Installing 6.2.1 Knoppix on SCSI system

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06-20-2010, 03:36 PM
pebl

Installing 6.2.1 Knoppix on SCSI system

I have the instructions I just printed on Friday and the LiveCD 6.2.1 I downloaded on Friday also. I booted up, waiting for the GUI start page. All I see is a text menu. I pressed <CTRL><ALT><F2> and nothing happened. I had a working Debian system, so I know there is no problem and the machine is barely a year old.
I looked around the menus and found a disk formatter/installer choice, it sat for about 15 seconds and came back with "NO USABLE DRIVES FOUND". Now the odd thing is I found was an item on a menu about "Devices on your system". I selected that and everything USB, SCSI came up on the screen.
I believe there is a problem. I keep looking through the install manual and the program and it is looking for all hard drives as /dev/hdx, not /dev/sdx. I have no way of changing that and it's not an option in the BIOS.
I did find a SHELL option and tried with cfdisk to delete and existing disk and lay it out exactly as the instructions. I then went back to installation and "NO USABLE DRIVES FOUND". I gave up.
06-20-2010, 06:43 PM
klaus2008

If there is a text menu only instead of a graphical desktop environment, I think, you booted ADRIANE. What is the name of your iso file? Even if you downloaded ADRIANE, it should be possible to start KNOPPIX if you enter knoppix at the boot prompt of the Knoppix splash screen.

How large did you create the partition on the hard disk? The type of the filesystem has to be reiserfs. After formatting the partition you should mount it, I think. There must be a swap partition > 1 GB, too.

I hope this helps.
06-21-2010, 02:04 AM
pebl

Knoppix install

Yes, it is Adrianne. Very annoying voice version, but I seemed to be able to use the various tools. I made a 4GB swap area and the rest (34GB) as root. I tried it mounted and unmounted and everytime the partitioner started up, is said "NO USABLE DRIVES FOUND." Again, I looked with the viewing too and all of my drives and partitions are there.
06-26-2010, 10:32 AM
Capricorny

Again, why on earth did you attempt a HD install? When you didn't even learn the simple distinction between Adriane and plain Knoppix on beforehand?
Ordinary Knoppix HD installs are for special purposes, for experienced users who know Linux and Knoppix and don't need the installation help built into distros made for ordinary installation.
Set it up on a USB stick the way you want it, and do a poor man's install from that instead.
06-26-2010, 02:51 PM
pebl

Installing Knoppix instead of playing with the toys

Well, Capricorny, you are making the assumption that I am a Newbie. New to Knoppix, yes, but, I started with "IX" back in 1975, in it's infancy as Unix. I've also been through HP-Ux, SCO, Xandros and Ubundtu. I was Director of IT for 14 years. My system is a 4 CPU 1.6G backbone SuperMicro Server with 8GB of RAM and 2 TB of SCSI disk. I think I have the right to play in Knoppix, although, just to check it out first, I did try Adrianne. Annoying little system.
I didn't think I was out of the realm of looking for a heafty system similar to Debian to replace my existing Debian system (getting out of date). Do you have any USEFUL information to add to my questions and comments? I appreciate all from people who are serious about getting the job done and right.
As a follow up, I did get Adrianne to install, again annoying. I got the full Knoppix to finally install, but I keep getting the drive letters changing on me. My hardware and current OS say first drive is /dev/sdax, Knoppix says /dev/sdkx, etc. Doesn't make any difference, After it installs completely, all I get from Grub is "Stage 1.5, Error 17, but have no idea what file is missing or what drive /dev/xxx it's looking at?
06-26-2010, 05:36 PM
krishna.murphy

Quote:

