Am I using home and myconfig wrong?

Hi all,

I got Knoppix configured just the way I want. So I saved both the persistent home and the configuration. The first question is: do I need both, or does the persistent home include all the stuff that is in the configuration?

My second, and more important question is: Does it save the screen resolution that I had set when I was creating the persistent home and configuration?
During the first boot I had to use 'screen=1152x768 hsync=60 vsync=60' cheatcodes in order to get the resolution that I want. If I leave everything on auto, I end up with screen=1024x768 with a *sync=85. Should this stuff be saved in persistent home or configuration?

I am running with Knoppix 5.1.1, but this issue happened to me even with earlier versions.

TIA.

OK, I now have some suspicion that I am definitely using things wrong. I have been playing around with various cheatcodes to try and determine if there is a relationship between the home and myconfig ones.
When I use home=scan myconfig=scan various things stop working, when compared to just home=scan alone. The list of non-functional things (so far) is:
- Starting QTParted, does not start at all! No error, just bouncy cursor for a bit, and then nothing. Most other applications start.
- The search box in Iceweasel, does not work. It just does nothing.
- When unmounting any mounted disk, I an error about /etc being full.
- Moving things to Trash (deleting them) does not work; things are just lost.

Is this some bug or an obscure feature?

I am doing this with 5.1.1CD

I made the same mistake, although there was nothing in O'Reilly's Knoppix Pocket Reference about this. I tried NO myconf, and home=scan. I had previously created a bin under /home/knoppix, and rebooted. It wasn't displayed consequently. When I tried only home=scan, it showed up fine. I also had a number of errors attempting to overwrite firefox subdirectories in my home directory at first, but not with only home=scan.

Also, I had tried home=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img. The persistent home wasn't picked up. When you are successful, you should see a text options screen, indicating that image has been found in /media/sda1.

Let me know if this works for you.

I am now using just home=scan and no myconfig, as that way I can get the most stuff to work. Although today I am having problems getting OOo to start up. :roll:

OK, I just tried OOwriter for the first time in knoppix. It prompted me through registration, and started up ok. I was able to open a spreadsheet from OOo in Windows. Can you tell me exactly what errors(s) you got trying to start OOo? Does anyone else have any ideas?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

Can you tell me exactly what errors(s) you got trying to start OOo?

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That's the thing: no errors, just bouncy cursor for a while (longer than what I would consider normal), and then just nothing.
I am quite certain that it is something I did setting up KDE. I changed like all the window dressing, the taskbar, etc., etc. I just have no idea what I did.
I backed up my whole home (I can post whatever parts you think might be relevant), but I am going back to starting things from scratch.

Unfortunately, I still have no idea what the relationship is between home and myconfig cheatcodes; which was the whole point of my original post. :?: Is the stuff in one included in the other? Is there a point in using both? And most importantly, should the screen= and *sync= cheatcodes be preserved in either home or myconfig?

First, I had trouble with combining myconf and home. When I went to just home, it seems to work ok. I also found one peculiarity with home. You can change the size on your device allocated to the knoppix image, knoppix.img. I tried the whole partition, and then 200M. (it's a 256M Memorex TravelDrive) I could only get it working with the default of 100M. I haven't found a need for myconf once I started using home. I haven't been using screen or the sync cheats myself, so I don't know if they're preserved.

Now about Open Office, why don't you boot knoppix from the cd with no options, then fire up OO. If it's successful, then you may have done something with your configuration. You didn't install knoppix on your hard drive, did you? I can't imagine any changes to KDE that would muck up Open Office.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

Now about Open Office, why don't you boot knoppix from the cd with no options, then fire up OO. If it's successful, then you may have done something with your configuration. You didn't install knoppix on your hard drive, did you? I can't imagine any changes to KDE that would muck up Open Office.

