So we have found out that the KNOPPIX 6.0.1 release is a BETA release, and hence does not have some features we want - specifically, it's not set up for persistence; there seems to be no way to get it to save the state and the user directories to persistent storage.
Furthermore, we have decided to install the older, released version, KNOPPIX v5.1.1, and have downloaded the KNOPPIX v5.1.1 ISO to the 2nd partition of the 4G USB stick which we installed v6.0.1.
Since the KNOPPIX v6.0.1 was missing some critical tools - telnet, K3B, etc - we have rebooted the HP machine called 'box' under Damn Small Linux (DSL) to perform this procedure.
The procedure is:
- mount USB pendrive partition 1 (the VFAT partition with the CD ISO image for v6.0.1) into the DSL file system.
- mount USB pendrive partition 2 (the ext3 partition with the copy of KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso) into the host (DSL) file system
- copy the KNOPPIX v5.1.1 ISO file system from USB pendrive partition 2 to USB pendrive partition 1
- perform the install tweaks given in USB KNOPPIX 5.1.1 persistent install from Linux | USB Pen Drive Linux on USB pendrive partition 1.
This should make the pen drive boot KNOPPIX 5.1.1 with persistence.
Note that both partitions on the existing USB pen drive are formatted as described in the installation document referenced above. That is, partition 1 is a 750M FAT16 partition for the CD image, and partition 2 is the remainder of the pen drive space (~3G in ths case) dedicated as an ext3 (Linux) file system.
Once the pen drive is bootable and persistent with KNOPPIX 5.1.1, it will be desirable to make partition 2 on the USB pen drive auto mount as the /home directory tree of the new system.