Originally Posted by pebl

Well, Capricorny, you are making the assumption that I am a Newbie. New to Knoppix, yes, but, I started with "IX" back in 1975, in it's infancy as Unix. I've also been through HP-Ux, SCO, Xandros and Ubundtu. I was Director of IT for 14 years. My system is a 4 CPU 1.6G backbone SuperMicro Server with 8GB of RAM and 2 TB of SCSI disk. I think I have the right to play in Knoppix, although, just to check it out first, I did try Adrianne. Annoying little system.
I didn't think I was out of the realm of looking for a heafty system similar to Debian to replace my existing Debian system (getting out of date). Do you have any USEFUL information to add to my questions and comments? I appreciate all from people who are serious about getting the job done and right.
As a follow up, I did get Adrianne to install, again annoying. I got the full Knoppix to finally install, but I keep getting the drive letters changing on me. My hardware and current OS say first drive is /dev/sdax, Knoppix says /dev/sdkx, etc. Doesn't make any difference, After it installs completely, all I get from Grub is "Stage 1.5, Error 17, but have no idea what file is missing or what drive /dev/xxx it's looking at?

Check out the info from Ubuntu regarding the same symptoms.

Hope that helps!
Krishna :mrgreen:
06-26-2010, 05:43 PM
pebl

Knoppix vs Ubuntu

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've also tried to install Ubuntu lite and full and have the same problem. I've also searched blog after blog for the general problem and many people have a similar problem, just no answers.
There are several suggestions I tried, but they didn't change anything.
I'm running out of OS's to try running.
06-29-2010, 01:55 PM
Capricorny

Quote:

Originally Posted by pebl

Well, Capricorny, you are making the assumption that I am a Newbie. New to Knoppix, yes, but, I started with "IX" back in 1975, in it's infancy as Unix. I've also been through HP-Ux, SCO, Xandros and Ubundtu. I was Director of IT for 14 years. My system is a 4 CPU 1.6G backbone SuperMicro Server with 8GB of RAM and 2 TB of SCSI disk. I think I have the right to play in Knoppix, although, just to check it out first, I did try Adrianne. Annoying little system.
I didn't think I was out of the realm of looking for a heafty system similar to Debian to replace my existing Debian system (getting out of date). Do you have any USEFUL information to add to my questions and comments? I appreciate all from people who are serious about getting the job done and right.
As a follow up, I did get Adrianne to install, again annoying. I got the full Knoppix to finally install, but I keep getting the drive letters changing on me. My hardware and current OS say first drive is /dev/sdax, Knoppix says /dev/sdkx, etc. Doesn't make any difference, After it installs completely, all I get from Grub is "Stage 1.5, Error 17, but have no idea what file is missing or what drive /dev/xxx it's looking at?

All the worse, I would say. I think you have just provided another demonstration of the futility of ordinary HD installs of Knoppix.
In a sense, there is NO way of being "serious about getting the job done and right" when the distro is simply not made for ordinary HD install. And of course, having only been running Linux since 1994 myself, in something like 12 different distros, diverse versions, I should not have tried to tell you anything. But with so many hours working around all sorts of distro problems and bugs, I have developed something of an aversion against actively seeking problem situations, like you are clearly doing. Otherwise, you wouldn't have posted what you do.

And you have not told us why the preferred way to go beyond Knoppix, doing an ordinary Debian install, is not a better solution for you. If your Debian is "getting out of date", I think there should be several alternatives to get a more updated system.

But to me, the most important question is why you did not try out what in fact does work very well if some simple principles are followed, the "poor man's install". If you had tried to give a good answer to that, I don't think you would have expressed yourself the very negative way you do "annoying little system" etc.
06-29-2010, 04:23 PM
pebl

