Why Every New Version of Knoppix Don't Work On my PC?

**bongski55** · 05-06-2004, 07:35 AM

Linux Distros are supposed to get better,right? Unfortunately that is not the case for one of my 2 PCs. It's a celeron 433 based self built. It used to work up until version 06-06-03 of knoppix then the succeeding version won't boot at all.
Then came 3.4 which is still experimental. Still it won't boot.
Some of you might jump into conclusion that I have an old pc that needs replacement. Well I do have an athlon2400 based pc that works ok with the latest knoppix. But my point is,how will you ever convince people to switch to linux if every new version does not work on a particular pc? Compare that to any version of a certain OS which works on 99 percent of PCs?

**garyng** · 05-06-2004, 08:09 AM

I would not convince anyone to switch to linux, only geeks should try it.

However, this is not the problem of linux but how it is packaged. Knoppix never boot on my machine out of the box because it includes an aic7xxx driver which conflicts with my hardware(I need noscsi). The question I would ask is, how many PC has this kind of hardware ? less than 1%, so why is it there ? Oh, another situation, the debian installer(old one at least) has some thing like a cciss driver(a RAID stuff) included by default which is even rarer.

I believe linux packages aiming at joe users should take a page or two from Microsoft and package only those things that works on 99% of the average PC, which is IDE/PCI. That would significantly reduce this kind of confusion and frustration. Those that is not covered(and fail to boot), well most likely people using exotic hardware knows their way to find the right thing.

my 2 cents.

**horo** · 05-06-2004, 08:39 AM

Hi,

yes, this aic7xxx (and maybe other scsi) driver does a lot of bad things. I have one computer with only scsi disks (aic7xxx) and also there I have to boot in expert mode to avoid hangs after testing the scsi drivers

. I think it would be better to create a new cheatcode "scsi=xxx" or "scanscsi" so the majority of users isn't bothered with these problems.

Just my 0.02 EUR

Ciao Martin

**garyng** · 05-06-2004, 09:05 AM

For all fairness, the issue with distro like KNOPPIX which boots from the CD-ROM is that there isn't much space left on the boot image(1.44M floppy) so it is impossible to put the whole PCI id database there and write the script to scan it.

NT/W2K etc. needs 3 floppy for bootup. May be the latest change to ditch the boot image in KNOPPIX can cause a rewrite of how and what driver would be loaded with a more up to date PCI database, at the linuxrc level. This should make it works better, including USB/1394 support.

**user unknown** · 05-09-2004, 03:54 AM

I guess it should be mentioned, that knoppix works on older hardware too.
A friend of mine uses it on a 233 and a 400 Mhz laptop.

Perhaps you (bongski55) should mention some details of your hardware - perhaps someone has a solution..l (most exotic devices first)

**bongski55** · 05-09-2004, 05:14 AM

Originally Posted by user unknown

I guess it should be mentioned, that knoppix works on older hardware too.
A friend of mine uses it on a 233 and a 400 Mhz laptop.

Perhaps you (bongski55) should mention some details of your hardware - perhaps someone has a solution..l (most exotic devices first)

Yep,here is my old post.http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...930&highlight=

**user unknown** · 05-09-2004, 07:19 AM

Well - that's out of my scope.
Had luck with my chipsets.

Bootparameters didn't work, I guess?

**Fabianx** · 05-09-2004, 11:59 PM

Originally Posted by bongski55

Linux Distros are supposed to get better,right? Unfortunately that is not the case for one of my 2 PCs. It's a celeron 433 based self built. It used to work up until version 06-06-03 of knoppix then the succeeding version won't boot at all.
Then came 3.4 which is still experimental. Still it won't boot.
Some of you might jump into conclusion that I have an old pc that needs replacement. Well I do have an athlon2400 based pc that works ok with the latest knoppix. But my point is,how will you ever convince people to switch to linux if every new version does not work on a particular pc? Compare that to any version of a certain OS which works on 99 percent of PCs?

That _is_ a kernel problem. So your bug report should go to there. Mandrake, SuSE, Red Hat and most other ditsros have patched kernels.

We use mostly plain vanilla, which avoids hardware problems on most machines.

Of course you could try to boot with 3.4 and kernel 2.6.

To the scsi-issue: There are more people using it, than you think. SCSI is not exotic and also Windows with some version makes problems on one of my PCs, which has to use noscsi.

But what is the difference?

With knoppix you can use noscsi, with many other distros not ...

Btw. afaik aic7xxx was dropped from Knoppix miniroot long ago. Dunno if its there again ...

cu

Fabian

PS: As far as I know Knoppix still has one of the best hardware-detections, yet.

**baldyeti** · 05-10-2004, 09:16 AM

I *do* depend on aic7xxx for knoppix to work on my EVO workstation at work!

I had no idea it was causing problems on some HW; maybe it would be a good idea to reverse the logic and let the users who have a scsi adapter type a"scsi" cheatcode, instead of forcing the majority of IDE machines to disable it...

**garyng** · 05-10-2004, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by baldyeti

I *do* depend on aic7xxx for knoppix to work on my EVO workstation at work!

I had no idea it was causing problems on some HW; maybe it would be a good idea to reverse the logic and let the users who have a scsi adapter type a"scsi" cheatcode, instead of forcing the majority of IDE machines to disable it...

That was my suggestion too. People with SCSI devices usually know their way to find information, not so for joe public buying Windows ME/98 preinstalled machine. BTW, it is not about IDE but conflicts with my Inspiron's LCD circuit, how can one ever been able to imagine that