Installing persistent USB install to particular HDD partition

[Capricorny]

So I've recently set up the newest Knoppix 7 Live CD on a USB flash drive, and have to say I am very impressed with its performance and stability vs other distributions I have tried recently. On my hard disk at the moment, I currently have Windows XP installed to one partition, Fedora 17 to an ext4 partition (along with a swap partition set to it) and an ntfs partition for cross-compatible storage space.

When going through the "Knoppix HD Install" option under the "Knoppix" category on my app menu, it seems it wants to completely repartition my hard disk without allowing me to simply tell it to overwrite the Fedora install (hopefully installing GRUB to detect the windows install as well?), having never used 0wn before though I'm not sure.

So my question is, how do I go about simply installing what I have set up on my flash drive to the linux partition I have Fedora already set up on without messing any of the other partitions up? Or at least install a fresh copy of Knoppix to said partition (if saving what I have on the flash drive isn't possible)?

Because this is older question is a frequently asked one, I provide an alternative answer here.

First, saving what you have on the flash drive is possible. In your case, it's IMHO by far the best option for you if you have no specific needs for an ordinary HD install of Knoppix, but just want the benefits of running it from a hard drive.

Second, you don't really need to touch you partition setup, the only thing you might want to do, is adding a Knoppix stance on the bootloader menu, with provisions for the Knopix kernel and initrd images.

Third, in your case, the NTFS system partition might in fact be the best place for a Poor Man's Install of Knoppix. I'll explain why.

Fourth, if you don't know ReiserFS and don't have any special motivation for using it, there is not much of a reason to go into it. Surely I'm ReiserFS-incompetent myself, but it is, in fact, the only Unix/Linux file system that has ever given me trouble.

Simple approach: In Knoppix running from the flash drive, mount the NTFS system partition, then copy the KNOPPIX directory over to it using something like (sda1 might be sda2 or something similar, you can check it out by issuing fdisk -l.)

mount /media/sda1 
sudo rsync -ax /mnt-system/KNOPPIX /media/sda1 &

You might get some complaints about ownership preservation, but that's not important here. Then try to reboot, starting flash drive Knoppix as usual. You might be astonished, for unless you use the fromhd=/dev/sdb1 cheatcode, chances are that Knoppix will now run from the copy on the hard disk. And if you use the fromhd=/dev/sda1 cheatcode, Knoppix should now be run from the copy on the NTFS partition. Everything will work just as usual, disk accesses could be a bit faster. And you can always back up your Knoppix version by copying the KNOPPIX directory back to the flash drive (or somewhere else).

If you have a Linux bootloader on the PC, you can set it up to boot the KNOPPIX image, you then need the linux or linux64 and minirt.gz files from the boot/isolinux (or syslinux) directory on the flash drive. Looking at the .cfg file used for booting the drive, you can get a good suggestion for kernel parameters.

In a Poor Man's Install, the partition with KNOPPIX is mounted as /mnt-system, and there are some reasons not to use it much for general data handling, but rather, with the exception of the single file knoppix-data.img, use it as a read-only drive. Therefore, the Windows system partition (pre Windows 8 ) is actually a good place for Knoppix. And you can then use both the ext4 and the data exchange NTFS partitions for data.

You might also want to take this to the next level of sophistication and rename the KNOPPIX directory to, say, KNOPPIX704_1. Then you tell Knoppix to use it by using the cheat code knoppix_dir=KNOPPIX704_1. If you want to upgrade to Knoppix 7.0.5, you can just set that up on another flash drive (or the same), and then copy it over as, say, KNOPPIX705_1. You get the idea, and with just about 8 GB per version, most Windows drives have room for quite a lot of them. If you use separate booting subdirectories for each version of kernel and minirt (initrd), there is not much extra administrative work handling several versions.