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Chapter 11 . Running KNOPPIX 361 2. Choose the configuration files to save. You can choose to save your personal configuration (from /home/knoppix .kde and .mozilla directories), files on the desktop, your network configuration, X configuration, and other system configuration files (from /etc). 3. Choose to save your configuration files to your floppy disk or to any available disk partition that is writable. Choosing floppy can make the configuration portable, whereas using the hard disk makes the configuration easily reusable on the same machine. 4. If you are saving to floppy, insert the floppy and click OK. The data is saved to floppy disk. The results from this action are that the knoppix.sh and configs.tbz files are created on floppy disk. The configs.tbz file contains all the saved configuration files from your /home and /etc directories. The knoppix.sh file is a script that tells KNOPPIX how to install those files when KNOPPIX boots up. The next time you start KNOPPIX, you can use the configuration files, as described in the next section. Those who create their own customized KNOPPIX boot disks can simply add their knoppix.sh and config.tbz files to the top-level directory of the CD, so KNOPPIX will just boot to their personalized configuration without worrying about an extra floppy or other medium. Restarting KNOPPIX You can start KNOPPIX anytime by just inserting your KNOPPIX CD or DVD and restarting your computer. However, if you want to take advantage of the persistent desktop you set up or the saved configuration information, you need to add some options to the KNOPPIX boot prompt. Here s how: 1. Insert your KNOPPIX CD or DVD into the computer and reboot. You should see the KNOPPIX boot prompt. 2. Press F3 (before KNOPPIX boots) to see if any additional boot options are required. 3. If you have a configuration floppy boot disk (or other removable media created in an earlier procedure), insert that disk now. 4. At the boot prompt, type one of the following command lines, which are different ways to load your configuration files: boot: knoppix floppyconfig boot: knoppix myconfig=/dev/hda1 boot: knoppix myconfig=/dev/sda1 boot: knoppix myconfig=scan Note
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360 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution can assign your KNOPPIX home directory (/home/knoppix) to use some of the available space on your hard drive. That can be done one of two ways: . Assigning an entire partition to be used for your home directory. . Assigning a part of that partition for your home directory, in the form of an image file. You can also put your persistent home directory on rewritable, removable media, such as a memory stick. Once you create that area to use as your home directory, you can tell KNOPPIX to use it every time you restart KNOPPIX. Here s what you do: 1. Click the squished penguin in the panel, and then select Configure.Create a Persistent KNOPPIX disk image. A window appears, asking if you are ready to create a persistent home directory. 2. Click Yes to continue. You are asked which partition you want to use for your persistent home directory. 3. Select the partition you want to use to store your persistent desktop and click OK. You are asked if you want to save the home directory in an encrypted format. 4. Select No, to not have the directory selected as encrypted (if you choose Yes, you ll have to specify a long password that you will need to access the persistent home directory at boot time). You are asked to enter the size of your home directory. 5. Type the number of megabytes to assign to your home directory and click OK. Be sure that that much space is available on the partition. (When the partition is mounted later, you can type df -h to see how much space is available on it.) The partition or image file should be created now. When I ran this procedure to create a 100MB image on the hda5 partition, it created the file /mnt/hda5/knoppix.img, which had 97MB of available space. To see how to use that directory, see the Restarting KNOPPIX section later in this chapter. Keeping Your KNOPPIX Configuration After you have gone through all the work to configure your desktop, printer, network, disks, and other preferences for your KNOPPIX setup, it s a shame to lose all that on your next reboot. Well, KNOPPIX offers a way that you can save your configuration information and reuse if for your next session. That saved information can be stored on a floppy disk or any other medium that is accessible (such as your hard disk) the next time you reboot KNOPPIX. Here s how: 1. From the squished penguin icon on the panel, click Configure.Save KNOPPIX configuration.
