Debian / Knoppix HELL!!

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

okay guys heres one for you:
CPU : XP2200+ (Barton Core)
Mem: 512Mb
HDD: 2 x 40Gb
DVD: 16x DVD
CD-RW: 4x\4x\16x
downloaded Debian CD-1 (Non-US) and CD-2 (Vanilla) also have Knoppix v3.7...
Primary HDD: Windows / Apps / Games (Can't lose any space from this drive)
Slave HDD : Linux Partion Ext2 (6Gb) + Swap Space + Music / Downloads / Spare Space ( reduced this in order to Get the Linux Ext 2 + Swap)
Installing of Debian: no problem until It goes to install packages, get errors on this part - it looks like it's attempting to read past the end of the CD (or my DVD don't like it)....
When I get it running Im stuck in CLI I can't get the X GUI up even although I asked it too, maybe cos it got all those errors...
Gave up.....
Attempted to run Knoppix from CD:
Unable to it gets to Booting from /dev/cda0 the DVD and then my Scroll lock / Caps lock flash at the same time , num lock is out and it looks like system has hung...
remove all non-dos partions using FDISK reboot and try again using same default same thing, attempt expert mode and it fails with an error I can't remember what it is..
I know the Knoppix will boot as I've tried it on here using my 52x CD-RW... (2ndry channel - just like other machines DVD-rom)
HELP!:help: Is it the CPU / Mobo / DVD / what

[QIbHom]

Did you verify the downloaded isos before you burned them?

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Well the knoppix one works I know that for sure as it booted fine on here right into desktop...
How do you ver the iso's? or is that something I should have read on the site (lol)

[QIbHom]

How you verify them depends on how you burn them. You want to check the MD3sums, or whatever they are called.

[CaptainMooseInc]

MD3? I thought it was the MD5 checksums...

-Jeff

[QIbHom]

It is, Moose. I don't do so well with numbers.

[Leviathann]

The solution is simple, MEPIS Linux.

[QIbHom]

BS, Leviathann. He didn't ask us to whore our favourite distros, he asked for help installing the ones he has. All Linuxes are good.

If the CDs and the isos are good, possibly something is wrong with the hard drive. Maybe reformating it in Windows would help, perhaps not. But, most errors like these that I've seen have been caused by bad isos.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

used the md5sum tool from the debian.org site
(mirror used: ftp://debian.blueyonder.co.uk/pub/debian-iso/i386/ )
-------------
md5sum -b debian-30r2-i386-binary-1_NONUS.iso
6cee653ad41425b42f893aeb830b486c *debian-30r2-i386-binary-1_NONUS.iso
md5sum -b debian-30r2-i386-binary-2.iso
result: 496c28ec39c9b819f99b9a2ef47aa33d *debian-30r2-i386-binary-2.iso

Offical MD5sums:
4c3d84eac1b7715b94899613b5b8be93 debian-30r2-i386-binary-1_NONUS.iso
5ccbf54d7e5020a196353569fdbb0e5c debian-30r2-i386-binary-2.iso

HOW can this be?

I'm redownloading them 1 at a time, If I get the same thing when I md5 it again what then and Leviathann, QIBHom is right I didn't ask what your favourite distro was so button it unless you got something that will actually help me out...

[QIbHom]

If the MD5 sums don't match, I don't know what to do beyond downloading them again. I'm sure someone else knows a lot more about that than I do.

I use K3B for burning (despite not liking KDE) because it automatically checks MD5 sums.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

I could download it using jigdo but erm i don't think I can get it for windows and that is another download to get the client...

