Solution: Very simple HD installation with cloop on VFAT par

I don't know if this have been bought up before but in our LUG we were discussing a way to install KNOPPIX, in such as easy way that my mother could find out how to do it.

By looking at the miniroot.gz on the boot.img, we found linuxrc (placed in the root) was looking at all drives for a subdir called /KNOPPIX/

The normal behavior is that it is found on the cdrom, but it could also be on /dev/hda1.

You must have vfat or ext2 on your harddrive:
1. Boot up in Microsoft Windows
2. Open "My Computer"
3. Open cdrom "KNOPPIX"
4. Click right mouse button on subdir KNOPPIX and choose "copy"
5. Click back to "My Computer"
6. Click right mouse button on C: and choose "insert"
7. Make a boot floppy disk and keep the floppy in drive
8. Eject cdrom and reboot

I have a page here about it with pictures (in danish, sorry):
http://tyge.sslug.dk/knoppix/hdsimpel/

It's already in the docs section. Nice to see you figured it out on your own though.

I went one step further using lilo and don't need the floppy. Was tamped to try to put it on NTFS(with proper changes to miniroot.gz) but being occupied now building a custom kernel.

BTW, booting in this way, hda1(c:\) will become read only. I changed the code in linuxrc to make it read write.

I'm curious, what exactly is the point of installing this way? I found that installing knoppix with hd-install is mind numbingly simple. Much simpler in my opinion than even installing windows on new machine. The only remotely complicated section is the formatting of the partitions, but that's realy NOT hard if you know what you are doing OR have even remotely descent directions.

For me, because I use a notebook which only has a 10G harddisk. HD install means seperate partition and the size is much larger(if I am not mistaken, the compressed CD would be expanded to full size).

Using this approach, I just put a 700M file on my VFAT(or may be NTFS) and can switch to a newer version by replacing this single file. Should I need the space(when I am in window), I just delete it.

BTW, you find it simpler than installing windows is that installing KNOPPIX on harddisk is technically 'clone' a system onto an existing machine which many corporation does the same in windows, which is much easier than a fresh install.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by garyng

I went one step further using lilo and don't need the floppy. Was tamped to try to put it on NTFS(with proper changes to miniroot.gz) but being occupied now building a custom kernel.

BTW, booting in this way, hda1(c:\) will become read only. I changed the code in linuxrc to make it read write.

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That may be one way out of my portable that does not have floppy but can you not use lilo ... can you start up winxp and boot to a dos :-) command batch and then start linux from there ... or if you must lilo, how can you set it up under winxp and dual boot to a /knoppix under windows.

Further how do you change the code in linuxrc to deal with the rw issues? (I run winxp with fat32 and not ntfs and perhaps easier choice).

Thanks for any advice first.

Well, my machine Dell Inspiron 2500 notebook comes with ME as stocked OS so I cannot boot to DOS and use loadlin, that is the reason I have to use LILO. I have documented my steps to trio boot XP/ME/KNOPPIX under the HDD install forum. You may try to search there. It is not very difficult but you just have to be careful. The first time I did it, I screw up the MBR and need to reinstall everything.

As for changes to linuxrc, it is done this way :

1. get into the boot.img and extract the vmlinuz and miniroot.gz file(there is a FAQ on this site under DOC) and put them on your c:\(or /dev/hda1)

2. gzip -d miniroot.gz
3. mount through loopback driver to the miniroot file(it is effectively a EXT2 system on a file)
4. modify the linuxrc script file and change the line that mount the device(cd-rom in the script, easy to find if you have some scripting experience) from "ro" to "rw"
5. gzip miniroot.gz

now setup lilo as normal

"...¿3. mount through loopback driver to the miniroot file(it is effectively a EXT2 system on a file)... ?"

exactly how please?
thanks

************************************************** ********

DOS with winxp and winme (to use loadlin from HD)

If win is installed over a win98 partition then it is possible to boot into winxp or DOS at boot time

boot.ini example


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="C:\ Win98 DOS"


There is a patch to apply winme in order to be able booting into DOS


http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oscar

"...¿3. mount through loopback driver to the miniroot file(it is effectively a EXT2 system on a file)... ?"

exactly how please?

thanks

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autoanswer :lol:


| 56: # cp /mnt/anyfile/miniroot.gz /tmp
| 57: # gzip -d /tmp/miniroot.gz
| 58: # mount -t ext2 -o loop /tmp/miniroot.img /mounting_point
| 60:
| 61:
| 62:
| 63:
| 64:after the edition of linuxrc
| 66:
| 67: # umount /mounting_point* * * * * * * *-> umounts miniroot
| 68: # gzip /tmp/miniroot.img * * * * * -> recompresses miniroot

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stephen

It's already in the docs section. Nice to see you figured it out on your own though.

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Does anyone know if this works with a NTFS filesystem? I followed the HdBasedHowTo instructions but the boot floppy can't find the c:\knoppix\knoppix file and boots to a minimal command prompt. Anybody have any suggestions on how to fix this problem? If I use the cd to boot everything works great.

One more small question, if you use a floppy boot disk are you still able to load or save your configuration to a different floppy?

:?: