Persistent Home and HD access

[Knewbie]

The second fixes the problem, that you cannot have your .knoppix file on the same partition as /knoppix/KNOPPIX (i call this a poor man's hd install)

Thanks again, Matthias. You answered my next question!

After making the second change in the script, I tried running Knoppix from the HD (I call it a lazy man's hd install) with floppyconfig. Persistent Home worked, but I could no longer access the HD as /mnt/hda1. It was accessible only as /cdrom. Is this the expected behavior?

I also tried running Knoppix from the HD without the floppyconfig option, but with knoppix.sh in the /knoppix directory on the HD. This did not work. The script executed, but with numerous errors, including several 'wrong password' messages. Is this also as you would expect?

Thanks again. Persistent Home is a great tool. I'll continue running Knoppix from the cdrom, if that's what I must do in order to use Persistent Home.

[Schwarze]

After making the second change in the script, I tried running Knoppix from the HD (I call it a lazy man's hd install) with floppyconfig. Persistent Home worked, but I could no longer access the HD as /mnt/hda1. It was accessible only as /cdrom. Is this the expected behavior?

I also tried running Knoppix from the HD without the floppyconfig option, but with knoppix.sh in the /knoppix directory on the HD. This did not work. The script executed, but with numerous errors, including several 'wrong password' messages. Is this also as you would expect?

Thanks again. Persistent Home is a great tool. I'll continue running Knoppix from the cdrom, if that's what I must do in order to use Persistent Home.

Yep, that's the experimental encryption interfering:
The simulated /cdrom makes life a bit hard for KPH - and since the encryption is aboard, KPH expects .knoppix to be encrypted when it's not trivial to mount and asks for a password.

It's running fine with my version, but i've changed quite a bit since 0.4 - so it's more than the typical one-liner fix... As a workaround you can copy your .knoppix file to another partition if you have one. It does not have to be on the first partition, but it must not be a NTFS partition.

Hope that helps a bit!
Bye, Matthias

[Knewbie]

As a workaround you can copy your .knoppix file to another partition if you have one.

No other partition is available. That's why I'm using the lazy man's hd install!

No problem. I'll wait for the release.

As long as I have your attention, one more question, if I may. Actually, it's a two-part question:

With KPH active, does Knoppix still use the ramdisk?

And if not, does KPH do anything to free the RAM, or should I use a startup option to limit the size of the ramdisk?

[audioaficionado]

As long as you're live CD, the ram disk is acting as a HD. PH will save your configs to a HD file. If you've allowed Knoppix to set a swap file on the HD, it will just swap out when you fill up your ram.

I dropped a huge 350Mb file on the KDE desktop and watched as the ram filled up and then just before it got down to ~4Mb the swap started filling and the ram emptied back to ~20Mb. All without XMMS skipping once while playing internet mp3 shoutcast 128kbs radio. Lets see windows do that.

[Schwarze]

With KPH active, does Knoppix still use the ramdisk?

Yes, as audioaficionado said. KPH only (kinda) remounts the directory /home/knoppix so that every access to it goes directly to the harddisk. Everything else still remains on the ramdisk or swap.

Second point: No, KPH does not do anything about the memory usage. But i'm very interested, if you find some optimisations in this field!

[Knewbie]

As long as you're live CD, the ram disk is acting as a HD.

I was unclear as to whether the .knoppix file is actually mounted and used as /home during a session, or is used a a repository for /home between sessions. Thanks to audioaficionado for clearning this up and to Matthias for confirming it.

But i'm very interested, if you find some optimisations in this field!

You flatter me! I am stumbling around in the dark in this new environment, and it's unlikely I will soon reach a level of expertise that would enable me to suggest optimizations. Maybe some day!

Following audioaficionado's suggestion, I've experimented with the swap file, something I had overlooked until now. I find I cannot create a swap file while using Persistent Home. If Knoppix starts without kph, I can create a swap file, but on the next reboot, the swap file seems to interfere with kph. kph reports that the hd is already mounted and gives up, then kde is unable to load

Any guidance that might help me resolve the conflice will, of course, be much appreciated!

[audioaficionado]

See if you can carve out a small ~256Mb Linux swap partition on your HD. Maybe Knoppix/ph will use that. Knoppix always automaticly grabs the linux swap I created trying to install Libranet. I was going to reburn my CD with PH but I'm holding out for the next KDE3.1 Knoppix release.