SATA Hard Drive

Question:

My desktop now has only a SATA hard drive. It seems that your UnionFS cannot be formulated. In principle, your Live DVD system does not use any hard drive, but do you use a hard drive cache somewhere?

Knoppix 4.x.x up to 5.3.1 all behaved the same.

Answer:

In Knoppix, /UNIONFS is the directory in which the read-only, compressed data meets the writable ramdisk, and (almost) all system directories are linked to this directory during the boot procedure.

This arrangement is entirely independent of any hardware, except maybe the CD- or DVD-ROM, which is expected to be mounted at /cdrom. Knoppix does not use the hard disk by default.

However, it is still possible to put a knoppix.img file on a writable medium attached anywhere the kernel can find it, which can be a hard disk, USB-flash drive, or SD card. To store changes or updates permanently, this file can be used instead of the ramdisk (Knoppix boot option home=/path/to/knoppix.img).

In the case that the knoppix.img file is present, but for some reason badly damaged, you will get an error message such as "cannot unite directories in /UNIONFS," but the system should still work – somewhat. You can rename or delete the defective image file.

Knoppix 4.x.x is quite old, which means that it will not recognize many SATA controllers. If no knoppix.img is present, this should not really cause an error message like the one above, unless you have physical read errors, which can well be caused by SATA if the DVD drive is connected to a SATA port and the corresponding driver puts the port in a wrong mode.

In this case, you cannot do much, other than wait for a new version with a newer kernel, try boot options for disabling DMA, or revert the port to compatible IDE mode in the BIOS settings of your computer.

Getting Connected

Question:

I need help because I'm a beginner with Linux. I have tried Knoppix 5.3.1, but I cannot get it to run on the Internet from one of the USB ports. (I have eight USB 2 ports.)

I don't have an ethernet port on my computer, which is a Dell Inspiron 530 with:

• router (with talk talk) SmartAX_MT882,
• 0.99 RAM,
• large hard drive.

Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Answer:

The manufacturer does not seem to supply Linux drivers for USB mode, so my first choice would be to return the modem and get one that works.

My second choice would be to get a network adapter and connect with your router via LAN – it saves you a lot of headaches, and the router has a nice web-based configuration interface that helps you set up the Internet connection from Linux as well as Windows.