Modding knoppix.sh

**el_supremo** · 06-22-2004, 09:28 PM

I can't find any mention of this method described anywhere on this board so here's a way to modify the knoppix.sh file which will allow you to do some customizing even while running from the CD. In my case, I still boot from the CD but I needed the system to do "modprobe ehci-hcd" each time the system is booted so that it will run my USB2 compactflash reader at USB2 speeds instead of chugging along at USB1 speed. So I just added this command to my modified knoppix.sh and now I don't have to remember to type in that command when I want to transfer lots of photos from my 1GB CF card.

To use this method you must save the Knoppix configuration to a hard drive and use the cheatcode myconfig=scan at boot time.
When Knoppix boots up with the cheatcode myconfig=scan, the init process executes /etc/init.d/rcS.d/S00knoppix-autoconfig which is a symbolic link to the file /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig. One of the things this script does is to scan for the file knoppix.sh. When it is found, knoppix.sh is executed and passed the path name of the device on which it was found. Knoppix.sh then accesses the configs.tbz file on the specified device and restores the saved configuration.
So this process assumes that configs.tbz and knoppix.sh will be on the same device. We can use this fact to make the system use our own modded knoppix.sh. But to do this you must have at least C: and D: hard drives/partitions on your windows system because we also take advantage of the order in which the drives are searched when knoppix.sh looks for configs.tbz. The trick is to save the knoppix configuration on one windows partition and to put the modified knoppix.sh on a partition which occurs before that in the search sequence. E.G. do a save configuration to D: and put the modified knoppix.sh on C:.
The new knoppix.sh must contain extra code to make it find configs.tbz on D: instead of assuming that its on C:.
It might also be possible to put the modified knoppix.sh on a compact flash card because those drives are searched before hard drives but on my system the CF card reader hasn't been mounted when knoppix.sh is executed.
When this modded knoppix.sh is installed, knoppix-autoconfig will find the modded version on, for example, C: (/dev/hda1) and will run knoppix.sh from there. The modded version ignores the argument passed to it by knoppix-autoconfig and does its own search for configs.tbz which will be found on D: (/dev/hda5 on my system) and it restores the configuration from there.

Here's my modified knopppix.sh which I put on C: (/dev/hda1).

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# Modified knoppix.sh - PAH

# ANSI COLORS
CRE="
[K"
NORMAL="[0;39m"
# RED: Failure or error message
RED="[1;31m"
# GREEN: Success message
GREEN="[1;32m"
# YELLOW: Descriptions
YELLOW="[1;33m"
# BLUE: System messages
BLUE="[1;34m"
# MAGENTA: Found devices or drivers
MAGENTA="[1;35m"
# CYAN: Questions
CYAN="[1;36m"
# BOLD WHITE: Hint
WHITE="[1;37m"

[ "`id -u`" = "0" ] || { echo "${RED}You need root privileges to modify the system!${NORMAL}" >&2 ; exit 1; }

findfile(){
FOUND=""
# search all partitions for a file in the root directory
for i in /mnt/[sh]d[a-z] /mnt/[sh]d[a-z][1-9] /mnt/[sh]d[a-z][1-9]?*; do
# See if it's already mounted
[ -f "$i/$1" ] &&  { echo "$i/$1"; return 0; }
if [ -d "$i" ] && mount -r "$i" 2>/dev/null; then
[ -f "$i/$1" ] && FOUND="$i/$1"
umount -l "$i" 2>/dev/null
[ -n "$FOUND" ] && { echo "$FOUND"; return 0; }
fi
done
return 2
}

# Simple shell grep
stringinfile(){
case "$(cat $2)" in *$1*) return 0;; esac
return 1
}


FOUND_CONFIG=""
MYCONFDIR="$(findfile configs.tbz)"
if [ -n "$MYCONFDIR" ]; then
MYCONFDEVICEA="${MYCONFDIR##/mnt/}"
MYCONFDEVICE="/dev/${MYCONFDEVICEA%%/*}"
MYCONFMOUNTPOINT="/mnt/${MYCONFDEVICE##/dev/}"
MYCONFDIR="${MYCONFMOUNTPOINT}"
else
FOUND_CONFIG="none"
fi

[ -d "$MYCONFDIR" ] && CONFIGS="$MYCONFDIR/configs.tbz"
[ -f "$CONFIGS" ] || CONFIGS="/cdrom/KNOPPIX/configs.tbz"
[ -f "$CONFIGS" ] || CONFIGS="/mnt/floppy/configs.tbz"

if [ -f "$CONFIGS" ]; then
echo "[1mExtracting config archive 
$CONFIGS...[0m"
tar -jpPtf "$CONFIGS" | while read i; do rm -f "$i"; done
tar -jpPxf "$CONFIGS" ; chown -R knoppix.knoppix /home/knoppix
fi

# Add your mods here. At this point /home/knoppix is mounted and the saved configuration 
# has already been restored

# My mod to fire up USB2
#echo "${MAGENTA}Set up USB2${NORMAL}"
#modprobe ehci-hcd
#mkdir /mnt/sda1
# Add an entry for the USB CF reader in /etc/fstab if there isn't one there already
#stringinfile "sda" "/etc/fstab" || echo "/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 vfat noauto,users,noexec" >> /etc/fstab

killall pump 2>/dev/null && sleep 2 && killall -9 pump 2>/dev/null && sleep 2
echo "[1mStarting daemons...[0m"
for i in  ifupdown networking cupsys; do [ -x /etc/init.d/$i ] && /etc/init.d/$i start; done

As long as you specify the cheatcode myconfig=scan at the boot prompt this modded script will be used but you can always revert to the default script by specifying the specific drive where you save the configuration (e.g. myconfig=/dev/hda5 which is my drive D: ).

Pete