KNOPPIX V5.1.1 CD 2007-01-04 EN to USB

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:

1. mount USB pendrive partition 1 (the VFAT partition with the CD ISO image for v6.0.1) into the DSL file system.
2. 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
3. copy the KNOPPIX v5.1.1 ISO file system from USB pendrive partition 2 to USB pendrive partition 1
4. 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.

Copy Knoppix to HD

# How to set up a "Poor Man's Install" so that the machine boots from a CD
# image that's been copied to the hard disk.  GRUB is used as the boot loader.
# It is assumed that you are booted to Knoppix CD 5.1.1, and ALL HARD DISK
# CONTENTS WILL BE ERASED!!!

#  0.  Switch to root with su -

#  1.  Partition the hard disk as follows (minimum 20GB hard disk recommended)
#      10GB /dev/hda1, type 83
#      2GB /dev/hda2, type 82
#      (the rest of the disk) /dev/hda3, type 83
#

# determine the disk device name, which is usually /dev/hda for IDE and
# /dev/sda for SATA

DEVICE=`fdisk -l 2>/dev/null | head -2 | tail -1 | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/\:$//'`

# print warning and confirmation
clear
echo "This CD will install Knoppix 5.1 on your hard disk."
echo "The system will then boot from the hard disk as if you had booted from"
echo "the Knoppix CD, also known as a Poor Man's Install."
echo
echo "WARNING:"
echo "ALL EXISTING DATA ON THE HARD DISK $DEVICE WILL BE ERASED BY THIS PROCESS!!!"
echo
echo -n "Do you wish to continue? (y/n): "
read ANSWER
if [ "$ANSWER" = "y" -o "$ANSWER" = "Y" ]
then
:
else
  echo "Installation aborted!"
  sleep 3
  exit
fi


# clear the old partition table
dd if=/dev/zero of=$DEVICE bs=512 count=1

# determine the cylinder size
CYL_SIZE=`fdisk -l $DEVICE 2>/dev/null | grep "Units = cylinders" | awk '{print $9}'`

# determine the number of cylinders in 10GB
SIZE1=`echo "1073741824 * 10 / $CYL_SIZE" | bc`

# determine the number of cylinders in 2GB
SIZE2=`echo "1073741824 * 2 / $CYL_SIZE" | bc`

# partition the disk
sfdisk -f $DEVICE <<EOF
,$SIZE1,L
,$SIZE2,S
,,L
EOF


#  2.  Create an ext3 filesystem on the first and third partitions
mke2fs -j -m0 ${DEVICE}1
mke2fs -j -m0 ${DEVICE}3


#  3.  Create a swap area on the second partition
mkswap ${DEVICE}2


#  4.  Mount first partition on /media/p1
mkdir /media/p1
mount ${DEVICE}1 /media/p1


#  5.  Copy the contents of the Knoppix CD to /media/p1
echo
echo "Copying CD contents to hard drive.  This will take a few minutes."
/bin/cp -af /cdrom/KNOPPIX /media/p1

# remove /media/p1/KNOPPIX/knoppix.sh
/bin/rm -f /media/p1/KNOPPIX/knoppix.sh


#  6.  Create a boot directory on /media/p1 and copy the kernel and initrd
#      there
mkdir /media/p1/boot
/bin/cp -af /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.19 /media/p1/boot
/bin/cp -af /cdrom/boot/isolinux/minirt.gz /media/p1/boot


#  7.  Create a directory for GRUB
mkdir /media/p1/boot/grub


#  8.  Populate the GRUB config file.  If you require different default boot
#      options, include them in the kernel line.
cat <<EOF > /media/p1/boot/grub/menu.lst
default=0
timeout=10

title Knoppix 5.1 (Poor Man's HD install)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.19 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=normal initrd=minirt.gz nomce loglevel=0 quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix BOOT_IMAGE=linux lang=us fromhd=${DEVICE}1 noeject noprompt
        initrd /boot/minirt.gz
EOF
cd /media/p1/boot/grub
ln -s menu.lst grub.conf


#  9.  Install GRUB
cd /media/p1
grub-install --root-directory=/media/p1 --no-floppy $DEVICE


#  10.  Reboot (and remove CD)
reboot

Blogger.com Dashboard Crashes Konqueror

Well, the Dashboard page at blogger.com seems to have killed Konqueror web browser under KNOPPIX. Konqueror crashed first while I was trying to post about the spell-checker problems that exist in Konqueror under the KNOPPIX LiveCD distro - at that point I was logged in to blogger.com - then it crashed again when I re-ran Konqueror and tried to log in to the blogger.com dashboard. Both times it gave the DrKonqi crash-handler screen.