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Chapter 11 . Running KNOPPIX 359 If the command completes quietly or if it says not mounted, you are fine. If it says device is busy, there is still a shell or folder window that is holding that partition open. Before you can continue, you must close whatever is holding the partition open and make sure the umount completes. 5. Next, you need to mount the partition so it is writable. Here s how: # mount -orw /dev/hda2 At this point you can open the folder to the partition (hda2 in our example) or open a shell and write to that directory (/mnt/hda2 and any subdirectories). To make that change permanent (in the KNOPPIX sense), you need to change the /etc/fstab to add rw to the entry for the partition so it is mounted read/write by default. Again, with the example of /dev/hda2, an entry in /etc/fstab to mount that partition read/write could look as follows: /dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 ext3 noauto,users,exec,rw 0 0 With that change, simply typing mount /dev/hda2 mounts the directory with read/write permissions. You can save that change permanently, as described in the Keeping Your KNOPPIX Configuration section later in this chapter. Mounting Windows Partitions for Writing Provided your partitions are properly detected, mounting Windows partitions is no different than mounting Linux partitions. For Windows file system types FAT and VFAT, there should be no problem mounting and writing to those file systems. For NTFS file systems, there are a few things you should consider before writing to them. Earlier versions of KNOPPIX allowed you to download a feature called Captive NTFS. With Captive NTFS, you could use native Windows drivers to access NTFS partitions from KNOPPIX. This was considered to be reliable enough that you could write to NTFS partitions without much fear of corruption. The current version of KNOPPIX uses drivers from the Linux-NTFS Project (http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net) to provide support for accessing NTFS file systems from Linux. The advantage of using Linux-NTFS is that NTFS partitions can be mounted and used just like any other Linux file system. In other words, you don t need Windows drivers. The down side is that writing to NTFS partitions using Linux-NTFS is considered unreliable and could cause corruption to your NTFS partition. So, I recommend you not try to write to an NTFS file system from KNOPPIX, but feel free to read from NTFS during a KNOPPIX session. Creating a Persistent Home Directory If you are going to use the computer more than once with KNOPPIX (or if you just want more storage space for files than your computer has available in RAM) you
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358 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution (which is stored in that directory and in /etc files). The problem is that those directories are in RAM, so they disappear when you reboot. The following sections give you some ideas about how to save what you do in your KNOPPIX session to use in future sessions. Writing to Hard Disk Although hard disk partitions are mounted read-only by default, you can make them read/write if you like. Then you can store any data you want to save on those partitions. (You can simply drag and drop files to those partitions.) Up to this point, there s not much risk of damaging any data on your hard disk. Once you make your disks writable, you have the potential for deleting or changing that data. Keep that in mind if the computer doesn t belong to you or if you are not used to using Linux. Regardless of which user you are logged in as, KNOPPIX does not prevent you from changing any file in a writable hard disk partition. Mounting Linux Partitions for Writing KNOPPIX usually identifies all hard disk partitions and adds entries for each one in your /etc/fstab file. If you click the icon representing that partition, the partition is automatically mounted and a folder opens to the root of that directory. The name of each partition (hda1, hda2, and so forth for IDE partitions; sda1, sda2, and so on for SCSI disk partitions) is shown on the desktop icon representing each partition. Hover the mouse pointer over the icon to see information about the partition s mount point and device name. With that information, you can make any of those partitions writable by following these steps: 1. Click the hard disk partition you want to write to on the KNOPPIX desktop. A folder opens, displaying the top directory in that partition. 2. When you know which partition you want to write to, close all folders or shells that have that partition open. (With the partition open, you can t remount it.) 3. Open a Terminal from the panel and, using the sudo utility, become root user by typing the following: $ cd $ sudo su - # 4. Make sure that the partition you want to mount as writable is unmounted. For example, to unmount the second IDE hard disk partition (hda2), type the following: # umount /dev/hda2 Caution
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Chapter 11 . Running KNOPPIX 357 . Network card From the squished penguin, select Network/Internet. Network card configuration to configure your Ethernet card (assuming you don t just want to use DHCP to get your network address). . ISDN From the squished penguin, select Network/Internet.ISDN to use ISDN to connect to the network. . Wireless Card From the squished penguin, select Network/Internet. Wavelan to use a wireless Ethernet card to connect to the network. You can instead select ndiswrapper configuration if there is no Linux driver for your card, but you have a Windows driver you can try. In addition to the interfaces available here, you can use the wvdialconf command to create your dial-out connection as described in Chapter 5. Installing Software in KNOPPIX Despite the fact that KNOPPIX includes a wide range of software applications, there may be some software package