Download sends CD drive thrashing after 80mb

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Originally Posted by rollo11

...So downloading and burning CDs is always problematic under standard Knoppix? And there's no fix to make it possible?

This is turning into an ordeal... The problem with net installations is that I have to issue a command to change the MAC address of my ethernet card. This wasn't possible for the net install of Suse. And when I tried a net install of Ubuntu (which is basically Debian, right?) I got an error during the installation ("Permission denied" when trying to run ./debootstrap). I have no idea what I am doing with Debian.

At this point I am just looking for the path of least resistance to a HD-installed Linux. It's in order to keep my sanity. Downloading and burning a user-friendly distro looked like the best idea, but even that turns out impossible...

Thanks for more pointers, I do appreciate you helping me.

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Downloading and burning under Knoppix is not always problematic under Knoppix, but there are issues one must consider. The most obvious is that Knoppix is a Live CD, intended as a way to introduce people to Linux or use as a portable or emergency system. But by it's nature it is normally in the CD drive, so if you try to burn a CD you have an issue if you remove the Knoppix CD. There are ways around this. If you have enough memory then you can use the toram cheat code to copy the entire Knoppix CD to memory (and then the CD can be removed to free up the drive). If you have multiple optical drives this may not be an issue at all. Or if you don't have enough RAM or multiple optical drives you can use another distro that is smaller like the Knoppix based DSL and the toram trick (yes, this doesn't reslove the issue of how to burn a DSL disc if you only have Knoppix). And if downloading and burning any ISO is an issue and you still have a floppy drive then you can even install Debian from the Internet with just a few Floppy disks to get you started. See http://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst

Well I made some progress. Hooray.

Did two things, at least one of which meant I can now download to /mnt/sda3

• * Gave write permission to /mnt/sda3 with a chmod 777 - why didn't Konqueror or Firefox issue a warning if this was the problem?
  * Setup up a generous swap file with the Knoppix app

But the ordeal is not over... I may start a new thread, to keep to the rules.

Thanks for the Toram cheat code hint. And for the latest Debian plug... But you didn't answer my question about whether there is access to a command line in the Debian installer. Because if there isn't then my netcard will not connect, and it will be a non-starter. Thanks again. I'm getting there.

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Originally Posted by rollo11

.....But you didn't answer my question about whether there is access to a command line in the Debian installer. Because if there isn't then my netcard will not connect, and it will be a non-starter. Thanks again. I'm getting there.

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The reason I didn't answer a command line in the installer question is 1) I didn't see it. 2) I don't know, since the installer likes my network and just takes care of everything, but I do remember that quite a while back I did have to do some network configuration on an old installer and it let me do so, although I don't recall the details. and 3) I don't know what you have to do to make your network work. If it's something like manually setting your IP address then I don't expect any problem. If it's to compile and install a special NIC driver then I think you're s.o.l. Considering that the Debian Internet installer is about 8 meg and that you now have the toram magic to let you get at your CD burner (I'm assuming that you have enough RAM and it works for you since you seemed happy about this approach) why not try it rather than keep discussing it? By the way, I don't have enough RAM on any of my systems to use this with Knoppix but just used it with DSL and it worked fantastic.

As described above (it's even pasted into your own post Harry), my network problem is that I have to change the MAC address in order to get a connection. This seems impossible using network install boot CDs.

Well, the next batch of problems is just around the corner, but this one is solved. So thanks again.