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I definitely messed something up, perhaps unintentionally. I run Knoppix only from the CD, no HD install.
When I boot with no home (or any other cheats) everything is happy. When I boot with home, then things start to fall apart. Like I said OOo does not start up at all (but it certainly does try for a very long time); if I try to run Weasel (whatever the FF replacement is called), then I actually get an error from KDE, something about the KDE launcher not able to find the executable or some such.
I almost suspect an issue with KDE not Knoppix, however, I have no idea how to proceed to figure out what happened.

If you can figure out the changes you made to KDE, then maybe we could get down to what went wrong, and how to undo it. Did you edit the KDE menu entries for OO and Iceweasel?

The command for Iceweasel is 'iceweasel %u'
The command for OOo is 'soffice private:factory/swriter'

I went in to edit Iceweasel and OOo at the same time - bad move! I tried opening OOo and nothing happened. I tried again and it seemed that my machine froze. I rebooted and things were ok. I was able to run both the weasel and office. Try the commands above and let me know what happens.

You wrote:
When I boot with home, then things start to fall apart. Like I said OOo does not start up at all (but it certainly does try for a very long time); if I try to run Weasel (whatever the FF replacement is called), then I actually get an error from KDE, something about the KDE launcher not able to find the executable or some such.
I almost suspect an issue with KDE not Knoppix, however, I have no idea how to proceed to figure out what happened.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

If you can figure out the changes you made to KDE, then maybe we could get down to what went wrong, and how to undo it.

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I played around a lot with the aesthetics: background image, all window dressings, taskbar size, etc. Man, I wish I knew more about KDE internals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

Did you edit the KDE menu entries for OO and Iceweasel?

The command for Iceweasel is 'iceweasel %u'
The command for OOo is 'soffice private:factory/swriter'

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No, those I left completely alone. I did remove some of the buttons from the taskbar, though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

I went in to edit Iceweasel and OOo at the same time - bad move! I tried opening OOo and nothing happened. I tried again and it seemed that my machine froze.

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Got mine to freeze up today too. :roll:

Iceweasel seems to be working fine, today. OOo started up after some struggle, and then it complained that I do not have enough space left in my home!?!? Changing the dressings in KDE, does that take up a lot of space?

Also, when Knoppix boots, right after it tries to "load up" home, it reports a whole bunches of assorted errors. It flashes by too fast, is this logged someplace?

Hey, thanx for all the help. If this is too much hassle, then I have no problem just working around it. If it helps someone fix some bug then I am very glad to do this, but don't waste too much of your personal time on this. :)
Thanx!

This hasn't been a hassle at all for me. I'm learning more about the persistent home and KDE as I go along as well. As you will see below, I've applied some of my unix knowledge (mostly command-line stuff) to this situation.

I get some errors on boot-up as well, right after my persistent home dir is detected, Some inode errors - I'll have to figure out what those mean. The next time I boot, I should print them out, and then google on the error message.

As for the problem with office and space, I guess it would depend on how much you've added to your persistent home and config. I believe I know how to determine how much space you are using! There is a command-line command called
du for disk usage.

Click the K icon, System -> Shells -> Bash. This will start up a terminal screen using Bash (Bourne Again SHell). Enter the following command.
du -bc /home/knoppix

The last line gives the number of bytes your home directory uses. Mine is currently ~ 70M, giving me about 30M left to play with.

If you pipe the above through a pipe, as below:
du -bc /home/knoppix | less

the (massive) output will pause at each screenful, so you can actually see what your disk hogs are.

cheers!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

This hasn't been a hassle at all for me. I'm learning more about the persistent home and KDE as I go along as well. As you will see below, I've applied some of my unix knowledge (mostly command-line stuff) to this situation.

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I'm actually using Knoppix to install Gentoo at the moment. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

I get some errors on boot-up as well, right after my persistent home dir is detected, Some inode errors - I'll have to figure out what those mean. The next time I boot, I should print them out, and then google on the error message.

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If you figure out where these are logged, please lemme know...