you want to use with it that isn t included. For installing software while you are running KNOPPIX from the DVD, you can use KPackage. To start KPackage, click the squished penguin on the KNOPPIX panel and select Utilities.raManage Software in KNOPPIX (kpackage). The KPackage window opens, displaying lists of installed and available packages. If there is a package you want to install, you can type its name into the search box and press Enter. If the package is available, it will be listed, along with a notation on whether or not the package is already installed. If the software package you want to install is available, but not yet installed, select it then click the Install button. KPackage will try to use the Debian installer to download the selected package, and all dependent packages, and install them on your computer. Remember that the software is being installed in the version of KNOPPIX that is running in RAM. So, the software will disappear the next time you reboot, unless you do something to preserve your data (such as creating a persistent desktop before you install the software you want to keep). Saving Files in KNOPPIX When you reboot your computer with KNOPPIX, you not only lose KNOPPIX itself but any data and configuration information you may have created along the way. That s because, by default, KNOPPIX runs from your system s RAM and a nonwritable CD or DVD. Using tools and procedures that come with KNOPPIX, there are ways in which you can keep that information going forward. KNOPPIX happily gives you a login name (knoppix) and a home directory (/home/knoppix), each time you boot from KNOPPIX. You can save files to that directory, as well as change your desktop and system configuration information
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356 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Hard disk partitions are also represented by icons on your KNOPPIX desktop. Click one of those icons and you can access (read-only) the files on that hard disk partition. This is a great feature for getting the information you need without, by default, letting you change or otherwise damage the data on the computer. To make a disk writable, right-click on the disk icon and select Actions.Change read/write mode. If you are not able to write to the disk, refer to the section on making disks writable later in this chapter. . KDE Panel KNOPPIX loads the KDE Panel with applets and launchers for a few useful applications. Click the K button to display the menu containing most KDE applications for you to select. The Web Browser icon launches the Konqueror browser, which is the KDE file manager as well. . KNOPPIX configuration Click the squished penguin icon in the KDE Panel to see a menu of configuration tools specific to KNOPPIX. This is where you can tune up your TV card, configure printers, get your network connection going, and even start a few servers. I describe some of these subjects in particular, how to save data and configuration information across sessions with this otherwise ethereal operating system later in this chapter. . Launching games, players, and other stuff From the KDE menu, you can launch applications as you would from any desktop operating system. Just to illustrate that, I launched a simple game (Frozen Bubble), Konqueror Web browser, and a music player (Juk) for Figure 11-1. Running KNOPPIX, at this point, is just like running any other Linux system with a KDE desktop, with one major exception. By default, you can t save any data permanently. There are a few ways around this issue, especially if you expect to use KNOPPIX on a regular basis. Refer to sections on creating persistent desktops and opening disks for writing later in this chapter. Getting on the Network If you have an Ethernet card and a connection to a network that has a DHCP server, your KNOPPIX system should just start up and offer immediate access to that network (and possibly the Internet if it offers such a connection). If not, KNOPPIX offers several tools for configuring your network connection, including: . Dial-up modem From the squished penguin, select Network/Internet. /dev/modem connection setup. The menus that appear help you create a dial-up connection to the Internet, or other TCP/IP network, using a serial modem, USB modem, IRDA cell phone/PDA, or Bluetooth cell phone/PDA. . ADSL router From the squished penguin, select Network/Internet. ADSL/PPPOE configuration. It will help you connect your broadband ADSL router to connect to the Internet. . GPRS connection From the squished penguin, select Network/Internet. GPRS/UMTS connection to set up a connection via your cellphone provider.
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Chapter 11 . Running KNOPPIX 355 Figure 11-1: KNOPPIX boots to a full KDE desktop that is ready to run. I ve opened a couple of applications to illustrate some things, and the following sections explore what you typically get when KNOPPIX comes up. Using the KDE Desktop in KNOPPIX KDE is the default desktop environment that comes with KNOPPIX. You can change that at the boot prompt to use one of several window managers instead, or get a Gnoppix disk instead to use the GNOME environments. But, as delivered, the desktop looks similar to what you see in Figure 11-1. The KNOPPIX version of KDE matches pretty closely the descriptions in Chapter 3, although there are a few items related to the KNOPPIX KDE desktop that are worth noting: . Desktop icons To get information about KNOPPIX, click the KNOPPIX icon (choose a language, and then find links to FAQs, Knopper.Net, and general KNOPPIX information) or the LinuxTag icon (to read the licenses). There is also the requisite Trash icon. . Disk icons Any CD, DVD, floppy, or other removable medium drive is displayed as an icon on the desktop. Of course, this includes the drive holding the KNOPPIX disk, which you can get to directly to do such things as find boot images or KNOPPIX documentation.
