Posting from KNOPPIX v6.0.1 on USB

The method shown in the previous post worked – now posting from system running from USB stick.

This is a hybrid USB file system – partition one is 750M FAT16, partition two is the rest of the 4G USB stick, formatted as ext2, I believe.

Here are some vital stats copied from a console:

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ sudo su
root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0c:6e:6c:d0:dc  
          inet addr:192.168.0.185  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20c:6eff:fe6c:d0dc/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:11 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:1512 (1.4 KiB)  TX bytes:1536 (1.5 KiB)
          Interrupt:22 Base address:0x6000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix# host host.earthside.org
host.earthside.org has address 67.43.9.226
root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             716M  645M   71M  91% /mnt-system
tmpfs                 1.0G  2.8M 1022M   1% /ramdisk
/dev/cloop            1.7G  1.7G     0 100% /KNOPPIX
unionfs               1.0G  2.8M 1022M   1% /UNIONFS
unionfs               1.0G  2.8M 1022M   1% /home
tmpfs                  10M   60K   10M   1% /UNIONFS/var/run
tmpfs                  10M     0   10M   0% /UNIONFS/var/lock
tmpfs                 100M   48K  100M   1% /UNIONFS/var/log
tmpfs                 1.0G   12K  1.0G   1% /tmp
udev                   20M   56K   20M   1% /dev
tmpfs                 1.0G  4.0K  1.0G   1% /dev/shm
root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix# cat /etc/fstab 
# DEFAULT BASE FSTAB, UNCONFIGURED
proc       /proc         proc       noauto             0 0
sysfs      /sys          sysfs      noauto             0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000,shortname=winnt,uid=knoppix,gid=knoppix 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/sda2 /media/sda2 ext2 noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/sr0 /media/sr0 auto ro,noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdd /media/hdd auto ro,noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdc /media/hdc auto ro,noauto,users,exec 0 0
root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix#  cat /etc/mtab
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt-system vfat rw,noatime,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_utime=0022,codepage=cp850,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=winnt 0 0
tmpfs /ramdisk tmpfs rw,size=1048576k 0 0
/dev/cloop /KNOPPIX iso9660 ro 0 0
unionfs /UNIONFS aufs rw,noatime,si=e57182f3,xino=/ramdisk/.aufs.xino,noplink,br:/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro 0 0
unionfs /home aufs rw,noatime,si=e57182f3,xino=/ramdisk/.aufs.xino,noplink,br:/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
tmpfs /UNIONFS/var/run tmpfs rw,size=10240k 0 0
tmpfs /UNIONFS/var/lock tmpfs rw,size=10240k 0 0
tmpfs /UNIONFS/var/log tmpfs rw,size=102400k 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,size=1048576k 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,size=20480k 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,size=1048576k 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=1777 0 0
root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix# 

KNOPPIX v6.0.1 to USB drive

Used the instructions as shown for KNOPPIX v5.1.1 excepting only that I found no /cdrom directory on KNOPPIX v6.0.1. Used the /mnt-system directory instead as that appeared to be where the CD was mounted (according to df -h).

Testing Pendrive boot of KNOPPIX v6.0.1 this time 2009-09-07 EST 22:25.

Here we go again...

Posting this from a disc-less host, using a KNOPPIX V6.0.1 LiveCD downloaded to the Vista host using BitTorrent / BitComet.

This KNOPPIX disc divined the correct network configuration from the USR5430 Ethernet / WiFi bridge, which is configured as part of an AdHoc wireless (802.11) LAN which has an Internet backhaul (configured using ICS) over a Cricket CDMA USB BroadBand modem on the Vista box.

The KNOPPIX network configuration routine psychically determined all that and configured it without having to ask me any stupid questions. That, all by itself, is freaking amazing. Contrast it, for instance, with DamnSmallLinux (DSL) [v?] which I just argued with all weekend about the identical configuration. The DSL solution required adding a eth0:1 interface as root to begin with – it got worse from there. …

So it just booted up and ran without question, so far pretty much everything working, it appears.

Notable Factoids

• no spkrs on this box, so not sure about sound
• spell checker in Iceweasel is set for German
• Iceweasel is the default browser
• Iceweasel comes with the NoScript plugin already installed (!!!)
• a /slick/ new [to me] desktop environment called ‘Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment’ (LXDE) - really nice

Oddities

Is it true that USB devices only boot if they are formated FAT/32? Some weirdness going on there. If TRUE, I could put my PortableApps and my KNOPPIX on the same 4G USB stick? Maybe?

Glitches

For some reason, the 2nd & 3rd times I tried to boot this CD on this box, it hung during the X11 initialization - I believe(d) that some BIOS changes I made may have affected this, so the current settings changed are:

• Legacy USB support: enabled
• Startup Diagnostics screen: disabled

These settings may not matter, or may be specific to this system. They are recorded here so I can refer to them later, if necessary ;)

The hanging of the X11 startup is critical, since the system will shut itself down when X11 exits, and I was unable to find a way to interrupt the shutdown from the console during the time the X server was running. This means that if X hangs on this CD, the system shuts down after a short timeout.

Out of 4 boot-up attempts, the two that have worked (first and fourth) were both simple "put the CD in and hard boot w/o going to setup or boot-device select menu" sequences.

Video Resolution Bug

The screen resolution only seems to go up to 800x600. This has to be an incorrectly selected video device driver, since this same video card will go up to 1600x1200 and has done so in the past.

NVIDIA X-server problems with hp pavilion zd7000

A week or so ago I managed to munge the X-server configuration on the hp pavilion zd7000 linux laptop I've been using for about a month now. The X-server quit working after some set of package installs and/or system updates wherein I was trying to get the correct NVIDIA™ display drivers installed such that I could use the various "transparency" and "translucency" settings on the shiny new KDE 4.x desktop.

The fix given on the page Configuring and Running Knoppix on the HP Pavilion zd7000 works, even though the OS distribution listed as the application environment for the fix is given as KNOPPIX. and the distro I have on the hp is OpenSuSE 11.0.

For the record, the fix is/was:

Download the xorg.conf from http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/jpatota/linux/knoppix/xorg.conf and install it as /etc/X11/xorg.conf –

I have posted a copy of the xorg.conf file recommended above at http://blogs.earthside.org/earth_tech/2009/03/xorgconf-file-for-hp-pavilion-zd7000.html.

I have downloaded the file in question, and am uploading attached to this post as an "enclosure" …

Or, "just–in–case" the enclosure doesn't enclose, I will paste a copy of the file into a subsequent posting on this blog.

Audio Problems on HP Pavilian a220n under Debian Linux

This is an excerpt from the output of the lsmod command run under KNOPPIX on an HP Pavilion a220n desktop computer:

snd_intel8x0           31260  3
snd_ac97_codec         88352  1 snd_intel8x0
8250_pnp               12288  0
snd_ac97_bus            6016  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            38176  0
snd_mixer_oss          17536  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                73220  4 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              22148  2 snd_pcm
shpchp                 37032  0
i2c_nforce2             9856  0
snd                    44768  10 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer

For some reason neither KNOPPIX 5.0.1 nor the Debian install to the hard disk [provided by the KNOPPIX LiveCD via the knoppix-installer command] seem to be able to get the audio input functionality of the sound card working.

Audio output works okay when the Sound System is enabled via the KNOPPIX control panel, but does not appear to work under the Debian instantiation of KDE.

No version numbers captured yet from the Debian kernel, or the versions of KDE involved (which are different between the Debian install (with updates) and the KNOPPIX distro.