Lilo not writing to partition.

[danman]

Hello, I'm installing 3.8.1 on a laptop that uses SBM (smart boot manager) to dual boot winXP and Knoppix. When I install either 3.7 or 3.8 and choose lilo to be installed on the partition boot sector, SMB doesn't seem to detect the linux partition. When I install 3.4 I don't have this problem. Has anyone else encounter this problem or know how to fix it? Thanks

[mr_ed]

There are a few different ways to approach this problem.

One would be for me to say that it's curious that it shows up with Knoppix 3.7 Then moderator Harry Kuhman would say that it's curious that I find this curious because the knoppix-installer script is buggy, and Knoppix isn't intended to install to HD - both of which he knows that I know and agree with.

So let's pretend we had that discussion and move on.

Another approach would be to wipe out the effects of knoppix-installer demanding that you install LILO whether you want to or not - a supremely annoying bug in my view. This could be done by zeroing out part or all of the Partition Boot Sector for the Knoppix partition, which has two possible benefits.

It might allow SBM to see Knoppix, and it eliminates the needless step (once SBM does see Knoppix) of running through your preferred bootloader only to have it chain-load a second one - that you didn't want in the first place.

Still another way to go about this is to ask the SBM developer why SBM is misbehaving. (Of course you'd want to first double-check that Knoppix is getting installed correctly.) I'm sure this is something he'll want to fix right away - especially if you phrase it like, "What's so smart about a boot manager that can't find Knoppix?"

In the meantime, can you manually add that partition to SBM's menu, or is it autodetect-only?

And by the way, I'd bet you wouldn't have this problem if you installed Debian sarge instead.

-- Ed

[atrick-pay]

I had to boot "knoppix" (2.4) instead of "Knoppix26" (2.6) for it to work with my hard drive.

Try just running Lilo (after the install script) just open a root console and do: /etc/lilo
and see if it ends with an error message.

[mr_ed]

I had to boot "knoppix" (2.4) instead of "Knoppix26" (2.6) for it to work with my hard drive.

Did you figure out why?

just open a root console and do: /etc/lilo

This might be hard to do if SBM can't boot the Knoppix he wants to check.

There could be a problem with how LILO gets installed, but I don't think it's likely. And LILO can be repaired by booting from CD and then doing a chroot into the installed Knoppix - sometimes I have to do that because of stupid things that other operating systems do when I install them to the same hard drive, and sometimes I have to do it because of stupid things that I do.

But he doesn't want LILO, so checking to see that it works isn't really needed.

-- Ed

[jjmac]

mr ed wrote:

>>
One would be for me to say that it's curious that it shows up with Knoppix 3.7 Then moderator Harry Kuhman would say that it's curious that I find this curious because the knoppix-installer script is buggy, and Knoppix isn't intended to install to HD - both of which he knows that I know and agree with.
>>

Indeed !

Do you mean Knoppix isn't even supposed to go on to a hdd (wtf.png)

But its' got a installer script !

I insalled mine with "tar" directly from the ramdisk image, so i don't know about all these knoppix installer script problems. Though it does sound quite facinating.


>>
But he doesn't want LILO, so checking to see that it works isn't really needed
>>

Can SBM reference a kernel directly, really !!!

Then it truely is smart, iv'e only used it directly from a floppy and have never seen a config for it.

Otherwise it would need some intermediary

jm

[atrick-pay]

My HD is better supported through 2.4 at the moment.
I found a few sites a round with similer problems.

I said to run lilo after the installer I.E. while still running from the CD.

I to have used a live CD to work on or fix problems with my HD-Knoppix
mostly sudoers, fstab and mtab problems oh and XF86Config-4 once.
It is a great option to fix both *nix and MS problems

[danman]

Thanks for the feedback. I found your comments most interesting, and humorous. I believe LILO is the problem since I selected write to MBR on one occasion and SBM was still there when I rebooted. Or maybe the install script fails to execute LILO. I went ahead and installed Kanotix 2005-2 and that worked fine. I'll mess with that until 3.8.2 come out. I'm also considering installing Debian Sarge, but you just can't beat Knoppix hardware detection. Knoppix provides the fastest Debian install that I know of. I've also found that I like KDE better than Gnome. KDE seem much more advanced than Gnome, but I haven't used Gnome in over a year. Thanks Again.