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354 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Testing the CD If you suspect that you have a bad KNOPPIX CD, I recommend you run this from the boot prompt: knoppix testcd If you are still not able to boot KNOPPIX at this point, it might be that your hardware is either not supported or is broken in some way. To further pursue the problem, check out an appropriate forum at www.knoppix.net. Running KNOPPIX from RAM To improve performance, KNOPPIX offers a way to run the entire KNOPPIX distribution from RAM (provided you have enough available) or install it on hard disk and run it from there. Provided that you have more than 1GB of RAM, you can run KNOPPIX entirely from RAM (so you can remove the KNOPPIX DVD or CD and use that drive while you run KNOPPIX) by typing the following from the boot prompt: knoppix toram Installing KNOPPIX to Hard Disk You can run KNOPPIX entirely from hard disk if your hard disk is either a FAT or EXT2 file system type and contains at least 800MB of space. To do this, you must know the name of the hard disk partition you are installing on. For example, to use the first partition on the first IDE drive you would use /dev/hda1. In that case, to copy KNOPPIX to that disk partition, you would type this at the boot prompt: knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1 You can watch as KNOPPIX is copied to your hard disk partition and then boots automatically from there. The next time you want to boot KNOPPIX, you can boot it from hard disk again by inserting the KNOPPIX medium and typing the following: knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1 With KNOPPIX running from your hard disk, you can safely eject your CD or DVD and use the drive for other things (type eject /dev/cdrom). Refer to the knoppixcheatcodes. txt file for information on other things you can do from the KNOPPIX boot prompt. Using KNOPPIX Rather than go over how to use the features in KNOPPIX that are common to many Linux systems (KDE, Internet tools, word processors, and so on), I ll give you a quick tour of the special features in KNOPPIX. If your computer booted KNOPPIX properly, you should see a screen that is similar to the one shown in Figure 11-1.
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Chapter 11 . Running KNOPPIX 353 Table 11-3 Boot Options to Fix Video Problems Option Result knoppix noddc No Display Data Channel (DDC) detection of monitor. knoppix screen=?? Pick X screen resolution. Replace ?? with 640 480, 800 600, 1024 768, 1280 1024, or any other resolution supported by your video card. knoppix xvrefresh=60 Set vertical refresh rate to 60 Hz for X (or other value as specified by monitor s manual). knoppix xhrefresh=80 Set horizontal refresh rate to 80 Hz for X (or other value as specified by monitor s manual). knoppix xserver=?? Replace ?? with XFree86 or XF86_SVGA. knoppix xmodule=?? Select the specific driver to use for your video card. Replace ?? with one of the following: ati, fbdev, i810, mga, nv, radeon, savage, s3radeon, svga, or i810. knoppix 2 Runlevel 2, Text mode only. knoppix vga=normal No-framebuffer mode, but X. knoppix fb1280×1024 Use fixed framebuffer graphics (1). knoppix fb1024×768 Use fixed framebuffer graphics (2). knoppix fb800×600 Use fixed framebuffer graphics (3). Customizing KNOPPIX Several boot options exist that tell KNOPPIX to look for a customized home directory or configuration information on hard disk or floppy. See the Keeping Your KNOPPIX Configuration section later in this chapter for information on how to both save a customized KNOPPIX configuration and tell KNOPPIX where to look for that customized information at boot time. (Unless they were created from KNOPPIX, most other Linux distributions will not use these boot options.) Special Features and Workarounds Other boot options are described in the knoppix-cheatcodes.txt file mentioned earlier. Things you can do with boot options include changing the splash screen when KNOPPIX boots, running in expert mode so you can load your own drivers, testing your computer s RAM, and trying to overcome special problems with laptop computers.
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352 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution If there is hardware being improperly detected or configured, you can have KNOPPIX skip over that hardware. Table 11-2 contains options for skipping or turning off various hardware features: Table 11-2 Boot Options to Turn Off Hardware Option Result knoppix atapicd No SCSI-Emulation for IDE CD-ROMs. knoppix noagp No detection of AGP graphics card. knoppix noapic Disable Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (can overcome some problems on SMP computers). knoppix acpi=off Disable Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). knoppix noapm No Advanced Power Management support. (With a working acpi, apm will be off by default. Only one can be active at a time.) knoppix noaudio No sound support. knoppix nodhcp Don t try to start your network connection automatically via DHCP. knoppix fstab Don t read the fstab file to find file systems to mount or check. knoppix firewire No detection of Firewire devices. knoppix nopcmcia No detection of PCMCIA card slots. knoppix noscsi No detection of SCSI devices. knoppix noswap No detection of swap partitions. knoppix nousb No detection of USB devices. knoppix pnpbios=off Don t initialize plug-and-play (PnP) in the BIOS. knoppix failsafe Do almost no hardware detection. Table 11-3 lists options that may help if you are having trouble with your video card. Several of these options are particularly useful if you are having trouble with X on a laptop.
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