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Spreading Linux within Interamerican University of Puerto Rico

Oct 20, 2004  By Kevin Shockey
 in
Expanding alternatives and broadening educational opportunities, the SNAP Development Center sponsors its first Linux installfest.
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Write on partition

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 02/20/2005 - 09:45.

Hi all,
I installed Knoppix 3.7 but i dont seem to be able to write or copy anything onto the partitions.
Any help please.
Thanks in advance!

Re: Knoppix install problems

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/20/2004 - 02:00.

The author mentioned that they had difficulty installing Knoppix to some PCs. Today Wednesday October 20, 2004, I installed Knoppix 3.6 to the slowest working PC I could find. The PC in question is:
- Compaq Deskpro 2000 M5133/2500
- Intel Pentium 133MHz
- 32MB RAM - Four 8MB SIMMs
- Cirrus Logic integrated video
- One 8GB hard drive as Master on Primary IDE
- One 16X IDE CD-ROM drive as Master on Secondary IDE
- 3Com 3C509 10Mbit ISA NIC

I boot Knoppix 3.6 with the following boot cheat codes:
knoppix 2 vga=normal nodma

However depending on the PC's hardware, the following boot cheat codes might be necessary:
nousb noapic noapg noscsi nosmp nofirewire

At command prompt, use cfdisk to partition hard drive into one 4GB root partition, 500MB swap, 3.5GB for user data.
# cfdisk /dev/hda

After cfdisk completes, it tells me to reboot. After reboot with the same boot command, format the partitions.

#mke2fs -vj /dev/hda1
#mkswap /dev/hda2
#mke2fs -vj /dev/hda3

Once that is done, run the knoppix installer.
# knoppix-installer

Select "configure a new install", choose a Debian style install to hda1, type in a username, type in a password, type in a root password, and then confirm & begin the install.
Phew! (check wristwatch and wipes forehead). The install took 2.5 hours. Back at the prompt, I mount hda1 and edit inittab to default to run level 3 instead of 5. Then I unmount /mnt/hda1 and reboot the PC.
# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
# vi /mnt/hda1/etc/inittab
# umount /mnt/hda1
# shutdown now -r && exit

Reboot into new Debian system.
- DONE!

Also check out the Knoppix forums at http://www.knoppix.net/forum/

knoppix 3.6

anonymous's picture
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/08/2005 - 21:27.

It is very useful for me because i have an old pc : HP 233mhz, intel pentium 2, 96 mb ram one 32 and one 64 SDRam, cirrus logic and a graphic card ATI rage pro 16mg 128 bits, one master Ide 10Gb hard drive and one 4 Gb slave, cd rom 24 x. I tried for months to install corel and mandrake, it dint work. Recently, i tried mepis but i dont have enough knowledge about linux, so on internet they say that knoppix is the most easy linux to install on pc. I tried what anonymous said and it works!

Re: Knoppix install problems

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 10/24/2004 - 02:00.

Unfortunately, only the more technical among us would feel comfortable doing this procedure. I, as a professional network and systems engineer, have no problem following your directions above, and I too have installed Knoppix to the hard disk. However, most folks can't yet do that, and it is this market that Lindows/Linspire is addressing.

I've used LindowsOS 4.0 in Spanish (I'm bilingual), and I found it to be pretty darned good for a translation of a gringo product. :-) LindowsOS 4.0 Spanish Edition was certainly good enough to put in front of my Peruvian friends and have them use. I would guess that Linspire 4.5 is even better. Thus, I see it as also a valid choice for installfests.

It is true that, old or new, your hardware does need to actually be functioning well to run GNU/Linux or any of the BSD's. Unlike Windows, which doesn't seem to use as much of the hardware, the popular Free OS's might intermittently have problems if you've got, say, flaky RAM or CPU cache. I recently discovered this with an older (Socket 7) box that has started to get flaky on me, both with Slackware and Knoppix. I tried the same OS's on another, identical box, and they were happy as a clam. Troubleshooting revealed bad DRAM. Funnily enough, OpenBSD installed on the flaky box just fine; go figure.

The moral: Make sure the hardware's okay before you blame the OS.

Re: Knoppix install problems

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/20/2004 - 02:00.

As i know Puerto Rico got a community called Vidalinux.com that have more than 3 years promoting, teaching, using Linux, and developing open-source software, would be nice if projects like this help the Puerto Rico Linux community, changing ideas, participated on current projects and get involved with people that are already using Linux in Puerto Rico.

BTW another project is the UPR High performance facility, this facility provided mirrors for a lot of opensource projects and have people using Linux by years.

Hmm...

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 10/21/2004 - 02:00.

Hello:

  1. University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez have been running Linux since version 1.X.
  2. UPR Rio Piedras have their Knoppix Distro named Bio Knoppix for its biology students.
  3. Vida Linux and Linux-PR websites have been up for years.

I'm happy that this is being done as well, but it would've been more useful if these resources are pulled in together, specially if the infamous "technological western corridor" and the upcoming Port of the American ever see the light of day.

Lou

Re: Linspire?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/20/2004 - 02:00.

I don't question the choice of Linspire under certain circumstances. I must grudgingly admit that I have found Linspire supports devices 'out-of-the-box' that other distros do not (my USB Linksys WiFi adapter, for example).

However, I question the compliance to the licensing terms of the software. Linspire is a distro that is normally purchased, and cannot be freely re-distributed (as far as I am aware).

Mark Jensen

Re: Linspire?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/20/2004 - 02:00.

Linspire is a distro that is normally purchased, and cannot be freely re-distributed (as far as I am aware).
IMHO: True in that it is normally purchased. False in that it can not be distributed. Linspire (the company) is distributing Linspire (the distro) via bittorrent P2P technology. In fact it is in Linspire's (the company) best interest to get their distro into as many hands as possible since it is not the CD/ISO/distro itself that generates revenue, but subscriptions to their CNR (Click-N-Run) installable program archive.
See also Linspire.com - Michael's Minutes: Lindows.com Does P2P

Re: Linspire?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/20/2004 - 02:00.

That is just Linspire Live (the Live CD version), and is not installable, as far as I know...

However, I didn't know that Linspire was offering *anything* via p2p, so perhaps these people have properly followed a version of the Linspire licensing I am not aware of.

Re: Linspire?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 10/24/2004 - 02:00.

They have been for some time now. This includes not just BitTorrent, but other P2P networks such as KaZaA. I refer you to this link:

http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_archives.php?id=101

This is for LindowsLive, now called LinspireLive.

BTW, the OEM version of the "full", i. e. installable-to-hard-disk Linspire is available in Micro Center for US$9.95. Yep, that's ten bucks. So, next time you need some DRAM or upgrade your CPU or whatever, you're good to go.

--TP

Re: Linspire?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/20/2004 - 02:00.

Perhaps they are now offering more than just Linspire Live via bittorrent? - http://info.linspire.com/p2p/p2p-pr.html

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