Re: Missing /cdrom2.loop mount point and missing entry in the fstab of Knoppix 5.0.1 (3rd try) and Knoppix 5.1 schedule
Hi Klaus,
Thank you very much for your prompt reply,
--- Klaus Knopper <debian-knoppix@knopper.net> wrote:
> Hi Gilles & subscribers,
>
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:22:25PM -0800, Gilles van Ruymbeke wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I have proposed a way to boot several version of Knoppix from the
> iso
> > file stored on the disk drive
> > (which is in my opinion an improvement of the fromhd= cheatcode
> using
> > the KNOPPIX file within the iso)
> > Since the knoppix kernel and the official initrd.gz do not have
> native
> > support for ntfs, and the official linuxrc script
>
> The next release should have static ntfs(-3g) write support in initrd
> as
> well, which unfortunately increases the size of initrd by 1MB. Not
> good
> for older computers with small amounts of RAM. But I think it's
> necessary
> to support knoppix tohd= for ntfs partitions as well.
Kanotix already have ntfs support for quite a while and I am very happy
to read that your considering it for the next release of Knoppix 5.1.
This is a very good news for a lot of your users who are using Knoppix
to run native Linux on a corporate XP computer and do not have
the option to mess up with the disk mbr and risk a disk repartitioning
in order to speed up the boot time, or just do not have a cdrom drive.
Even though a full Linux install is almost always advised,
in my humble opinion your Knoppix live linux cd is both
a great introduction to Linux for the Windoze users
and also a great tool for the linux gurus.
If the RAM is really of your concern, may I suggest that you
also offer your users an alternate initrd.gz for ntfs boot ?
BTW, I would like to propose some other improvements
I have added to my alternate boot ramdisk:
1) Hostname defined by the kernel command line.
this will allow to have more than one Knoppix machine on the same local
network by avoiding multiple IP to share the same Knoppix hostname.
As an example the use of dynamic hostname would allow to always have a
unique hostame allocated at boot time based on date & time
or ip or hw network addresses.
cf: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=96888#96888
2) ext2 persistent home bug fix
cf http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=103883#103883
> > do not handle properly the double loop back require to mount the
> iso cd
> > image before accessing the KNOPPIX
> > compressed file system (cloop), I have modified the boot ramdisk
> > minirt.gz of several versions of Knoppix
> > in order to allow/help the iso boot of Knoppix from various
> devices,
> > partitions and boot loaders.
>
> Where can I see your changes/diffs?
The linuxrc boot script and binaries (kernel modules and utilities)
are easy to extract from my minirt_usb6.gz which can be found here:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=103883#103883
(inside the minirt_usb6.gz file) Diff/merge are easy to run,
but in my humble opinion, the linuxrc boot script file is now quite
of a patchwork and should completely or at least partially rewritten.
> > This includes boot
> > from a USB dongle, ntfs, ext2/3, reiser, fat16/32 partitions and a
> 11MB
> > virtual machine (with the vm-tools installed)
>
> Booting from USB works with Knoppix 5.0.1. What's missing?
Agreed. As far as I remember, Knoppix 5.01 fixes the USB 2 issue
found in the previous version, which wouldn't load properly the
high-speed USB kernel module and would only allow low speed transfers.
> I'm going to add a script in 5.1 that allows you to create a bootable
> 1GB (5GB for DVD) stick from a running Knoppix CD.
Great news !
FYI, I found very useful the HPUSBFW.EXE program made by HP
(running on XP) which allows (a low level) format in order to
make a USB dongle bootable.
> > You will find more about this in here:
> > http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11796
> >
> > With the last release of Knoppix 5.01 I found an interesting
> problem
> > where the /cdrom2.loop mount point disappeared.
> > The /cdrom2.loop mount point doesn't show up and has no entry in
> the
> > /etc/fstab and as such cannot be remounted
> > as read/write in order for the user to write data to the (ntfs)
> > partition used to host the iso file and boot Knoppix from.
>
> I will also have to rewrite the linuxrc script in order to switch to
> busybox anyways, and clean a lot of contributed stuff that I do not
> fully understand/agree with.
I am glad to read that you will find and spend some time to work
on rewriting full or part of the linuxrc. Please consider some of
my improvement / suggestion.
> > Previous versions of Knoppix do not exhibit this problem. KNOPPIX
> 5.0
> > DVD 2006-02-25 works just fine.
> > To illustrate this, please find below the output of the mount and
> df
> > commands for Knoppix 5.0 and 5.01:
> >
> > Knoppix 5.0 mount:
> > ==============
> > /dev/root on / type ext2 (rw)
> > /proc on /proc type proc (rw)
> > /sys on /sys type sysfs (rw)
> > /dev/sda1 on /cdrom2.loop type ntfs
> > (uid=1000,gid=1000,iocharset=euc-jp) <<<===
> > /dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
> > /dev/cloop2 on /KNOPPIX2 type iso9660 (ro)
> > /ramdisk on /ramdisk type tmpfs (rw,size=805776k)
> > /UNIONFS on /UNIONFS type unionfs
> > (rw,dirs=/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro:/KNOPPIX2=ro,delete=whiteout)
> > /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.500/*.iso on /cdrom/ type iso9660
> > (ro,loop=/dev/loop0)
> > /dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
> > /dev/cloop2 on /KNOPPIX2 type iso9660 (ro)
> > /proc on /proc type proc (rw)
> > /proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0666)
> > /dev/pts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
> >
> > Knoppix 5.0 df:
> > ===========
> > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/root 5.8M 346K 5.5M 6% /
> > /dev/sda1 59G 58G 652M 99% /cdrom2.loop <<<===
> > /dev/cloop 4.6G 4.6G 0 100% /KNOPPIX
> > /dev/cloop2 3.1G 3.1G 0 100% /KNOPPIX2
> > /ramdisk 787M 7.5M 780M 1% /ramdisk
> > /UNIONFS 8.5G 7.7G 780M 91% /UNIONFS
> > /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.500/*.iso 3.9G 3.9G 0 100% /cdrom/
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^What is this?!