[MerePeer]

Hold on. I'm looking at that URL for your mirror and it looks like that would mean you are downloading 7 isos for the "stable" aka "woody" aka "version 3" version of Debian BUT that Blueyonder site only appears to have R2 and according to the debian page the latest release (of stable) is R4
The current “stable” distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is version 3.0r4, codenamed woody. It was released on January 1st, 2005. from http://www.nl.debian.org/releases/

.. on another Great Britain FTP site they have R4 of version 3 ftp://ftp.ticklers.org/debian-cd/images/3.0_r4/i386/,
BUT
BUT
BUT I would like to suggest first that you go with the "testing" aka "sarge" aka "version 4 when it comes out" release because its just about out the door, and secondly because they have a brand new installer that is supposed to be wonderful, and thirdly because it supports the latest kernel version (2.6). THEN I'd like to also suggest that you not download all 7 cds since they're immediately going to be out of date and plus that's more than you may want to install anyway -- use their "net installer" which is 1 ISO that you burn and install from which loads a basic Debian system, after which you say I want this and that and the other and then it pulls down only the packages you are interested in -- less download time overall. From the Debian site http://www.nl.debian.org/distrib/



#
# Download the installation system from the Internet, and get the rest by downloading as you install. http://www.nl.debian.org/distrib/netinst

The network installation also has its pros:

* You can use your Internet connection, and rewritable media (diskettes or CD-RWs).
* You will only download those .deb packages that you actually want.
If you get a whole CD set, you will get a lot of packages that you won't actually use.
* A network installation of the "testing" distribution will provide you with the very latest packages, whereas any CD images of "testing" that you download would be outdated very quickly.


Also just a note that if you download the MD5 sums as a file, then you can just say
md5sum -c {filename with md5sum/iso names in it}

[MerePeer]

Debian installer release candidate 3 page; if you go this route pick "netinst" for "i386".
http://www.nl.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

{ISO is 106MB}

[MerePeer]

Back to the main problem...

Attempted to run Knoppix from CD:
Unable to it gets to Booting from /dev/cda0 the DVD and then my Scroll lock / Caps lock flash at the same time , num lock is out and it looks like system has hung...
remove all non-dos partions using FDISK reboot and try again using same default same thing, attempt expert mode and it fails with an error I can't remember what it is..
I know the Knoppix will boot as I've tried it on here using my 52x CD-RW... (2ndry channel - just like other machines DVD-rom)
HELP! Is it the CPU / Mobo / DVD / what
I never had tried running Knoppix from a DVD drive, so I just did and it booted up fine under both default (knoppix24) and boot: knoppix26 modes. Note that the device was /dev/scd0. I hope you meant you put a CD in the DVD drive? Not a DVD in the DVD drive.

Since Knoppix boots from a cd, and runs from a cd and memory, I am guessing your hard drive is not a factor in the failure to boot. PS if you want to access your hard drive after Knoppix has booted, enter "mount /dev/hda1" for instance to mount existing linux partitions.

When you said "I know the Knoppix will boot", did you mean that particular Knoppix cd you are using as well? And so, recently, you have put that Knoppix cd in another system and it booted up with out probelm? Just wondering if the cd itself has been proven good, given your earlier issues with ISO downloads -- perhaps unrelated to your Knoppix iso.

Assuming the cd has been proven good, and since you say this system previously booted Knoppix -- which means that Knoppix did not have problems recognizing any of your devices -- then it would seem you are facing a hardware issue on that system, and I don't think it has anything to do with the hard drive. You should be able to unplug the hard drive cables and still boot Knoppix from the cd.

It doesnt seem like memory because a bad stick would mean you couldnt even post I think -- but maybe if you have more than 1 stick in there 1 is not so good. Since it sounds like you can get to the "boot:" menu of Knoppix -- try entering "memtest" and let it run a while to help rule out memory.

After that you may have to resort to "replace component and retry" with spare parts around that you know to be working.

[QIbHom]

I agree with MeerPeer, although I would like to mention two small things. The net install is great, but there is something comforting about having the CDs in hand when things go wrong. Also, since Debian is designed to be upgraded in place, it doesn't really matter what version you actually install. Apt is a wonderful tool, and it is pretty simple to apt-get dist-upgrade to testing or unstable.

