What's wrong with mkbootfloppy in 4.0?

[firehawk256]

I am trying to boot knoppix 4.0.2 on an old Dell laptop (pentium 166). It has no option to boot from cd. I tried the mkbootfloppy command using another computer, but the progress bar goes to like 110% on the first floppy, then it prompts for the second floppy. Knoppix tells me the disks were created successfully but then I have a problem booting. The first disk loads, but near the end I see the prompt to insert the second floppy, then something about my keyboard, then mouse, then a blank prompt. At this point I put in the second floppy and hit enter, and it says something like Found root block 0, then something about about a filesystem error (err=2).

Any ideas how i can fix this or how I can get a working pair of boot/root floppies? I also tried using the 4.0.1 DVD to make the floppies with the same result.

I tried to use Smart Boot Manager but it can't boot my cdrom. That's a whole other story.

[Harry Kuhman]

I tried to use Smart Boot Manager but it can't boot my cdrom. That's a whole other story.

The Linux kernel has grown to the point where it no longer fits on a single floppy. While there are some who try to split the kernel onto two floppies and the support logic to allow the floppies to be swapped mid-boot, this is a complex approach that needlessly adds problems and requires that new floppies be made whenever a kernel is updated. SBM is a much better approach, as it allows one to boot a CD from one floppy without the need to swap floppies or make a new floppy when a kernel is changed. If SBM will not boot for you, perhaps you shouls ask why; it could well be the same as one of the reasons that the multiple floppy kluge isn't working.

[firehawk256]

I got the bootfloppy to work! Yay!

I'm no programmer, so this is a very lowdown dirty thing I'm about to tell you, but it worked.

I happened upon this post:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14855

and was interested by the idea that the second boot floppy still uses a "1440" format. In 4.0.2 there are a lot more than 3 occurences of "1722" and I did not know which ones to change. So what I did (in Kate ) was find all occurences of "1722" in /usr/sbin/mkbootfloppy and replace them with 1440, then save the modified file to the desktop. I started the graphical "Make Knoppix boot floppies" and made the first disk as usual. When I was promted for the second disk I made the switch, substituting my modified mkbootfloppy for the original. Correct me if I am wrong, but that caused the second floppy to be formatted as a 1.44 MB disk.

Now knoppix boots from floppies with no problem!


As for SBM, all I ever get when booting from a floppy is "SBMK Bad!". I did manage to get it installed to the hard drive but I get a cdrom read error. The only option I could find that might help was to specify the address in hex, which I had no clue about. After watching knoppix try to boot several times though I saw an address fly by during init, so I may give that a try later.

[Harry Kuhman]

The only option I could find that might help was to specify the address in hex, which I had no clue about. After watching knoppix try to boot several times though I saw an address fly by during init, so I may give that a try later.

I think you're on the wrong track there. I have used XOSL on several systems that wouldn't boot CDs and installed SBM on another just for the experience and also to boot between Win or Debian on hard disk or Knoppix on CD. Have another system that needs a SBM floppy to boot the KNoppix DVD (but not the CD). I've never had to worry about a hex address for any of them, about the only thing one needs to know with SBM is which optical drive or which partition you want to boot from.