My Linux world

First of all, thanks to Krishna.murphy for the guidance of someone with a similar problem and a potential fix. I am going to try a reinstall, then check the files.
As to needing to get out of the Debian area, I have run into an annoying problem, that many of you won't care. Most distro's do not allow you to login as "root" in an X window. You may open a root terminal window or sudo to do something, but many of the heavyduty programs (gparted, for instance), are in X, not in text format. I have talked with Debian designers and they say it is not the kernel, but the application designers version (Ubuntu, Xandros, etc), that are choosing to write their front end code to prevent logging in.
Since, I have 1 main machine I do my work on, it has the main console and that is all. I need to log in as root. My current Debian (old Xandros), does allow it. New installs of http://www.debian.org are not letting me do it, under any circumstances. Well, so much for my changing versions.
The other problem still lurks of the SCSI BIOS boots first, assigns /dev/sda, sdb, etc, then the OS, comes in and uses whatever it was installed and setup as. Fortunately, Xandros, did not change anything, so no problems. Every other distro I have tried, changes to my USB being assigned first as /dev/sdx or changing the HD's to /dev/hdx.
06-30-2010, 12:04 AM
krishna.murphy

Quote:

Originally Posted by pebl

First of all, thanks to Krishna.murphy for the guidance of someone with a similar problem and a potential fix. I am going to try a reinstall, then check the files.

You're welcome - hope all goes well. Do let us know if you need further assistance.

Quote:

As to needing to get out of the Debian area, I have run into an annoying problem, that many of you won't care. Most distro's do not allow you to login as "root" in an X window. You may open a root terminal window or sudo to do something, but many of the heavyduty programs (gparted, for instance), are in X, not in text format. I have talked with Debian designers and they say it is not the kernel, but the application designers version (Ubuntu, Xandros, etc), that are choosing to write their front end code to prevent logging in.

I was playing with a Debian install recently, and I don't recall having that trouble. However, I was unhappy with the default desktop and switched to LXDE almost immediately. Also, it seems like I recall the KDE terminal window having a root terminal option, which should work regardless of which distro it's used with, I think.

Quote:

Since, I have 1 main machine I do my work on, it has the main console and that is all. I need to log in as root. My current Debian (old Xandros), does allow it. New installs of http://www.debian.org are not letting me do it, under any circumstances. Well, so much for my changing versions.

Have you tried sudo su - ? That should get you to where you can then start something in X as root, i.e.

Code:

gparted &

- that will start gparted (assuming it's in the default path or your current directory) with a warning at the top about being the superuser, I think. I seem to recall having to do just that when I was working on the Debian system, in fact.

Quote:

The other problem still lurks of the SCSI BIOS boots first, assigns /dev/sda, sdb, etc, then the OS, comes in and uses whatever it was installed and setup as. Fortunately, Xandros, did not change anything, so no problems. Every other distro I have tried, changes to my USB being assigned first as /dev/sdx or changing the HD's to /dev/hdx.

Yeah, BIOS trouble can be VERY annoying; however, I'm not clear exactly how this is inconveniencing you. If you can figure out what the designation WILL be, you can go ahead and specify it as you need it, i.e. /dev/hdx instead of the other one.

Cheers!
Krishna :mrgreen:
06-30-2010, 03:32 PM
pebl

Continuing saga of OS problems and SCSI problems. New TV series coming this Fall.

Thanks again to krishna.murphy for a thourgh and speedy reply.
From what I understand, talking to several of the Debian creaters and others, it has been a general concensus to lock up "root" as an "X" window type format because we're all too clumsy and don't take care enough to watch what we do. So they have to baby sit us and make sure we don't do anything to our system. Of course, they forget I can do a terminal window, type sudo, then "cd /;rm -fr *" and the whole system is gone. They're protection is in the wrong place, needs to be in education, not slapping nuckles with a ruler. But that is their problem. I'll keep trying various suggestions including yours on getting root privelage X programs to run. First thing I think I'll try something other than KDE.

