Can not get KNOPPIX Live CD to AUTO BOOT

[SpliffDoctor]

THIS IS MY FIRST ADVENTURE INTO LINUX AND AS SUCH I MAY BE GETTING IT TOTALY WRONG.

I have burnt CD from ISO image and all files show up under win98
but when I put Cd in reboot knoppix will not laod.

I am trying to run it on a old p166. I have entered the bios to change boot up to first device CD-ROM but the motherboard is that old it has no
bios setting to allow you to do this.

can some one help please

[Harry Kuhman]

I am trying to run it on a old p166. I have entered the bios to change boot up to first device CD-ROM but the motherboard is that old it has no bios setting to allow you to do this.

First let me say that Linux is suffering at least as much from bloat as Windows is; I have an old P166 too and I can't even install Debain (including the GUI) on it. However, I can run Knoppix on it. You will not be impressed by the speed, but as long as you have at least 64 meg of ram and some hard disk space for a swap file you should be OK.

Second, I too had CD booting problems. At first the box couldn't boot a CD at all. After a BOS upgrade it could boot some but would not boot Knoppix. I solved this with a great handy free utility called XOSL (eXtended Operating System Loader). It installs to the hard drive as a boot manger and will let you boot from hard drive (any hard drive, not just the first), different partitions on the hard drive, CD (any CD drive, not just the first), floppy (again, any...) and so on. It can also do some other magic, like hiding some partitions when it boots, so it can let you have multiple copies of Windows installed on the same hard drive, and a lot more. Now I just come up in XOSL on that machine; it can boot either of 2 copies of Windows from the hard drive or anything, including Knoppix, from a CD. You can find a copy of it here: http://www.ranish.com/part/

[rcook]

Smart Boot Manager is a boot manager which will recognize partitions, including CD-Roms and then boot to them.

I have used it off and on for years, particularly on older notebooks, especially ones with BIOS problems on recognizing Bootable CD's.

The boot manager installs on a floppy and is 200-300KB if my memory is correct.

A link is http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html

[SpliffDoctor]

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP LADS GOT IT SORTED

BOOT UP NOW

THANKS A LOT