In the next two quotes, I rearranged some of your stuff:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

There is a command-line command called
du for disk usage.

du -bc /home/knoppix

The last line gives the number of bytes your home directory uses.

If you pipe the above through a pipe, as below:
du -bc /home/knoppix | less

the (massive) output will pause at each screenful, so you can actually see what your disk hogs are.

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Have you tried either of:

Code:

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du -s ~/*    # or
du ~ | sort -n

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:D
Also, in this case, you might be better of using

Code:

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df -h

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and look for the size of KNOPPIX.IMG.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ndb

As for the problem with office and space, I guess it would depend on how much you've added to your persistent home and config.

Mine is currently ~ 70M, giving me about 30M left to play with.

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I naively :roll: thought that 50MB would have been enough for the whole home. I do not keep any data files in the home, and I do not intend to install any additional software. I guess I was wrong ...
I'll increase the size of the home, and see how that turns out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiKing

I'm actually using Knoppix to install Gentoo at the moment. ;)

Have you tried either of:

Code:

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du -s ~/*    # or
du ~ | sort -n

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:D
Also, in this case, you might be better of using

Code:

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df -h

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and look for the size of KNOPPIX.IMG.

.

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I tried this:

Code:

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du -bs ~/* ~/.[a-z]* | sort -rn

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This shows the hidden directories (beginning with . ) as well.
I am so far solidly stumped on the inode errors. The USB drive was not cleanly unmounted previously, supposedly. I tried syncing and then unmounting, as root. The device is busy, so I couldn't do that. I also tried dosfsck, for FAT partitions. I'm half-tempted to blow my persistent home away and start over, just to see what happens, but I still won't know what caused the problem in the first place.

I will be googling on persistent and dosfsck now. I can be rather stubborn :lol:

I have found one trick that may work to resize a persistent home directory, while keeping the contents. IF you have a large enough knoppix-writeable partition, you can copy your home to there. Then, reboot, without the home cheat, and recreate your partition at the desired size. For some reason, knoppix didn't recognize my second USB drive, so I copied a few things to a diskette. Recreating the partition, I got rid of the inode errors, although they popped up again, a couple of boots later. The documentation page also has a set of articles on bugs for each version of knoppix. I didn't see anything that helps me though.

Just in case anyone is still reading this, I have an update. :roll:

The size of the home directory was in fact the root of all my problems. I resized it today, and all the problems went away. The only question, which I will probably never be able to answer, is: if I was not keeping anything in my home, what the hell was taking up more than 50MB of space? :?

I have also had some time today to play around with the home= and myconfig= cheatcodes. I still do not understand exactly how these two cheatcodes work and how they interact, but here are my observations:
- There seems to be a lot of overlap in what is stored by both, including most (but not all) system settings, most KDE settings (I have customized the look extensively), most (but not all) things stored on the Desktop, application settings that are stored in your home that are not dot-files (OOo is in ~/office for example, and it is stored in both)
- home does not store the screen settings (cheatcodes screen, *sync, probably others?)
- home does not store the timezone settings (cheatcode tz)
- myconfig does not store links on the desktop (maybe others?)
- myconfig does not store "Set date time automatically" checkbox in the Adjust Date & Time configuration

Actually, the "Set date time automatically" checkbox and a link on the desktop I was able to get only by having both home=scan and myconfig=scan cheatcodes and when the screen comes up asking you if you really want to use the persistent home, there is an option "Overwrite / Update stored system configuration" that is not selected by default - you must turn this option on in order to get these two things.

I have not played with installing any additional software. Other than that, I see only one benefit to having a persistent home over the configuration file, and that is that it is self-updating - anything that I change in any of the documents on my desktop, I have to remember to re-save the configuration before exiting. If I keep all my documents on one of the hard disk partitions, which I do, then the extra overhead of the gigantic home image is probably no longer worth this minor convenience of not having to remember to save things before exiting. Using removable media (such as USB stick) is a completely different story! Am I wrong?