The BIOS problem seems to be wide spread, but most people either have small systems or do not use SCSI. The general problem is, I have SCSI BIOS start, (during boot), and get /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc. When the OS starts, that still holds through boot (in some cases). If not, what it is doing is the OS is running a search for all devices that match SCSI drivers (ATA), IDE (new), USB storage, SCSI drives or tape drives and the first one gets assigned /dev/sda, second /dev/sdb, etc. Problem arises, if I happen to have my first item it finds in the sting turned off or on another computer (it's a portable USB drive), this shifts the /dev's back one and now what might have been my boot drive (/dev/sdk2) is now /dev/sdj2 and the system gives me a boot error. I have to correct all devices back to what they were and reboot. If I permanently, remove or re-arrange something, I have to manually change the boot sequence in the OS to the new drive designators. Generally, as I have seen for years, HD's are always handled first and retain their address, peripherals are added as placed or found. :(
06-30-2010, 04:51 PM
pebl

Installed Knoppix FULL 6.2.1

In the further saga of installation and running. I have stripped my system bare. It has no SCSI devices except, 4 SCSI drives, which according to the installer, register as /dev/sda, sdb, etc.
I try to boot, looks normal, 4 penguins come up on the screen. One time, it just sits there. Nothing further happens, can't seem to get a text window. Other times, I get the 4 penguins and right under them, "Error: Driver 'pata_platform' is already registered, aborting.....":confused:
and it freezes. I even went into my system BIOS and disabled the SATA and ATA completely. I see the error mentioned many times in blogs, but no answers.
Anyone have ideas?
06-30-2010, 11:53 PM
krishna.murphy

Quote:

Originally Posted by pebl

In the further saga of installation and running. I have stripped my system bare. It has no SCSI devices except, 4 SCSI drives, which according to the installer, register as /dev/sda, sdb, etc.
I try to boot, looks normal, 4 penguins come up on the screen. One time, it just sits there. Nothing further happens, can't seem to get a text window. Other times, I get the 4 penguins and right under them, "Error: Driver 'pata_platform' is already registered, aborting.....":confused:
and it freezes. I even went into my system BIOS and disabled the SATA and ATA completely. I see the error mentioned many times in blogs, but no answers.
Anyone have ideas?

Two things:
1) The four penguins should be indicating separate cores/processors, AFAIK. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm remembering something about needing a multi-processor-enabled kernel in that case, which is not the standard Knoppix kernel. Hopefully one of the true gurus will see this and jump in.
2) Are you booting from a CD, or is it a partition on one of the SCSI drives, as it sounds? If you have copied stuff to a magnetic drive, how did you do it? There are more ways than one to make it work, but it'll take some doing, I think; which way to go depends on what's been done before.

Cheers!
Krishna :mrgreen:
07-01-2010, 04:07 PM
pebl

Reply to several posts - Installs with SCSI

First of all, I'd like to thank all the heads that have gone together to present ideas. That's what TEAM work is for and what these BLOGS are all about.
Now the problem at hand. I have a Xandros (Debian) 2.6.24 kernel and my system is at sid/squeeze. Many of my problems went away when I updated the distro, but I don't seem to be able to update the kernel. Always has something wrong by the time I get to boot time.
Why a new kernel and distro, you ask, I now am delving into several types of programs, that I try to install and getting errors like, "You need 2.6.26 or greater kernel" or similar type messages. I am also, built from an original Xandros 4.2 desktop, upgrade, after upgrade. I have part of Xandros, exatras and part of a standard Debian system. Would like to get all on one page.
As far as HD settings go, the SCSI BIOS, gives me no options, the system BIOS had no drives other than 2 CD drives Seemingly, in the Xandros distro, it is correctly, keeping the HD's as /dev/sda, sdb, etc. and then adding any SCSI-like items later. I did check the grub and other control files after installation of several versions and all looked right, of course, I disconnected everything but my SCSI drives. I don't think it had a choice. Once I start plugging USB items back in, there go the drive letters. Back where I started from. BTW, I am installing on 1 drive (SCSI), has partition for swap, one for root/boot. It's 36GB total, so no size issues. Nothing else on the drive.
08-31-2011, 12:54 PM
Gonzalo_VC

The partitioner must be improved, though. There must be a "manual" option, since we may have the partitions prepared in advance. The way it is up to 6.7, it does as "he" wants, not us!?