Post install questions (firewire hdd install)

[c123]

I've installed Knoppix 3.3 19th November to firewire hdd. I'm currently booting using the cd-rom and doing a pivot_root to use my firewire hdd install. Couple of questions:

1. how can I check if the swap is being used? do I have to manuall mnount the swap (which is on the firewire install). 'Top' gives me the idea that at the moment I'm running without swap, a bit worrying as I've only got 128 MB of RAM :(

top - 00:42:01 up 4:21, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.14, 0.06
Mem: 126788k total, 121180k used, 5608k free, 12716k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 47704k cached

2. when I switch ot init 5, the graphical login manager laods up. how can i change it so that I just have a prompt; if I want to have a GUI I prefer to type startx or startkde.

3. how can I change window mangager, are others already installed or do I have to install them?

Got more questions, but I think I've seen most of them discussed elsewhere. I searched for the above, but could not find anything.

Cheers

[c123]

OK got first one answered...

1. how can I check if the swap is being used? do I have to manuall mnount the swap (which is on the firewire install). 'Top' gives me the idea that at the moment I'm running without swap, a bit worrying as I've only got 128 MB of RAM :(

top - 00:42:01 up 4:21, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.14, 0.06
Mem: 126788k total, 121180k used, 5608k free, 12716k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 47704k cached

seems that I was right, as top was indicating there was no swap. no after googling a bit more I discovered 'swapon', with two handy switches: -s to list current swap, and -a to use swap as listed in fstab. 'top' then confirmed that swap was recognized

root@Knoppix:/home/christopher# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
root@Knoppix:/home/christopher# swapon -a
root@Knoppix:/home/christopher# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda2 partition 262136 0 -1

top - 01:07:15 up 4:47, 1 user, load average: 0.12, 0.22, 0.16
Tasks: 72 total, 2 running, 70 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 2.0% user, 3.0% system, 0.0% nice, 95.1% idle
Mem: 126788k total, 121528k used, 5260k free, 5308k buffers
Swap: 262136k total, 0k used, 262136k free, 36504k cached

any ideas for the other questions?

[mikekgr]

Dear c123,

It sound very interesting for me that you have achived running knoppix HD install from firewire disk,
I do interesting, If you can, to learn how you did that but because I am somehow newbie (I lerned things but...) please be very specific.

Thanks in advance,
Mike Kranidis

[c123]

I'm very much a newbie myself, as you'll see from my recent posts...

Check out this thread which explained to me finally how to 'pivot' the root onto my firewire drive

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35700

are you currently able to use your firewire drive with Knoppix CD 3.3? if so then you know enough to be able to install Knoppix to your firewire hdd and then to 'boot' from it using the Knoppix CD. post here (or start a new thread) if you have any specific questions or really need a step-by-step.

p.s. I have to use a firewire hdd as my laptop no longer recognises the internal hdd (and the problem is more with the laptop itself, I cannot just replace the hdd) and I have to pivot the root as the BIOS only lets me boot from cd-rom or floppy.

HTH

[c123]

2. when I switch ot init 5, the graphical login manager laods up. how can i change it so that I just have a prompt; if I want to have a GUI I prefer to type startx or startkde.
Cheers

easiest way to solve this is to use K => Settings => SysV-Init Editor. I removed KDM from the list of services that start up when passing to run level 5.

So I used a GUI app, but I *shall* learn to do this from the command line!

[Markus]

You could delete if you want, I prefer to change it to kill with:
root@fujibox:/etc/rc5.d# mv S99kdm K99kdm
It doesn't matter if it's trying to kill something that isn't running and you don't have to remember much if you want to change it back.
Just do: mv K99kdm S99kdm
and presto, it's back.

[Stephen]

easiest way to solve this is to use K => Settings => SysV-Init Editor. I removed KDM from the list of services that start up when passing to run level 5.

So I used a GUI app, but I *shall* learn to do this from the command line!

I believe the proper syntax is update-rc.d -f kdm remove as root this will leave the script in place if you every want to change it back.

[c123]

3. how can I change window mangager, are others already installed or do I have to install them?

I'm so dense at times it even amazes me! KDM (the K Display Manager) allows this. From the shell I type KDM (or have it start automatically when I pass to run level 5) and then at the bottom there's a list box that allows you to choose the window manager... It's that simple.

BTW half a dozen WMs (at least) seem to be installed already.

[palm]

I'm very much a newbie myself, as you'll see from my recent posts...

Check out this thread which explained to me finally how to 'pivot' the root onto my firewire drive

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35700

are you currently able to use your firewire drive with Knoppix CD 3.3? if so then you know enough to be able to install Knoppix to your firewire hdd and then to 'boot' from it using the Knoppix CD. post here (or start a new thread) if you have any specific questions or really need a step-by-step.

p.s. I have to use a firewire hdd as my laptop no longer recognises the internal hdd (and the problem is more with the laptop itself, I cannot just replace the hdd) and I have to pivot the root as the BIOS only lets me boot from cd-rom or floppy.

HTH

Your posts were useful to me !

I did succeed on an install on my USB2 HDD (real install using knoppix-installer).
The problem was to boot actually on this drive.

The pivot_root stuff is not completely satifying, as the hardware autodetect is done prior the pivot, and this lead to some problems.

I've not been able to boot really from the USB.

I tried to make a boot floppy, but the USB and ext3 modules are too big for a single floppy.

So I've made a bootable CDROM with support of USB and support of mounting of another root partition from a prior install (no cloop and ramdisk stuff).

I'll try to give the full description of this, but I just followed all links everywhere on this site

Shortly :
1- mount the original boot.img with 'mount -o loop', extract the miniroot.gz
2- modify the miniroot.gz to include the necessary modules
3- modify the linuxrc script in miniroot to load the USB support (should work also with firewire)
4- modify linuxrc to support the mounting of an existing root partition ; I looked to an example submitted by someone there - I'll try to find his name back - it was my main problem.
5- use isolinux instead of syslinux for the bootloader on CD
6- make a new ISO
7- burn the ISO
8- boot and cross your fingers !

[palm]

booting from a root partition :

from bitster :
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8471