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WFTL Knoppix FAQ

Submitted by wftl on Mon, 2005-02-07 11:15

If you are reading this page, then odds are pretty good that you've already purchased a copy of "Moving to the Linux Business Desktop" so let me start by saying thank you. Of course, if you are reading this page, there's a distinct possibility that you ran into some kind of problem with the included CD. That's what this page is for. If you are looking for a place to discuss the book, the applications included, or you just want to chat with others who have been where you are now, consider joining the WFTL-LUG first.

Some of the more common questions or concerns I receive are as follows:

Cheat Codes

Before I continue, I will reiterate what I stated in the book. The Knoppix CD is amazingly good at automatically booting and running on a huge number of systems, but it isn't perfect either. There is only so much software that you can pack on one CD and that includes drivers for hardware. That said, most problems with booting Knoppix can be resolved with the help of what the creator of Knoppix calls cheat codes.

You might have noticed when the boot prompt came up that it said "Press F2 for help".  Pressing F2 will show you some of the more common cheat codes. For instance, you might type this at the boot prompt:

    knoppix xkeyboard=us

This will force the graphical X keyboard to use a standard US English layout (assuming you want standard US English). Another problem you may run into has to do with some systems returning an incorrect amount of memory to Knoppix when it boots. This can cause a kernel panic among other things. Typing the following will inform Knoppix of the computer's real memory.

     knoppix mem=128M

This assumes, of course, that you have 128 megabytes of memory. The complete list of cheat codes is here.

   http://www.confederatelinux.com/linux/cheatcodes_for_knoppix.htm

What's the root password on the Knoppix CD?

The quick answer is, "There isn't one". If you need root access, click on the K menu, go up to the KNOPPIX menu, and
select root shell from the menu.

How can I change the screen resolution?

This is another one of those times when cheat codes come to your rescue. You'll recall that at the boot screen, there's a "Press F2 for help" prompt. Do so and you will see various cheat codes for changing resolution. Knoppix tries to figure out the optimal resolution for your monitor, but this may not be what you want. For instance, if your screen came up in 1024x768 mode and you wanted to use 800x600 instead (perhaps the text appears too small), you would enter the following at the "boot:" prompt.

     knoppix screen=800x600

Similarly, to get 1024x768 resolution, you would type the following.

     knoppix screen=1024x768

How can I boot from a diskette?

Let me start with a few weasel words. In the first edition of "Moving to Linux", you can create a boot diskette, but that is no longer true with the disk included in the second edition. That's because the 2.6 version of the Linux kernel (which is the default in the second edition CD) no longer fits on a diskette. If you have an earlier version of the WFTL Knoppix CD, read on.

There is a diskette boot image included on the WFTL Edition Knoppix CD-ROM should you have a system that won't boot from a CD (this is common with some older BIOSes). If you are currently working from Windows, there's a program called RAWRITE2.EXE on the CDROM under the KNOPPIX directory.  Get yourself a blank diskette, cd (change directory) to the KNOPPIX directory and execute RAWRITE2.EXE.  You'll be asked for a file name (which is boot.img).  Wait a few seconds while the program writes the boot image to your floppy, then boot from that floppy (you still need the CD <insert appropriate smiley here>).

From Linux, you can cd to the KNOPPIX directory and create a boot diskette with this command.

     dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs-1440k

Either way, after a few seconds, the diskette will be ready.  

Can I install the WFTL Edition Knoppix on my hard disk?

Yes, you can install from the CD to your system.  The reason I did not mention it in the book is that it is not one of the easiest installs; certainly not as friendly as picking up a copy of Mandrake or SuSE or RedHat at your local computer store.

That said, there is a script on the CD called "knx-hdinstall".  Wait until the Knoppix CD is fully booted, jump to the root console (either under the KNOPPIX submenu or by jumping out of the graphical system by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1) and execute the command.   The program,, which sadly is only so friendly, which will walk you through all the steps of installing the Knoppix CD onto your hard drive. Once complete, you can use customize your desktop at will and use apt-get (or the graphical Synaptic) to update your system over the Internet.

You may also want to check out the Knoppix Hard Disk Installation HOWTO for more information.

What did you change in your remastered Knoppix?

For starters, I changed the looks.  Rather than use Klaus' desktop artwork, I decided to go with the classic KDE stuff.  I also decided to use the Keramik
style and window decorations.  I did a little cleanup of the menus, added some Winmodem drivers (source only), as well as a little web page with some (hopefully) useful links.   In terms of applications, you can appreciate that the disk was already pretty full.  Unfortunately, the Knoppix disk didn't have some of the software I planned to cover in the book.  So I removed things like Chinese and Japanese language libraries (big), a few server tools like the Amanda backup software, some other (somewhat) esoteric programs for document control, and so on.   With the freed up space, I added some KDE desktop apps that were missing, some multimedia apps, CD ripping software, some educational stuff . . . basically, I was trying to get as many things into Knoppix as I was covering in the book (Flightgear did not make it -- too big).

Where can I get the sources for your Knoppix?

As I mentioned above, the WFTL Edition Knoppix is a standard Knoppix distribution (which is based on Debian). I made no source code modifications or changes in any way. The changes are some web information, useful links through the boot up web page and, of course, the package changes as noted in the previous question. Consequently, all sources specific to the WFTL Edition Knoppix are available from the following address.

http://developer.linuxtag.net/knoppix/sources/

If you are interested in remastering your own Knoppix CD, it isn't all that difficult but be warned that it can be time consuming and you will likely go through a lot of CDs to get there. You can start with my remastered Knoppix or use the current Knoppix if you want the latest and greatest. The best place to start for this information is the Knoppix remastering HOW-TO at this address.

http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/KnoppixRemasteringHowto