used the k3b "Burn CD image" project and selected the ISO file. While this doesn't represent any deep knowledge, I think it's the way to go. I've used the DVD image analogue repeatedly.

I have not burnt an ISO with k3b, so I don't know what's happening here for sure. If you just put the burnt disc into a drive and look at it while another operating system is running, what do you see? If it's one big ISO file then the disc isn't right. If you see a file system with multiple files in it then it may be burnt properly.
I see a file system.


What more can I say about the importance of burn speed? If your disc is otherwise burnt properly then it is extremely important to burn it at slow speed. Of course, a slow speed burn doesn't fix other issues, like a bad md5 checksum or just copying the ISO to a disc. It is important to do the md5 test to the iso file before the burn, that's the file the md5 checks and it tells you if the file is uncorrupted as received. While there is a disktest option for testing a burnt disc (which also uses md5 sums), I have never even heard of anyone doing an md5 test on the burnt CD with the downloaded md5 file.
I think you are saying that a disc burned at low speed may work when one at higher speeds fails, even if both appear to be bit-identical. Am I understanding you correctly?

[Harry Kuhman]

I see a file system.
That is good.


I think you are saying that a disc burned at low speed may work when one at higher speeds fails, even if both appear to be bit-identical. Am I understanding you correctly?
Yes.

[RossBoylan]

I tried inserting the Windows NT (4) CD and it did not boot. So I think the computer just isn't booting off of CD.

I also tried burning at lower speed (x4 was the lowest option, which seems odd); it didn't help.

I guess I need to make a boot floppy that will let me PXE boot.

Thanks everyone for your help.

[Harry Kuhman]

I tried inserting the Windows NT (4) CD and it did not boot. So I think the computer just isn't booting off of CD. ....

I guess I need to make a boot floppy that will let me PXE boot.
Well, it's old enough that there might be a CD booting issue. Is there an option in the BIOS to have the CD in the boot order? If not that's certainly a problem. If there is and it's enabled it still might be the issue, as some BOISes around this vintage just didn't get it quite right. One fix is to use a boot manager to boot the CD; I've done this on old systems that didn't even have the CD listed as a bootable device in the BIOS. Works good.

I can suggest two choices, but the FAQ that I keep referring to gives them also, so I guess there is no point in duplicating that information here. I think this would be a far better way to get things going than to try to get PXE and a PXE server working.

[OErjan]

the cd boot option worked for only a limited set of CD's mainly recovery disks with proprietary file system and boot procedure... they where %&%/() unreliable even then.

[RossBoylan]

One fix is to use a boot manager to boot the CD; I've done this on old systems that didn't even have the CD listed as a bootable device in the BIOS. Works good.

I can suggest two choices, but the FAQ that I keep referring to gives them also, so I guess there is no point in duplicating that information here. I think this would be a far better way to get things going than to try to get PXE and a PXE server working.
You're right; that's easier. Unfortunately, I tried smart boot and still couldn't get it to boot off the CD. The CD was detected as hdc (I think), which isn't quite what the docs indicated would happen. I got a disk error when I tried to boot it. The atapi controller seems to use 2 pairs of ports; I tried each pair in turn (setting it explcitly), but no luck.

I have got a diskette that does PXE booting on the machine; I still need to figure out what files to hand to it from the server to finish that boot.