I had no joy playing with the new installer, but that was months ago, and they've been working very hard on it. From what I hear, it is ready for prime time.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

MeerPeer: I booted the Knoppix v3.7 CD in the machine I'm using right now and it booted no problem.
I retried it using the cmd: knoppix expert
and it gets to mounting knoppix on /dev/scd0 and then it seems to fail this mount and drops me to a prompt with only mount umount cat and a few other commands available..

also when I don't use this option it gets to a similar point then my Scroll lock / Caps Lock flash (I may have said that already)

I downloaded the 3.0r4 from that mirror QIbHom and did the md5sum and it was correct so me thinking I got a duff download from that other mirror,
Now I've just burned and and Am about to test install it (do I really need all 7 cd's for debian or not lol - I think I'll be doing a net install lol)

[MerePeer]

I *think* when you said "I retried it" you meant "I retried it on my other machine that won't boot at all"?
I've never used expert mode, which is described here as well as many other cheat codes you might want to experiment with http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes as:

expert
Interactive setup for experts, The "expert" mode provides a very simple and not yet well tested interface to loading additional Kernel modules from floppy disks (ext2 or vfat), plus interactive configuration of mouse/keyboard/soundcard/xserver. "expert" mode supports the same boot options as "knoppix".

You might try the "knoppix26 2" option to just go to text mode? If it was dieing at the point it tried to startup X then this might work.

There is a Knoppix forum here: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/

Also fyi Knoppix 3.8 is available.

[Scoofy12]

gopher, i'm not sure 3.0r4 (aka woody) has a net install option in the default installer. it's pretty old. (if you really want to do woody, even though it's old, i think you can get a net installer for it, it just might not be in the official cd.) woody is old enough that you may find you want to go ahead and upgrade to sarge right away anway. but if you still have problems with that woody installer I would suggest trying the sarge installer that was mentioned before, perhaps with the 2.6 kernel.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Im wondering if it's the CD I burned Knoppix on but it can't be as the I've never had a misburn with that batch at all... Because I took that CD to work and attempted to boot it same failure as before but then again it maybe the onboard video couldn't handle it...
But back to Debian 30r4 - I got it to install but I can't get it to Load up X even using the startX command it fails to find a video mode usable what option in "woody" can I use to get it to work I've tried both vesa & vga no avail... it's a Nvidia Gforce 2 GTS/Pro...
Or should I just give this up and find a newer version of Debian (and if so where can I get it) or a newer version of Knoppix (where from)

[QIbHom]

distrowatch.com is a really good source of distro news, comparisons, links to reviews and links to download sites. I believe you can even search on Debian-based distros.

You are using X86config to configure X? I've not had good luck with that tool.

[Scoofy12]

in debian, you can do
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

to redo your X config.
for nvidia card, nv is the X driver you want. or you can download nVidia's driver from their web site.

if woody is installed and you have network, you can upgrade it directly to sarge (aka testing) over the net.
do do this, edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file. comment out the CD lines and add the following:

deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sarge main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian sarge debian-non-us

then just do apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade and away you go.

the distro upgrade may not upgrade your kernel for you; if this is the case after you upgrade, you can apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-i686 (i think that is the package name. you can search on packages.debian.org for a list of the many kernel-image packages in testing)

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

Erm that would be good if I could get the ****ing thing to let me config the nic or is that done at install time? me total newbie... also me thinking of giving up on DVD drive and getting a new one as it's always being a bit of c*** to work with...
Also gonna replace the video card with a Saphire Rad 7000 I have kicking about, when I remeber where I put it........
That way just maybe I'll get Knoppix to BOOT and I can put that on as it does all the hard sh*t for me automatically...

[Darkness Productions]

gopher -

My honest to god suggestion in this case would be to grab the netinst floppies. You'll need 6 blank floppies. Write the images to the floppies with NTRawrite, and boot from that. Everything you need to configure the hardware will be in those floppies. Once you get the NIC installed, you can installed the actual packages from debian repositories.

It's fairly simple, just a little time consuming.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

I did a hardware swap over lol, installed Knoppix for now, like debian but erm less hassle, installed it to hdd using the knx2hd all nice and configured, now all i need to do is erm find out what's running, install d2ol, run d2ol in away that I can see it, somehow get my remote admin tool to work with it, it's called "Remote Administrator" and uses port 4900, I don't think I'll be able to get it to work as it requires you have it installed on the remote machine too as a "service"