Frequently asked questions and tips about the Linux Magazine miniCD

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - First, don’t give up immediately. Sometimes the following tips are enough to get everything working. If the keyboard works great, but your mouse doesn’t, try to switch to a text console, with the keys combination Control-Alt-F1 and go back to the graphic desktop with the combination Control-Alt-F5. The X server during this operation reinitializes the mouse and it should surprisingly work, after. If you have mouse and/or keyboard USB-connected, be sure that the option “USB Legacy support” in your BIOS is enabled. If there is an option “Plug and Play OS“, set it to “No”, as well. If these tips have not been useful to solve the problem, try to boot with the option noapic: linuxmag noapic <Enter>. If you have a regular PS/2 mouse instead, or even a notebook with a PS/2 compatible pointing device, and the cursor is - as in the other cases - stuck in the middle of the screen, try to reboot with the option pci=irqmask=0x0e98: linuxmag pci=irqmask=0x0e98 <Enter>. Sometimes the problem could be caused even by BIOS bugs, hopefully solvable with official updates.

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - To customize and remaster the miniCD, you need to follow the same procedure that you use for KNOPPIX, described here. The basic steps however are the creation of the KNOPPIX compressed image, with the command:

mkisofs -R -U -V "KNOPPIX filesystem" -P "KNOPPIX rimasterizzato" -hide-rr-moved \
-cache-inodes -no-bak -pad /mnt/hde8/KNX/source/KNOPPIX | nice -5 \
/usr/bin/create_compressed_fs - 65536 > /mnt/hde8/KNX/master/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX

and the creation of the final ISO image, using the command:

mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V "KNOPPIX personalizzato" -b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
-c isolinux/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 \
-boot-info-table -o /mnt/hde8/KNX/myknoppix.iso /mnt/hde8/master

(suitable for using the ISOLINUX bootloader).

Anyway, to add new packages, or however to rebuild the original system from which the miniCD was derived, you need to get an archive containing system parts and file “cut away” during the creation, to optimize the available space, and put in a standard 185Mb miniCD as many applications as possible. You can download this archive (39Mb) clicking here, together with its related md5 code for the checksum, here. The archive is made to be extracted in the root directory related to the remaster tree, and contains all the documentation, man pages, the system directory dpkg to modify the packages, and more.

Be care with these operations!

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - Any closed-source application is not included and won’t ever be included in any version because of clear license problems.

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - In KNOPPIX and in the Linux Magazine miniCD there are no default passwords for root, neither for the user knoppix. To become root, launch a terminal and execute the command sudo su or simply su. To launch just one application, without becoming root, simply put sudo before the program name.

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - There are many options:

• Copying the file KNOPPIX from the directory of the miniCD with the same name in a new directory always named KNOPPIX, created in the root directory of a disk partition (e.g. C:\KNOPPIX, if you are using Windows); boot the PC with the miniCD, and eject it as soon as the penguin appears: from this point the miniCD will work using only the hard disk and the RAM.
• Using the boot options tohd e fromhd (not tested) followed by a partition name without /dev (e.g. hdb1). Example: boot with linuxmag tohd=hdb1 to copy the miniCD on the first partition of the second IDE disk, and after, the next times, boot with linuxmag fromhd=hdb1 to load the miniCD from that partition.
• Disk installation. Completely not tested, thus unsafe and dangerous. You should try it only when you are very sure you will not lose anything important, and with your own risk and without any warranty.

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - Because ISOLINUX, supporting boot files simply stored inside a default directory, doesn’t have limitations as with SYSLINUX and its floppy emulation mechanism (shortly, to do not exceed with the boot files the 1440K or 2880K available with the floppy image).

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - No, it is not planned. Because there are already so many KNOPPIX customizations for 650/700Mb cd-roms...! The Linux Magazine miniCD is exclusive because it actually is a miniCD, optimizing the available space and the applications, and “resizing the system to the size of a pocket”...

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - If your PC has not a Linux distribution installed yet, you may choose to boot it with the same live-cd e do the job from there. And here how to do it, in details:

1. Let boot completely the liveCD
2. Launch the terminal application Konsole - either clicking the relate icon on the panel or entering konsole in the Run... (ALT+F2) window
3. Execute in Konsole the command sudo su
4. Mount a disk partition (CAUTION! Never of type NTFS) for example the first one of the first IDE disk, with the command mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 - from this point the content of this partition will be available from the directory /mnt/hda1
5. Create in the chosen partition specific directories for the miniCD, with the commands mkdir /mnt/hda1/linuxmag and mkdir /mnt/hda1/linuxmag/minicd
6. Copy the content of the CD attached to Linux Magazine (except the directory _software) in the just created directory: cp -Rp /cdrom/{K*,i*,a*,l*,m*} /mnt/hda1/linuxmag/minicd/
7. Now go the parent directory: cd /mnt/hda1/linuxmag
8. Launch the command mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V “LinuxMag-CD” -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o /mnt/hda1/linuxmag/LinuxMag-miniCD.iso minicd
9. Done. Now you should have the ISO image ready in the directory /mnt/hda1/linuxmag. At this point, you could use any burning software to create the miniCD. Some tips: print this faq to be able to read it during the job; and, of course, adapt the provided example with your own hardware configuration, in instance, changing the partition hda1 with the one you would really like to use.

Linux Magazine mini-cd 1.0 - To create a real miniCD, you have to exclude the whole directory _software from the cdrom. Supposing that you already have a PC with a Linux distribution installed: copy all the content of the CD, except that directory, in a new directory on the disk, such as /tmp/minicd. Then, go to the parent directory (in our case /tmp) and execute the following command:

mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V 'LinuxMag-CD' -b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
-c isolinux/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 \
-boot-info-table -o /tmp/LinuxMag-miniCD.iso minicd

If your PC has not Linux installed, you may choose to boot it with the same live-cd and do the job from there, mounting a disk partition.