>
> > /dev/cloop 4.6G 4.6G 0 100% /KNOPPIX
> > /dev/cloop2 3.1G 3.1G 0 100% /KNOPPIX2
> >
> > Knoppix 5.0.1 mount:
> > ================
> > /dev/root on / type ext2 (rw)
> > /ramdisk on /ramdisk type tmpfs (rw,size=810020k)
> > /UNIONFS on /UNIONFS type unionfs
> > (rw,dirs=/ramdisk=rw:/KNOPPIX=ro,delete=whiteout)
> > /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.501/*.iso on /cdrom/ type iso9660
> > (ro,loop=/dev/loop0)
> > /dev/cloop on /KNOPPIX type iso9660 (ro)
> > /proc on /proc type proc (rw)
> > /proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,devmode=0666)
> > /dev/pts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
> > /dev/hdc5 on /media/hdc5 type vfat
> > (rw,nosuid,nodev,umask=000,shortname=winnt,uid=1000,gid=1000)
> >
> > Knoppix 5.0.1 df:
> > =============
> > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/root 5.8M 494K 5.3M 9% /
> > /ramdisk 792M 6.2M 785M 1% /ramdisk
> > /UNIONFS 2.7G 2.0G 785M 72% /UNIONFS
> > /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.501/*.iso 697M 697M 0 00% /cdrom/
> > /dev/cloop 1.9G 1.9G 0 100% /KNOPPIX
> > /dev/hdc5 34G 29G 5.5G 84% /media/hdc5
> >
> > As you can read, there is a missing /cdrom2.loop mount point and a
> > missing entry in the fstab of Knoppix 5.0.1.
> > What is the mechanism used by the linux kernel and/or Knoppix to
> > discover the file systems and fill in the fstab ?
>
> In linuxrc, /etc/fstab is basically ignored. The built-in mount does
> not
> use /etc/mtab or /etc/fstab. These files are created later,
> /etc/fstab
> in knoppix-autoconfig by rebuildfstab -r.
rebuildfstab -r only update the /etc/fstab with the new devices
as /media/hda1 (after the comment #Added by KNOPPIX)
It doesn't create the core fs as /proc, /sys, /dev/pts, ...
Since there is not /etc/fstab skeletton in the KNOPPIX cloop file to be
used with the INIONFS, how is it created ?
is the kernel responsible for it ?
why the /cdrom2.loop doesn't get detected in Knoppix 5.01 ?
> The /cdrom2.loop mount point is "new" for me. That part was coded by
> Fabian Franz, independent from me, and I have not looked much into it
> other than checking for big disasters.
I understand. I would really appreciate if the bootfrom=iso_file
located on a ntfs partition would be officially supported by Knoppix.
Thank you for considering this feature in your next 5.1 Knoppix
release.
> > I get the same result when using my 5.0 linuxrc boot script with
> > Knoppix 5.0.1, so the difference is not in the linuxrc.
>
> /cdrom2.loop is probably supposed to be in the miniroot ramdisk.
> mkdir
> is not supported by static ash, so it is probably NOT created
> on-demand.
>
> > Please note that Knoppix 5.0 also have double entry for /dev/cloop
> and
> > /dev/cloop2.
> > It looks like that the mount points discovery and fstab building is
> a
> > quite sensitive area.
> > Anybody have an idea ?
> >
> > Klaus, is there any major difference between 5.0 and 5.0.1 which
> could
> > explain this ?
>
> I have changed some parts of linuxrc from 5.0 to 5.0.1, but can't
> remember anything that could lead to your observations.
As I wrote, the 5.0 linuxrc boot script does not fix the problem
and the 5.01 linuxrc boot script doesn't break a 5.0 Knoppix boot.
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:22:34PM -0800, Gilles van Ruymbeke wrote:
> > Hello,
> > On Sep 12 Klaus suggested that he was working on a new 5.1 release
> > according to this post:
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-knoppix/2006/09/msg00018.html
> >
> > "...I tend to believe that this is a bug in the cups or foomatic
> > packages
> > that were in Debian/unstable at that time. It will probably be
> > fixed/obsoleted by Knoppix 5.1, where the web frontend should also
> > contain the FULL printer list..."
> >
> > ==> Klaus, is there any plan or schedule for an upcoming new 5.1
> > release of Knoppix ? <==
>
> "When it's ready". This was supposed to be in beginning of October.
> :-(
> Since then, a lot of new things appeared in Debian and GNU/Linux,
> which
> I'm still catching up on while trying not to break too many things
> again. Also, I had to switch knopper.net to a new provider (but
> finally
> running on a pure Debian), which also took some time that I had
> planned
> for Knoppix.
>
> I'm now aiming for next week. No promises. I always say that. ;-)
This is a very great news !
I am sure that most of us understand and will be patient.
Thank you very much for your hard work.
Best Regards,
Gilles van Ruymbeke
> Regards
> -Klaus Knopper
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