If I eve get the time, I would like to explore exactly what the differences are between what is stored by the two. Unfortunately I do not have the time right now. Or is there such a document already?

I have similar problems and questions after moving from Knoppix 3.4 to 5.1.1 (just found this thread)

Someone suggested:

Code:

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dmesg

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when I asked about logging the boot process. I got lots of boot related stuff, but not the text that scrolls by while booting happens.

I'm curious about the overwrite/update option, too. Overwrite seems scary compared to update. Did you loose anything?

The group of messages after the multiple choice window said:
' .../knoppix.img is probably an old version of "Knoppix persistent home directory." You should create a new one soon.'

I tried that from the Knoppix toolbar menu and got a message about finding no suitable partitions, although there are two vfat partitions with lots of space and it seems to read configuration information from saving configs and home. Does overwrite/update "create a new one?"

I could create a new persistent home when I let the multiple choice window run out, though (Knoppix without persistent files).

TIA[/code]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

I'm curious about the overwrite/update option, too. Overwrite seems scary compared to update. Did you loose anything?

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I have not investigated this yet, but I plan to. It's on my to-do list. :wink:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

The group of messages after the multiple choice window said:
' .../knoppix.img is probably an old version of "Knoppix persistent home directory." You should create a new one soon.'

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Yes, I have seen this as well. I personally suspect this to be a bug. :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

I tried that from the Knoppix toolbar menu and got a message about finding no suitable partitions, although there are two vfat partitions with lots of space and it seems to read configuration information from saving configs and home. Does overwrite/update "create a new one?"

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Not sure what you're asking. Either creating a configuration or creating a persistent home, should never touch your partitioning. Both of these options create new files on an existing partition of your choice.

I am still investigating (perhaps too much?) what the myconfig a persistent home cheats do exactly. If / when I get the time, I was going to write like a wiki page about it or sumtin'. If anyone is interested in contributing, I could start something now ...

Siking,

Thanks for getting back.

The error message said that no "suitable" partitions were found, without saying what was unsuitable about those it did find.

I suppose suitability depends no format and empty space, but there are two vfat partions with way more than enough space for the configuration files I was trying to save. That's the only reason I mentioned partitions; my main concern was the opaque error message.

As to figuring out what was going on, I'd be glad to help but I'm a Linux/Knoppix newbie. Can you lay out the outline of a research program?

Thanks again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

The error message said that no "suitable" partitions were found, without saying what was unsuitable about those it did find.

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Have a look at "cat /etc/fstab" and "mount -l". See if those look right. Both of these have extensive man and info pages.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

I suppose suitability depends no format and empty space, but there are two vfat partions with way more than enough space for the configuration files I was trying to save.

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I just tried to save a persistent home to an NTFS partition. It did warn me like three times that it might not be a good idea, but it did work. I am almost certain that plain vfat is perfectly fine! The problem will certainly not be with space, that check comes after you tell it where to create the persistent home. The problem must be somewhere else..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

That's the only reason I mentioned partitions; my main concern was the opaque error message.

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Welcome to UNIX, let me introduce you to Google. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

As to figuring out what was going on, I'd be glad to help but I'm a Linux/Knoppix newbie. Can you lay out the outline of a research program?

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Lots of trial-and-error, searching with Google, and asking "stupid" questions. It would also help if you were familiar with some of the UNIX-standard tools: start with some bash book from your local library (Learning the bash shell is a good one), which will lead you to other stuff. Then move on to some of the UNIX internals: no better training that I know of then trying to manually install Gentoo! :twisted:

After a bracing visit to the shores of Lake Ontario...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiKing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

The error message said that no "suitable" partitions were found, without saying what was unsuitable about those it did find.

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Have a look at "cat /etc/fstab" and "mount -l". See if those look right. Both of these have extensive man and info pages.

Thanks, I will ... tomorrow!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

I suppose suitability depends no format and empty space, but there are two vfat partions with way more than enough space for the configuration files I was trying to save.

