Knoppix boot from different partitions

[Werner P. Schulz]

If you have copied Knoppix 6.2.1 files to a partition on your HDD and you try to boot from a 6.2.1 USB key, it will somehow switch over to loading and mounting everything from the HDD copy.

If you build an USB-Stick using origninal Knoppix-CD with menu order 'Preferences/ Install KNOPPIX to flash disk' then Knoppix will only boot from USB-Stick. Be sure BIOS can boot from USB-Stick; if in doupt disable all options to boot from HD or CD.

In general, I thought this was a nice feature, because I could copy KNOPPIX/ from the iso image to a partition on my HDD, boot from the USB key, and pull the USB key out a few seconds later and the booting would continue and complete from the HDD partition.

Why that? You can not change device order while boot process is running! Either boot from USB-Stick or boot from USB-Drive.

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
"Build personal Recovery-CD with Knoppix (Knoppix remaster)"

[kl522]

If you build an USB-Stick using origninal Knoppix-CD with menu order 'Preferences/ Install KNOPPIX to flash disk' then Knoppix will only boot from USB-Stick. Be sure BIOS can boot from USB-Stick; if in doupt disable all options to boot from HD or CD.

Booting and running the system are two independent things for Knoppix, ie after knoppix is booted from a kernel and the kernel loaded the initrd/initramfs, it will begin searching for available Knoppix System from whatever available HD and USB devices present on the system. This is a (somewhat confusing) feature which can lead to someone possibly booting from USB, but yet using a Knoppix System loaded on the HD.

Sometimes the system present on the HD is an older version compared to the kernel on the USB, that will lead to a module loading problem with cloop.ko and aufs.ko.

Cheers.

[Werner P. Schulz]

Booting and running the system are two independent things for Knoppix, ie after knoppix is booted from a kernel and the kernel loaded the initrd/initramfs, it will begin searching for available Knoppix System from whatever available HD and USB devices present on the system.

I am in doubt this will be the behaviour of an USB-Stick which you build without any hacks and start without any cheatcodes.

[kl522]

Try "fromhd=/dev....." cheatcode.

Actually what I am not so sure is whether we are using a feature of knoppix or we are exploiting a bug in knoppix. If it is a bug, the behaviour might not be the same in later versions.

[kl522]

I suspect both of you might be correct, ie Klaus might have changed the scripts in later releases thereby causing two distinct behaviour for knoppix 6.2.1 and knoppix 6.4.3. I am too lazy to verify it by looking at the scripts.

Cheers.

[Werner P. Schulz]

I suspect both of you might be correct, ie Klaus might have changed the scripts in later releases thereby causing two distinct behaviour for knoppix 6.2.1 and knoppix 6.4.3. I am too lazy to verify it by looking at the scripts.

Cheers.

... if I look at interesting block in the init-script, there is no difference between the two Knoppix versions.

# findknoppix devices...
findknoppix(){
local dev
for dev in "$@"; do
[ -b "$dev" ] || continue
message -n -e "\r${CRE}${BLUE}${SEARCHINGFOR} $DISTRO in: ${MAGENTA}$dev${NORMAL} "
trymount "$dev" /mnt-system >/dev/null 2>&1 || continue
if [ -r /mnt-system/"$knoppix_dir"/KNOPPIX ]; then
message -e "\r${CRE}${GREEN}$DISTRO ${FOUNDAT}: ${MAGENTA}$dev${NORMAL} "
return 0
fi
umount /mnt-system
done
return 1
}

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
"Build personal Recovery-CD with Knoppix (Knoppix remaster)"

[kl522]

Can't really comment on it, human eyes are no good to spot changes. You should probably do a 'diff' on it. Furthermore, the function findknoppix() depends on function parameters got passed it, so maybe the changes is outside findknoppix(). In any case my comments are casual and not to be taken seriously. What's important is that imperically, you guys are noticing distinctly different behaviours, for two entirely different versions; whereas since I have never quite used knoppix 6.4.3, so I am more inclined to side the OP.

[kl522]

Another thing is that knoppix 6.2.1 can't really deal with ext4 file system in the initramfs, so if you have ext4 file system on the harddisk, that is not going to be detected. That might be also the case for knoppix 6.4.3 too.

[Werner P. Schulz]

... now I've done tests with a ext3-formatted HD and I noticed that really "ext4" was the reason of my error.

With USB-stick mounted as /dev/sda, Knoppix use /KNOPPIX from the stick. If HD mounted as /dev/sda and you boot from USB-stick, then Knoppix use /KNOPPX from ext3-formatted HD.

[benny59]

Hi you all,
I have been fighting a few days with a variant of the current problem, so I share it with you.

My aim is to boot from ISO the latest Knoppix version. This ISO hold on a usb 320 GB external disk with several partitions.

The only way I managed to boot Knoppix 6.4.3 from this disk (/dev/sdb) was to create a suitable size partition (/dev/sdb8 and then cat KNOPPIX_V6.4.3DVD-2010-21-20-EN.iso > /dev/sdb8

booting with gujin as bootloader it works fine.

However I don't want to waste a partition for KNOPPIX and I'd like to boot it straight from the ISO image.

my USB HDD has FAT (/dev/sdb2) NTFS (/dev/sdb3) ext2 (/dev/sdb6) partitions and I can place the ISO on anyone.

I made some attempts using GRUB2 (I can also boot from grub4dos) but unsuccessfully (basically the iso image is not found and the boot process drops to prompt)

this is grub.cfg entry

menuentry 'KNOPPIX' {
set root='(hd0,7)'
#loopback loop /KNOPPIX_V6.4.3DVD-2010-12-20-EN.iso
linux (hd0,6)/boot/isolinux/linux desktop=gnome bootfrom=/dev/sda7/boot/isolinux/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=it vt.default_utf8=0 apm=power-off BOOT_IMAGE=KNOPPIX
video=vga16fboff nomce loglevel=1 tz=localtime
initrd (hd0,6)/boot/isolinux/minirt.gz
}

you can see I extracted linux and minirt.gz from the ISO and placed on /boot/isolinux in order to fire it

Anyone can help me ?

Thanks in advance
benny