Booting Either Kernel With Loadlin.exe in 3.7 and earlier

Hi Knoppixers,

I know this has been asked and I have not seen an answer so I delved it into it since I am now using Loadlin with my 3.7 full HD install. This tip should apply to anyone using a version of Knoppix that uses two kernels. I think 3.7 was the last.

The question is "How in the heck do you use Loadlin to boot to the 2.6 kernel?" Booting to the 2.4 kernel is easy. But getting the 2.6 kernel to boot is not.

First you do the obvious thing. You create a separate directory for the 2.6 files. Let's call it:

/dev/hda5/Kn26. Or whatever you want depending on your system.

This is essential. You will soon see why. Copy linux26 and minirt26.gz of course. Copy your Loadlin.exe AND as you may know you also need a "vmlinuz" to be in that directory too. That's the rub. As it stands the vmlinuz file will not work here to boot you into 2.6.

And why not?

If you go to the Boot directory of Knoppix and look at the vmlinuz file and click on properties with the SuperUser File manager you will discover that it is actually a LINK! It links to:

vmlinuz-2.4.27. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's linking to the 2.4 kernel so no matter what you do you will always get the 2.4 kernel when you boot. An AH-HAh moment. Right?

The trick is to create a new vmlinuz link from the vmlinuz-2.6.9 file. You can do this in GUI mode with the file manager. That's how I did it.

There are probably lots of ways to do this.

I created a link called "vmlinux" (not vmlinuz) from the vmlinuz-2.6.9 in the same directory. That's because you can't have two vmlinuz files there, so I named it something different. Then I copied this file to another location.

(You may need to set permissions to do this)

I simply copied it to my zip drive where permissions were not an issue. Once on the zip drive I renamed it vmlinuz like it should be. Then I copied it to the /dev/hda5/Kn26 I created. Now I have a valid link to the vmlinuz-2.6.9 file in the boot directory. That's the trick.

Now you can create your Loadlin batch file and start adding whatever cheatcodes you may need.

My Knoppix install is on /dev/hda3 so my boot line looks like this in part:

Loadlin vmlinuz linux26 minirt26.gz fromhd=/dev/hda3

Add cheat codes as necessary.

(All that said, on my own computer I'm still wrestling with what cheatcodes I need with the 2.6 kernel.) :-)

Good luck!

sakiZ