Installing Knoppix 3.6 on ancient system problem.

[hochl]

Hello,

I want to use knoppix on my computer, unfortunately it cannot boot from CD-Rom since the board is ancient and I only have a SCSI DVD-ROM which is connected to a SCSI controller that has no Boot EEPROM.

So I tried out the floppy disk method, unfortunately it does not boot corretly (after inserting the second floppy and loading the root-fs there appear errors "... access beyond end of device ..." and the system hangs). The important thing is that the kernel24 on the bootfloppy is booting the system.

So I said "hey why not boot the whole thing from hd". I don't want a complete knoppix installation, I just want to 'fake' the cdrom version on hard disk, i.e. boot the compressed image from hard disk but work as if it booted from CDROM. I followed instructions from http://www.yak.net/fqa/347.html, but couldn't make it work. I'm using lilo and the linux24 image, and after reading the kernel image the computer hangs. Reading the kernel means before anything happens, it crashes right after the "Loading kernel ...................." text line (maybe spelled differently). No console, penguin or anything

So I'm stuck. Is there a way to install KNOPPIX so that it boots from a compressed image as if it booted from CD-ROM? That would be really nice since my hard disk partition is only about 1.5 Gig -- not enough for a real installation. And remember, I can't boot the CD on my old machine, and the only other computer I own is a laptop -- which has no floppy disk drive, so I can't boot knoppix on the laptop and write boot floppies (I did my floppies by reading the mkbootfloppy script and repeat procedures by hand on my old computer).

H.

[OErjan]

eeeh?
what os did you do that from?
how did you do it?

[baldyeti]

Which OS and filesystem (fat vs ntfs) are currently on you HD?

[hochl]

eeeh?
what os did you do that from?
how did you do it?

I did it from a running linux installation on my old computer, and from my laptop. I booted Knoppix-3.6 on the laptop, then I read the /usr/sbin/mkbootfloppy skript and did those commands (by hand) on my old computer (which has a floppy drive; the laptop hasn't). For this step I copied the /cdrom/boot/isolinux directory via ftp from the knoppix system to my main computer so that I had kernel images and so on. Unfortunately those boot floppies do not work, they boot the kernel, ask for the initrd disks, read those disks but then I get the mentionned errors and an abort.

My Hardware:
Asus A7V Board with AMD Athlon Thunderbird 800, Dawicontrol 2940 SCSI Controller, a SCSI DVD ROM (the SCSI stuff doesn't boot like this, the dawicontrol can only boot from hard drives, not cdrom (ancient thing!)), and several IDE hard disks:

hda: IBM-DTTA-351010 (10 Gig)
hdc: ST320423A (20 Gig)
hde: MAXTOR 4K080H4 (80 Gig) (<--- ATA100 master on 0)
hdg: Maxtor 4R060J0 (60 Gig)(<--- ATA100 master on 1)

The system is setup using lilo, and I'm booting from /dev/hda (boot = /dev/hda). The partition where I want my knoppix to go is on /dev/hdg1 which is an ext3 formated 4 gig partition, but it has already some data on it which I have no spare room anywhere else. The /dev/hdg1 partition looks about this:

KNOPPIX/
KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX (<--- 720MB file, obviously compacted runtime image for /dev/cloop)
boot
boot/isolinux
boot/isolinux/boot.cat
boot/isolinux/boot.msg
boot/isolinux/f2
boot/isolinux/f3
boot/isolinux/german.kbd
boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin
boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg
boot/isolinux/linux24
boot/isolinux/linux26
boot/isolinux/logo.16
boot/isolinux/memtest
boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
boot/isolinux/minirt26.gz
linux24
minirt24.gz

The lilo.conf file is setup like this:
boot = /dev/hda
delay = 50 # optional, for systems that boot very quickly
vga = normal # force sane state
root = /dev/hdg3 # use "current" root
read-only
lba32

...

image = /mount/data3/linux24
label = linux.knoppix
root=/dev/hdg1
append = "ramdisk_size=100000 \
init=/etc/init \
lang=us \
apm=power-off \
vga=791 \
initrd=/minirt24.gz \
nomce \
quiet \
BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix"

I hope this information helps in finding the problem! I really appreciate help I think one can see that I tried to find out as much as possible by myself I'd be happy for a pointer how to maybe get it working, should I try out grub? I've just compiled it but not read the documentation yet.

H.

[baldyeti]

So you have another distro working and booting fine, right? And you want to add a knoppix poor man install to the existing lilo menu, is that it? And that hdg drive is mounted under /mount/data3...

I'd suggest the following:

image=/mount/data3/linux24
    initrd=/mount/data3/minirt24.gz
    vga=791
    label=linux.knoppix
    append="nomc eapm=power-off"

You may have to try several times, adding cheatcodes to the "append" line ("fromhd=/dev/hdg" might speed things up).

Also how come you've got hde and hdg instead of say hdc and hdd? Does this system have som RAID controller, or an extra IDE card? That piece equipment might be your problem... Dunno, lets' try the above 1st.

[hochl]

I'd suggest the following:

image=/mount/data3/linux24
    initrd=/mount/data3/minirt24.gz
    vga=791
    label=linux.knoppix
    append="nomc eapm=power-off"

You may have to try several times, adding cheatcodes to the "append" line ("fromhd=/dev/hdg" might speed things up).

Also how come you've got hde and hdg instead of say hdc and hdd? Does this system have som RAID controller, or an extra IDE card? That piece equipment might be your problem... Dunno, lets' try the above 1st.

Hmmm, that looks like the stuff I already have inside of my lilo.conf as posted above. The hde/g is because this is an ATA100 Controller, additionally to the generelly available hd[abcd] drive pairs. Other ideas?

[baldyeti]

Hmmm, that looks like the stuff I already have inside of my lilo.conf as posted above.

Not exactly. In particular no root is givan/needed, and the initrd is outside the append directive. It's crucial that the linux24 kernel starts with this initrd, within which the startup script will try to find the KNOPPIX image - from a CD or otherwise (which btw is why you might have to add SCSi emulation for IDE devices, eg "hdg=ide-scsi"). Now if you discard suggestions and don't even bother trying...

[hochl]

Hmmm, that looks like the stuff I already have inside of my lilo.conf as posted above.

Not exactly. In particular no root is givan/needed, and the initrd is outside the append directive. It's crucial that the linux24 kernel starts with this initrd, within which the startup script will try to find the KNOPPIX image - from a CD or otherwise (which btw is why you might have to add SCSi emulation for IDE devices, eg "hdg=ide-scsi"). Now if you discard suggestions and don't even bother trying...

Hi, sorry for not trying out it's rather late here already and I get tired. I gave it a try ... and it works! Very nice, thank you very much for your help! Now the only problem remaining is that Knoppix thinks my Intuos tablet is the primary mouse and the intuos driver obviously doesn't work (= the mouse is moving but stays in the top of the screen -- damn l). But I guess that topic is worth another thread.

Thanks

H.

[baldyeti]

Note that by adding another similar section to your lilo.conf, but replacing linux24/minirt24 by linux26/minirt26, you'll be able to boot off a 2.6 kernel as well.