Is Unionfs working in Knoppix 4.0?

[tablet_guy]

Hi,

is unionfs working reliably in Knoppix 4.0? i.e. with a cheat such as "unionrw" or by mounting a unionfs image file, is one able to update/upgrade/install .debs?

Thanks in advance?
Tom

[eco2geek]

Short answer: yes. Use the tool on the Knoppix menu to create a "persistent disk image," then use the cheatcode "home=/mnt/hda2/knoppix.img" (or whatever) to tell Knoppix about it at the "boot:" prompt.

It seems to be buggy, though. Every time I install something that adds an icon to the K menu, the kicker bar crashes and Knoppix won't cleanly unmount the image. (It runs fsck on it on next boot.)

[tablet_guy]

Short answer: yes. Use the tool on the Knoppix menu to create a "persistent disk image," then use the cheatcode "home=/mnt/hda2/knoppix.img" (or whatever) to tell Knoppix about it at the "boot:" prompt.

It seems to be buggy, though. Every time I install something that adds an icon to the K menu, the kicker bar crashes and Knoppix won't cleanly unmount the image. (It runs fsck on it on next boot.)

Thanks. I'll check it out when the official versions come out.

Tom

[tablet_guy]

Short answer: yes. Use the tool on the Knoppix menu to create a "persistent disk image," then use the cheatcode "home=/mnt/hda2/knoppix.img" (or whatever) to tell Knoppix about it at the "boot:" prompt.

It seems to be buggy, though. Every time I install something that adds an icon to the K menu, the kicker bar crashes and Knoppix won't cleanly unmount the image. (It runs fsck on it on next boot.)

Actually, are you able to check if upgrading of a packages is working. The reason I am asking is, there appear to be some unresolved issues pertaining to file deletion (called "white out", I think) in unionfs, when the original files being deleted are in read-only form (as in a cloop image). One package I had a problem with upgrading earlier was mozilla-firefox. Would it be possible for you to try upgrading this package alone (I am sure that the original version on Knoppix 4.0 is not the current 1.0.6 version) and see if everything goes smoothly (you may want to backup the original version using "dpkg-repack mozilla-firefox", which recreates the original deb, and try doing this upgrade on a fresh knoppix unionfs image, instead of your stable image).

Look forward to your findings.

thanks,
Tom

[eco2geek]

That went well.

root@0[apt]# dpkg -l mozilla-fire\*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                Version             Description
+++-===================-===================-======================================================
ii  mozilla-firefox     1.0.4-2             lightweight web browser based on Mozilla
un  mozilla-firefox-gno <none>              (no description available)
ii  mozilla-firefox-loc 1.0.2lang20050405-1 dummy package for transition to mozilla-firefox-locale
ii  mozilla-firefox-loc 1.0.4lang20050515-1 Mozilla Firefox German language/region package

root@0[apt]# apt-get -s install mozilla-firefox
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
mozilla-firefox is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 387 not upgraded.

root@0[apt]# apt-get install mozilla-firefox -t unstable
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gcc-4.0-base libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-dev libgcc1 libstdc++6 libxinerama1
Suggested packages:
  mozilla-firefox-gnome-support xprint
Recommended packages:
  libatk1.0-data
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gcc-4.0-base libxinerama1
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-dev libgcc1 libstdc++6 mozilla-firefox
5 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 815 not upgraded.
Need to get 8577kB of archives.
After unpacking 2789kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main libgcc1 1:4.0.1-2 [89.4kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main gcc-4.0-base 4.0.1-2 [174kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main libatk1.0-dev 1.10.1-2 [94.2kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main libatk1.0-0 1.10.1-2 [68.5kB]
Get:5 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main libstdc++6 4.0.1-2 [353kB]
Get:6 http://ftp.de.debian.org unstable/main libxinerama1 6.8.2.dfsg.1-4 [179kB]
Get:7 http://ftp.de.debian.org unstable/main mozilla-firefox 1.0.6-1 [7619kB]
Fetched 8577kB in 19s (446kB/s)
(Reading database ... 359384 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace libgcc1 1:3.4.3-13 (using .../libgcc1_1%3a4.0.1-2_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libgcc1 ...
Setting up libgcc1 (4.0.1-2) ...

Selecting previously deselected package gcc-4.0-base.
(Reading database ... 359384 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking gcc-4.0-base (from .../gcc-4.0-base_4.0.1-2_i386.deb) ...
Preparing to replace libatk1.0-dev 1.8.0-4 (using .../libatk1.0-dev_1.10.1-2_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libatk1.0-dev ...
Preparing to replace libatk1.0-0 1.8.0-4 (using .../libatk1.0-0_1.10.1-2_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libatk1.0-0 ...
Preparing to replace libstdc++6 3.4.3-13 (using .../libstdc++6_4.0.1-2_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libstdc++6 ...
Selecting previously deselected package libxinerama1.
Unpacking libxinerama1 (from .../libxinerama1_6.8.2.dfsg.1-4_i386.deb) ...
Preparing to replace mozilla-firefox 1.0.4-2 (using .../mozilla-firefox_1.0.6-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement mozilla-firefox ...
Setting up gcc-4.0-base (4.0.1-2) ...
Setting up libatk1.0-0 (1.10.1-2) ...

Setting up libatk1.0-dev (1.10.1-2) ...
Setting up libstdc++6 (4.0.1-2) ...

Setting up libxinerama1 (6.8.2.dfsg.1-4) ...

Setting up mozilla-firefox (1.0.6-1) ...
Updating mozilla-firefox chrome registry...done.
Please restart any running Firefoxes, or you will experience problems.

root@0[apt]# dpkg -l mozilla-fire\*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                Version             Description
+++-===================-===================-======================================================
ii  mozilla-firefox     1.0.6-1             lightweight web browser based on Mozilla
un  mozilla-firefox-gno <none>              (no description available)
ii  mozilla-firefox-loc 1.0.2lang20050405-1 dummy package for transition to mozilla-firefox-locale
ii  mozilla-firefox-loc 1.0.4lang20050515-1 Mozilla Firefox German language/region package

This time, nothing crashed.

[tablet_guy]

I appreciate your feedback.

thanks,
Tom