Knoppix 3.6 won't boot up.

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited October 2004 in Science & Tech
I downloaded the Knoppix 3.6 english version, since it's supposed to be able to boot off the CD. Then I put the CD in my laptop, and made sure the CD drive is first in the boot sequence.

But it still boots up in XP Home. The CD drive spools up and runs a little, but it comes up in XP Home.

What do I have to change to get it to load Knoppix?

Once it was running in XP Home, I tried clicking on the CD drive and opening the Knoppix file, but that didn't work either.

Comments

  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited October 2004
    make sure the CD boots in another machine. if you burned it on an RW or some R's, it wont boot off the cd
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    I burned it on the CD-RW / DVD drive in my desktop system. It's model number is:

    SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-332B

    I may try the Knoppix CD in my desktop, which is the system that created the CD. I hope it doesn't screw anything else up!

    I was not able to burn the CD in the laptop, because it only has a CD drive. No recording ability or DVD.

    What kind of CD drive would I have to use to get it working right?
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    It's possible that the laptop is so old that it cannot boot from a CD-R, and it might require a BIOS update.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    The laptop (Dell Latitude CPi-A366XT) has the A15 BIOS revision, which is the most up to date revision it can get.

    I tried booting my desktop system from the Knoppix CD. This is the computer that MADE the CD. I even went into the BIOS and disabled every boot device other than #1 being the CD. It says it fails to boot and it can't be used.

    It looks like I just wasted a CD.

    I used the CD drive in the laptop to install XP Home on it, and it worked fine. I've also installed several other programs and video files with it.

    What is so tricky about some -RW and -R CD drives that this OS couldn't be recorded / played correctly?
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    Perhaps you burned it wrong. Did you just drag the ISO file on to the disk or did you use your burning software to "create disk from image"?
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    When I was on the Knoppix link (in the Linux / BSD forum post I made here), I clicked on it to download, then when it asked where I wanted to download it to, I clicked on the D: (CD) drive.

    Then the file downloaded to my computer, made an image on the C: drive, and burned it to the D: drive. It took a half hour to download the 699 MB file on my cable modem, and another 30 minutes or so (don't remember) to burn it to the CD at 4X speed.

    Did I screw it up? I was paranoid about the Knoppix somehow becoming installed on my computer, that's why I didn't download it directly to the C: or E: hard drives.

    I don't use any burning software (Nero, etc). I just copy and paste, and Send To the (whatever letter) drive, and use the Windows XP CD burning utility. It has always worked fine so far.

    I tried Nero once, and someone else I know uses it a lot, but I didn't catch onto it in the first 10 minutes. So I deleted it forever.
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    that's why it wouldn't boot off teh CD u made

    the CD u made basically has teh image file for knoppix on it, it's not a bootable knoppix CD.

    u need to use a burning software like nero, and then chose burn cd from image, and then chose the image file u downloaded.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    Yeah, an ISO is an image file - it's an image of what the disc should "look like" - you have to use burning software to open the image and burn it to the disc. An ISO image can have files in it, as well as the bootsector and other file table information. What you have is not a Knoppix CD - it is a disk with the knoppix disk image on it.

    An ISO is basically just an archive like a ZIP file.

    You need to copy that ISO to your hard drive, and then use burning software such as Nero, DiscJuggler, or Roxio to "burn a disk image to CD"
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    Well, I installed my version of Roxio (5.2, I think), and re-downloaded Knoppix 3.6 and burned it to the CD using the options to create a bootable CD from the image. I selected "No Emulation" from the list of 4 emulation options, which included floppy disk options, and neither of my computers have floppy drives.

    Now when I put the CD in the laptop, it'll go through the BIOS screen, then the CD will run for a couple seconds, and it stops with a dark screen and blinking cursor. Then nothing else will happen.

    On my desktop computer, it'll stop at the startup screen with "Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM" at the bottom.

    WTF? What did I screw up now?
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    No, you still did it wrong. You shouldn't be burning it as a bootable CD. You should be burning "from disk image".
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    What should I select for the emulation, if that's even an option once I'm doing it right? It has 2 options for floppy disk emulation, and one for hard disk emulation, and one for no emulation.

    What is emulation anyway?

    I was just looking at the burning software (Roxio 5.2) again, and under File, it has an option for "Record CD from CD Image". Is that the right choice?
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    Yes, that is the right choice. If you see "emulation" anywhere, you're in the wrong area.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    I got the Knoppix 3.6 CD made properly on the third try. Put it in the laptop and it will boot up. And I can get it to the screen with the penguin and the multicolored KNOPPIX at the top.

    Now what can I do? I need to find something on the computer to read and learn pretty much everything else about Knoppix. How to set it up, how to get to the desktop, etc. You name it, I need to figure it out.

    Is it considered to be the Linux operating system, or the Knoppix OS? Or the Knoppix version of the Linux OS?
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    Well, maybe it's not done yet. I was away from the laptop for a few minutes, and I came back and it had a message saying it couldn't find the Knoppix file system, and had dropped me to a very limited shell. Whatever that means, it doesn't sound good.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    I made some progress. I went on the internet and did some searching for Knoppix 3.6. I found a page for troubleshooting if it doesn't boot up.

    To start, when the initial boot page comes up, at the boot command, I typed in "knoppix noapic noagp noapm nodma nofirewire nopcmcia noscsi nousb".

    And it worked! It's using Linux kernel 2.4.27 .

    Then I'm supposed to eliminate some of the "no" commands and try again until I narrow it down to whatever proceedure was holding up the boot process. In my case, I only needed the "nodma" command.

    In the boot sequence, I saw that it was skipping the dma acceleration as requested.

    What is this DMA? Something to do with graphics?

    The exploration continues...
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    DMA means direct memory access, it's used for your IDE channels on your motherboard, like how your hdd and cd/dvd communicate with you cpu and memory.

    DMA = faster.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    DMA is direct memory access - usually referring to hard drive's ability to cache stuff to system ram. It does help performance, but if your hardware is too old to support it, well, it's too old :)

    Have fun with linux, Tim! Sounds like you're well on your way!
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    How do you change the screen resolution in Knoppix 3.6? I've been looking all over for it, but can't find it.

    It comes standard in 1280 by 1024 or something like that, but the words are too small. I want it in 800 by 600. I saw some command like fd800x600 , (or was it fb)? Not sure where to put it in at. I tried it in the boot sequence, but it didn't work.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    This no longer qualifies as an emergency, so I'm moving it to the linux forum :)
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited October 2004
    I figured out how to change the screen resolution. Add "screen=800x600" at the boot prompt along with "knoppix nodma".

    I don't like Knoppix. But maybe it's because I'm so used to Windows and have never had a problem with it like lots of people say they have had.

    I may explore it some more.
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