[mr_ed]

Error Correction - or - I'm An Idiot

I said to run lilo after the installer I.E. while still running from the CD.

Oops! I'm sorry - I got confused.

Letting Knoppix put LILO in the Partition Boot Sector does not cause the bootloader in the Master Boot Record to chain-load into it. Not necessarily, anyway.

I finally got my hands on an iso for 3.8.1 last night - I had to try five sites to get a connection that would last more than a few minutes - and so I installed the shiny new Knoppix and am booted into it now.

Thus, I had to come up with a new theory! Mucking around with my bootloader's configuration file in order to enable the new Knoppix installation, I was reminded that Knoppix, like a good Debian should, requires that an initial ramdisk (initrd) be loaded before the rest of the bootup procedure.

My experience with Knoppix doesn't stretch back to 3.4 - did it require an initrd? For sure both 3.7 and 3.8.1 do, and while I've never tried booting Knoppix without one, I've read in reliable books that one simple mustn't do that. Does SBM have a provision for editing a configuration file and loading an initrd?

Can SBM reference a kernel directly, really !!! ... Then it truely is smart....

You've got me - this is the first I've heard of SBM. If it can't, it sure doesn't compete with LILO and GrUB.

Do you mean Knoppix isn't even supposed to go on to a hdd (wtf.png) ... But its' got a installer script !

The world is full of people who will give you what you ask for, whether it's good for you or not. No, Knoppix isn't intended to be installed to HD. That's why the minimum requirements at www.knopper.net/knoppix-info/index-en.html make no mention of a hard drive at all.

At least, that's why I think they make no mention of it. You're free to draw your own conclusions, of course. And how did you find out about the installer script? Not from the software itself, unless you went rooting around in the binary directories and stumbled across it by accident.

And not from official Knoppix web pages - see how hard-drive installation is discouraged with the instructions on the official FAQ page: http://download.linuxtag.org/knoppix/KNOPPIX-FAQ-EN.txt. No mention of either knx-hdinstall nor knoppix-installer.

Think you can win big at the lottery, if only you had a little help? People will sell you software for that - good luck, mate!

I went ahead and installed Kanotix 2005-2 and that worked fine.

Lots of people like Kanotix! I haven't tried it, so I can't say anything (else) about it. I know you gotta go with what you can make work - Debian was the first distro I tried to install a few years ago, and it was a miserable experience. I threw it away and went with something which shall remain unnamed but went by the initials RHL back then.

Good luck, and have fun!

-- Ed

[danman]

Holy Somkes! Kanotix just nailed my centrino wireless right out of the box! And APM is showing progress to boot (no pun intended). I use a Gateway ARC 200 laptop. Centrino wireless on past Knoppix and Knotix distros didn't work for my system. I purchase a licence from Linuxant to use their driver loader module that acts as a wrapper to my XP .dll file. That worked great on KanotixBH5 and Knoppix 3.4. However, It didn't work on a 2.6 kernel. Now I don't need it. I prefer to use Knoppix because it's more stable. I had 3.4 on this system for a while until my hard drive went bad. I still have 3.4 on my desktop system. I believe it uses initrd.

I like to use SBM because It gives me some flexibility. It has options to reboot or boot from CD or floppy.
I've also had more luck using SBM to boot other operating systems than I have with Lilo or Grub. Kanotix uses Grub. If the install doesn't configure Lilo or Grub, I can't always get them to configured to boot other operating systems. Then I'm stuck booting into the bios (desktop) and switching boot disks when I want to switch OSs. I can't do that with my laptop. It only has 1 disk and the bios doesn't boot partitions.

I must say that I'm very pleased with my laptop right now. Hats off to Klaus and Kano!!

[mr_ed]

It's all about freedom of choice, dude. And one bonus thing is that you can often take a configuration that works in one Linux distro and apply it to a different distro because in large part they all use cards from the same deck - they just shuffle 'em differently.

Enjoy!

-- Ed