Switch to Knoppix OS in ISO via an active Linux OS in Runlevel5 and GUI

[rajibando]

Suppose I have Debian running in my system, and have a knoppix iso at the root of a partition.

Now, say I mount the Knoppix iso via loopback.

Then is it possible for me to switch over to knoppix from that Debian system by chroot and run knoppix normally, from runlevel1 to entering Runlevel5 and GDE or KDE?

I know it is possible, because that's what Knoppix does when the BIOS hands over the controls to the Bootloader, but I can't find posts specifically on the issue. There may be - and I believe there are - but my search using the key words like "switch loopback iso chroot boot knoppix" does not yield encouraging results.

Could any of you, who is aware of such a post, direct me to that link please?

[rajibando]

Since I can't edit my earlier post I am adding information in a new post. These were the steps I had experimented with prior to posting the present query.

I have read the link: http://smtp.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_Remastering_Howto

Now say I have the essential directories (boot and KNOPPIX) from the KNOPPIX live DVD in the drive /dev/sda2

The geniso command creates the KNOPPIX image. I am aware that the following line creates the iso

The knoppix image within the knoppix directory has to be booted. How to boot

genisoimage -input-charset ISO-8859-15 -R -l -D -V KNOPPIX_FS -quiet \
-no-split-symlink-components -no-split-symlink-fields \
-hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes $PFAD/knx/source/KNOPPIX \
| /usr/sbin/create_compressed_fs -q -B 65536 -t 8 -L 9 \
-f $PFAD/knx/isotemp - $PFAD/knx/master/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX

How can I boot from this image?
I have used the code

mount -t iso8859 -o loop /media/c5188c78-d9a3-431f-930d-aa29233c2b19/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX /media/cdrom0

but this has failed to mount the image.

Says:

mount: unknown filesystem type 'iso8859'
mount: maybe you meant 'iso9660'?

[Werner P. Schulz]

The geniso command creates the KNOPPIX image. I am aware that the following line creates the iso ..

No, this only creates the compressed Knoppix filesystem "KNOPPIX". To look within this compressed filesystem and to mount it, you need the Kernel modul "cloop".

[rajibando]

Thanks. I will eventually find the code. In Debian the module package is cloop-utils.

[Werner P. Schulz]

To compile the cloop module you need the sourcecode of cloop and also the module-assistant.

[rajibando]

I have installed as advised:
The output is:

root@Squeeze:/home/user# module-assistant auto-install cloop

Updated infos about 1 packages
Getting source for kernel version: 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem
Kernel headers available in /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686-bigmem/build
apt-get install build-essential
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
build-essential is already the newest version.
build-essential set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 254 not upgraded.

Done!
unpack
Extracting the package tarball, /usr/src/cloop.tar.bz2, please wait...
Target package file
/usr/src/cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem_2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2_i386.deb
already exists, not rebuilding!
(however, you could use the -f switch to ignore it)
dpkg -Ei /usr/src/cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem_2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2_i386.deb
Selecting previously deselected package cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem.
(Reading database ... 145794 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem (from .../cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem_2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2_i386.deb) ...
Setting up cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem (2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2) ...
root@Squeeze:/home/user#

What is meant by this ( README.Debian in :

configure the kernel with zlib functions, set the config
variable CONFIG_ZLIB_INFLATE to y!

I will now reboot...
I have the following codes.
insmod cloop.o file=/path/to/compressed/image
losetup /dev/cloop1 /path/to/compressed/image
mount -o ro -t whatever /dev/cloop /mnt/compressed
mount cl /mnt/misc -oloop=/dev/cloop0
Which codes do I use to access the KNOPPIX file and change my root directory to chroot and then boot from there. I will try insmod cloop.o file=/path/to/compressed/image replacing the actual path to the image.

[rajibando]

Did the automated installation via

module-assistant auto-install cloop

installed the following? :

make KERNEL_DIR=/path/to/linux-kernel/sources
(as root) mkdir -p /lib/modules/misc && cp cloop.o /lib/modules/misc/
(as root) depmod -a
(as root) mknod /dev/cloop b 240 0
(as root) mknod /dev/cloop1 b 240 1

I have tried the insmod code with the following result:

root@Squeeze:/home/user# insmod cloop.o file=/path/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX
insmod: can't read 'cloop.o': No such file or directory

Am I going wrong somewhere?

[rajibando]

root@Squeeze:/home/user# module-assistant auto-install cloop

Updated infos about 1 packages
Getting source for kernel version: 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem
Kernel headers available in /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686-bigmem/build
apt-get install build-essential
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
build-essential is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 254 not upgraded.

Done!
unpack
Extracting the package tarball, /usr/src/cloop.tar.bz2, please wait...
Target package file
/usr/src/cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem_2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2_i386.deb
already exists, not rebuilding!
(however, you could use the -f switch to ignore it)
dpkg -Ei /usr/src/cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem_2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2_i386.deb
Version 2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2 of cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem already installed, skipping.
root@Squeeze:/home/user# depmod -a
root@Squeeze:/home/user# mknod /dev/cloop b 240 0
root@Squeeze:/home/user# mknod /dev/cloop1 b 240 1
root@Squeeze:/home/user# mkdir -p /lib/modules/misc && cp cloop.o /lib/modules/misc/
cp: cannot stat `cloop.o': No such file or directory
Then I successively tried with the following three options:

root@Squeeze:/home/user# make KERNEL_DIR=/usr/src/
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

root@Squeeze:/home/user# make KERNEL_DIR=/usr/src/modules/cloop
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

root@Squeeze:/home/user# make KERNEL_DIR=/usr/src/cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem_2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2_i386.deb
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

[klaus2008]

Version 2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2 of cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem already installed, skipping.

I think you have already installed the cloop kernel module. What happens if you issue as root

modprobe cloop
lsmod

[rajibando]

Version 2.6.31.1.1+2.6.32-41squeeze2 of cloop-module-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem already installed, skipping.

Yes I was aware of that actually, I ran the code once again just to generate the output which I could post.
root@Squeeze:/home/user# lsmod
Module Size Used by
cloop 11538 0

and modprobe cloop does not give any output.