KNOPPIX on a ME/XP machine(Dell Inspiron), my field notes

**garyng** · 03-29-2003, 04:44 PM

I am currently running ME and XP(dual boot using XP boot loader) on my Dell Inspiron 2500 with a 10G disk. Because of the limited space available and it has already been paritioned with a FAT32(for Window ME) and NTFS(for XP), I don't want to repartition it and reinstall everything, I decid to follow the route mentioned in

http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/FaqHdBased

Because I don't like floppy at all as it is slow and in many case not reliable, I decided to use lilo as the boot loader to boot KNOPPIX from the harddisk(as described in the link). However, I want to continue to use the XP boot loader as the main boot loader and chain boot into lilo, some additional steps are needed.

1. I made a copy of the current boot sector records(both MBR and the partition, just in case) :

dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/auto/hda1/hdaboot.xp bs=512 count=1
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/auto/hda1/hda1boot.xp bs=512 count=1

2. I follow the instructions in the above link to setup LILO which would overwrite the boot sector at /dev/hda1(my FAT32 partition or C:\ drive in M$ terms). I made a copy of it by

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/auto/hda1/hda1boot.lnx bs=512 count=1

3. Put back the NT/XP boot loader with

dd of=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/auto/hda1/hda1boot.xp bs=512 count=1

3. edit the NT boot loader config file C:\BOOT.INI or /mnt/auto/hda1/boot.ini and add the following line :

C:\hda1boot.lnx="KNOPPIX"

reboot and I can happily choose between ME/XP/KNOPPIX. I have also added the necessary cheat codes in the lilo.conf so I don't have to enter it every time.

However, using this method to boot, I notice something that I don't like which is, KNOPPIX mount the device containing /KNOPPIX as "ro" which means that I can no longer access my FAT32 partition for storing things I want(passing files around). I then deompressed the miniboot.gz and make the necessary change in "linuxrc".

The pros of booting from HD is that it is much faster(and quieter) than running from CD(mine is 24x) and I don't need to burn a CD each time a newKNOPPIX release comes out as I can just mount the .iso image and copy the new 700M KNOPPIX to my FAT32.

While going through the linuxrc, I notice that I can also make the home and var directories persistant on my FAT32 too(haven't tried yet).

Just hope this can help if someone need to put KNOPPIX on a ME/XP system where repartitioning is not an option. In this way, all that is needed is a sub-directory KNOPPIX to store everything which can be removed easily.

**rickenbacherus** · 03-30-2003, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by garyng

Because I don't like floppy at all as it is slow and in many case not reliable,

Very nice post (for those of you still bound & chained to windows) but I wouldn't trade my floppy drives for anything but that's just me.

**garyng** · 03-31-2003, 03:51 AM

Thank you. I am still chained to M$ because of the other problems that is still outstanding using KNOPPIX(see my other posts about Chinese input and USB CF card reader)

As for floppy, I had very bad experience about it(was using it as some backup media and can't retrieve any after a period of time), same goes for CD-R too. Harddisk IMO is the most reliable media followed by CF.

**rickenbacherus** · 03-31-2003, 04:34 AM

Originally Posted by garyng

Thank you. I am still chained to M$ because of the other problems that is still outstanding using KNOPPIX(see my other posts about Chinese input and USB CF card reader)

That card reader should work. Here's a post that might be of assistance:http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1409
Read it- try some things and post back with some results & outputs.

As for floppy, I had very bad experience about it(was using it as some backup media and can't retrieve any after a period of time), same goes for CD-R too. Harddisk IMO is the most reliable media followed by CF.

Yeah but who's always there for you- no matter the BIOS no matter what the floppy works. What if your hard drive gets trashed- who saves you, the floppy. What if you need to zero your hard drive- who gets it done, the floppy. As for Cf cards - USB card reader isn't supported by the BIOS. When it is BIOS supporteds maybe then. I have rescued many old machines with the floppy drive. I hate to see so many PC's sent from the factory without floppy's now days. (you'd think I had a warehouse full of em' to sell eh?)

**garyng** · 03-31-2003, 06:39 AM

Concerning my USB CF reader problem, I just don't know where it breaks. From the dmesg output, the device is recognized(partially at least), below is the output :
=========================================
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 19:01:21 Jan 29 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:1f.2
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.2 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1820, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:1f.4
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.4 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1880, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
hub.c: new USB device 00:1f.2-1, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x7c4/0xa400) is not claimed by any active driver.
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 2, frame# 390
usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
WARNING: USB Mass Storage data integrity not assured
USB Mass Storage device found at 2
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-uhci.c: ENXIO 80000280, flags 0, urb d1c10230, burb d1c10330
usb-uhci.c: ENXIO 80000280, flags 0, urb d1c10230, burb d1c10330
usb-uhci.c: ENXIO 80000280, flags 0, urb d1c10230, burb d1c10330
usb-uhci.c: ENXIO 80000280, flags 0, urb d1c10230, burb d1c10330
usb-uhci.c: ENXIO 80000280, flags 0, urb d1c10230, burb d1c10330
usb-uhci.c: ENXIO 80000280, flags 0, urb d1c10230, burb d1c10330
usbdevfs: USBDEVFS_CONTROL failed dev 2 rqt 128 rq 6 len 18 ret -84
usbdevfs: USBDEVFS_CONTROL failed dev 2 rqt 128 rq 6 len 18 ret -84
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-0

with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
================================================== ===
However, I don't know which device it has been assigned to(so even I want to do manual mount, I don't know how). I see an entry /proc/scsi/usb-storage-0 but don't know what it means.

**rickenbacherus** · 03-31-2003, 07:08 AM

There are a multitude of ways to glean info about your devices, all of them from a term:

cat /proc/bus/usb/devicecs
cat /proc/scsi/scsi

Those were kind of self explainatory- cat (concatenate) what's on the USB bus or SCSI bus.

usbview

Again - kind of self explainatory. Post back eh?

**garyng** · 03-31-2003, 07:42 AM

root@0[knoppix]# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: TEAC Model: CD-224E Rev: 3.7C
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02

root@0[knoppix]# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
T: Bus=02 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 2
B: Alloc= 0/900 us ( 0%), #Int= 0, #Iso= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB UHCI Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=1880
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 8 Ivl=255ms
T: Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 2
B: Alloc= 0/900 us ( 0%), #Int= 0, #Iso= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB UHCI Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=1820
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 8 Ivl=255ms
T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=12 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=07c4 ProdID=a400 Rev= 1.13
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr= 70mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
root@0[knoppix]#
================================================
As you can see, it is recognized by the USB module by not the SCSI module(some how). I google again and it seems to me that USB storage works through SCSI(at least they need the SCSI related modules being compiled in the kernel). However, I have to say "noscsi" at the boot prompt or else it hangs. May be this disable the scsi support.

I also tried a 'modprobe ide-scsi' but it said "can't locate module ide-scsi" and a quick find under lib/modules don't give me an 'ide-scsi.o". Doesn't that mean it is not there ?

**rickenbacherus** · 03-31-2003, 01:41 PM

Passing the noscsi option at boot shouldn't matter. I boot with that option simply so it boots a bit faster and I still get scsi emulation for my drives. I'm off to Denver today so I won't really have time to look further into this until later- perhaps tonite. I can say this though; when you do a cat /proc/scsi/scsi anything that shows up is ON THE SCSI BUS. The devices are separated in the output at the "T". laterz