Now, after I created a persistent installation of Firefox 2.0.0.5 and ran it to make this post, I find (while trying to run Konqueror to get the version number to use in this post) that Konqueror won't run at all [from the toolbar button, at least - haven't tried any other approaches, yet]; it shows the bouncing "wait" cursor for about 15 or so seconds, then just dies silently.

This is Knoppix 5.0.x - I don't have the version number to-hand, but I may be able to post it later. I see that Knoppix 5.2 is released, so the problem may be solved by burning a new LiveCD. Note, however, that the version of K3B that shipped with this version of KNOPPIX does not work - or at least, it doesn't work on this computer, so the burning of a new CD is problematic, right now.

Konqueror Crash

Konqueror is :

1. Hanging while waiting for blogger.com to "Publish" a blog post.
2. Crashing; Konqueror will crash if - while the "publish" operation is in its infinite refresh loop, loading and reloading the "Please wait while your page is published" message page - the user
   1. opens another Konqueror window
   2. goes to view the blog in the new window [note that the post which initiated the publish operation has been posted - the post has uploaded and the blog has been updated, despite the braindead infinite loop the first window of Kongqueror is stuck in]
   3. goes back to the first window [where the ininfinite refresh loop is going on]
   4. clicks on the Blogger Dashboard link there, in the first window, while the infinite refresh loop is going on

Other info from the Crash Handler:

• Konqueror [crashed and] threw SIGILL.
• "The application was asked to save its documents"

Default browser indentification string for this version of Konqueror [note that I have broken the line below at the backslash]:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.5; Linux 2.6.17; X11; i686; en_US)\
 KHTML/3.5.2 (like Gecko) (Debian package 4:3.5.2-2+b1)

Here is the backtrace data from the crash handler:

(no debugging symbols found)
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/libthread_db.so.1".
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[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
[New Thread -1231935808 (LWP 4267)]
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[KCrash handler]
#5  0x08f95edc in ?? ()
#6  0xb62d57ae in DOM::checkChild () from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#7  0xb629e96c in DOM::XMLAttributeReader::~XMLAttributeReader ()
   from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#8  0xb6268f9e in KHTMLPart::saveState () from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#9  0xb62289fe in KHTMLPartBrowserExtension::saveState ()
   from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#10 0xb6875b5f in KonqView::updateHistoryEntry ()
   from /usr/lib/libkdeinit_konqueror.so
#11 0xb6893a11 in KonqView::slotCompleted ()
   from /usr/lib/libkdeinit_konqueror.so
#12 0xb6893c23 in KonqView::slotCompleted ()
   from /usr/lib/libkdeinit_konqueror.so
#13 0xb689987d in KonqView::qt_invoke () from /usr/lib/libkdeinit_konqueror.so
#14 0xb72b8678 in QObject::activate_signal () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#15 0xb72b8fdc in QObject::activate_signal () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#16 0xb7f85e0a in KParts::ReadOnlyPart::completed ()
   from /usr/lib/libkparts.so.2
#17 0xb62581c0 in KHTMLView::timerEvent () from /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#18 0xb72b5786 in QObject::event () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#19 0xb72f2b9a in QWidget::event () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#20 0xb724e87a in QApplication::internalNotify () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#21 0xb724f5f5 in QApplication::notify () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#22 0xb792502e in KApplication::notify () from /usr/lib/libkdecore.so.4
#23 0xb71e0001 in QApplication::sendEvent () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#24 0xb7240305 in QEventLoop::activateTimers () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#25 0xb71f3d2a in QEventLoop::processEvents () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#26 0xb7267255 in QEventLoop::enterLoop () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#27 0xb726717a in QEventLoop::exec () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#28 0xb724d38d in QApplication::exec () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#29 0xb68be17c in kdemain () from /usr/lib/libkdeinit_konqueror.so
#30 0xb7fb1524 in kdeinitmain () from /usr/lib/kde3/konqueror.so
#31 0x0804e1d6 in ?? ()
#32 0x00000004 in ?? ()
#33 0x080cff68 in ?? ()
#34 0x00000001 in ?? ()
#35 0x00000000 in ?? ()

More about KNOPPIX and the HP a220n

The X log file on the HP Pavilion a220n running KNOPPIX:

uploads/Xorg.0.log.TXT

This file is found at /var/log/Xorg.0.log on the system while the system is running.

Full dmesg Output for a220n under KNOPPIX

Capture of the output of the command dmesg performed under KNOPPIX on the HP Pavilion a220n:

• uploads/a220n-KNOPPIX-dmesg-output.txt

Here is the output of uname -a for this same system:

Linux Knoppix 2.6.17 #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 10 13:53:45 CEST 2006 i686 GNU/Linux