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I just tried to save a persistent home to an NTFS partition. It did warn me like three times that it might not be a good idea, but it did work. I am almost certain that plain vfat is perfectly fine! The problem will certainly not be with space, that check comes after you tell it where to create the persistent home. The problem must be somewhere else..

I didn't even TRY to save to the NFS partitions! The warnings about trying to do something like that are way to strong.

I figured that part out, though. Turns out, the change from 3.4 to 5.1.1 made the image, etc. files incompatible. The saves went fine after I moved the old 3.4 images to the other vfat partition. No problem with that (at least) since then. The error message was way unhelpful, but that seems par for the course, regardless of hardware (CDC and IBM big iron, lots of pcs, os, ap, etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

That's the only reason I mentioned partitions; my main concern was the opaque error message.

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Welcome to UNIX, let me introduce you to Google. :D

Oh, yeah -- nothing like similar sounding questions that dribble off to nothing or get solved off line. That's why I try to say "Thanks!" two or three times when someone replies. I did say "Thanks," didn't I?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

As to figuring out what was going on, I'd be glad to help but I'm a Linux/Knoppix newbie. Can you lay out the outline of a research program?

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Lots of trial-and-error, searching with Google, and asking "stupid" questions. It would also help if you were familiar with some of the UNIX-standard tools: start with some bash book from your local library (Learning the bash shell is a good one), which will lead you to other stuff. Then move on to some of the UNIX internals: no better training that I know of then trying to manually install Gentoo! :twisted:

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Linux is new, but not my first os transition, so I'm pretty good pals with ol' trialnerror. That started for real when I got to "see what I could do" with a Tektronix graphics terminal (no manual) in the fall of '75, severely aggravated by several years of FORTRAN punch cards after that:

Me: "It says here," pointing to the man page, "that this statement does that. I did it, see, and look what I got!"

Back hall tech (the help desk undergrads waved my buddies and me off by then): "Oh, yeah. That doesn't work."

I didn't even say "But, but, ..." after the first time!

I even did about 15 weeks of (shudder) cobol.

I'm keeping better notes this time, so maybe I won't get into this mess again, and maybe I'll be able to contribute something to a HOWTO.

Thanks again!

HatGuy

PS: I see I wrote inside your quotes; oops. I've never had much luck with non-text email. More trialnerror, I guess! HG

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

PS: I see I wrote inside your quotes; oops.

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Hey guys, it's not necessary or even desirable to quote everything someone says in one huge block before replying back to them. It just wastes space and everyone's download time. Quotes are best used to call attention to the part of the message being responded to. Or in the case of a message that was not the previous one in the thread to quote enough to make it clear what you are responding to. But duplicating eerything someone posts, even their own quote of your previous post. is foolish.

Agreed, and I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but the quote button is the only way I've found to reply to a message rather than its thread. It grabbed everything, even though I only chose a line, and it took a while to figure that out.

[Comments on plain text, interfaces of various kinds, and vcr clocks omitted.]

Another case of (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law, I guess: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

{Possibly constructive side track: Would the browsing window reply and quote buttons work better if they said: "Reply to thread" and "Reply to message?"}

Come to think of it, the forum's email sorcerer must use some kind of markup language, eh? Is that what all those buttons across the top and down the side are about?

Muttering, finger pokin, flippin switches...

I guess I _should_ have done something like:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harry Kuhman

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HatGuy

PS: I see I wrote inside your quotes; oops.

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Hey guys, it's not necessary or even desirable to quote everything someone says in one huge block... But duplicating eerything someone posts, even their own quote of your previous post. is foolish.

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Then my blah, blah, maybe another snippet of quote and more blah?

That makes today a good one, since I learned something, but staying in bed with the covers pulled up is the only way to avoid being foolish once in a while, assuming the servants kept a straight face while they were in the room. They would, wouldn't they?

Anyway, thanks for brightening my day, and have a great one yourself!

HatGuy