The following HOWTO was kindly contributed by Harvey Friedman. It overlaps in
parts with the previous HOWTO on
lilo booting that describes how to use the bootloader to boot from the
larger-than-cdrom size iso. However, the present HOWTO also shows how to
build a bootable floppy to boot the 'kitchen sink' iso that cannot be burned
to cdrom. By using this method, any computer without either cdrom or dvd
drive can boot the dvd-size Quantian iso. Having booted
Quatian, either by this method, or via the methods described in the netboot
HOWTO or winboot-via-cdrom
HOWTO, a user can then proceed to install Quantian onto the hard disk as
a means of getting a complete scientific workstation environment as a
permanent, and easily upgradeable via apt-get, installation.
Installing "kitchen sink" Quantian (k.s.Q.) without having a DVD system
After installing the bootable CD-ROM version of Quantian to hard disk, it
became evident that many useful programs from the original KNOPPIX were
removed for space considerations. Discovering the "kitchen sink" DVD
version, a 1.2GB iso file, available for download meant that it would have
to be downloaded and worked with. Now, it probably would have been easier
to purchase a DVD burner but no funds were available for that. So, here
is how the situation was resolved.
1. Download desired iso image to computer.
2. Read the "Quantian HOWTO Build Recipe" and hope that it would be easy
to apply.
3. Realize that enough free space on the iso partition would be necessary
(about twice as much as the size of the iso image) 4 GB in this case,and a
partition upon which to install, in this case, 6GB.
4. Outline what should be done
4.A. Break out the iso file onto the 4GB partition using loop as if it
were a bootable removable device.
4.B. Pick the necessary files from it to make a bootable device, in
this case, using lilo to put it on a floppy disk.
4.C. Boot from floppy into iso 'k.s.Q.' which was on 4GB partition
4.D. Finally, use knoppix-installer to install to 6GB partition
5. Will look at iso file on directory what
mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0
/mnt/hda3/quantian_0.5.9.2.iso /mnt/hda3/what
6. "ls what" to see if there is nice boot.img.
cd /mnt/hda3
[hda3]# ls
what Quantian_0.5.9.2.iso
[hda3]# ls what
KNOPPIX boot
[hda3]# ls what/boot
isolinux
[hda3]# ls what/boot/i*
boot.cat f2 german.kbd isolinux.cfg linux26 memtest minirt26.gz
boot.msg f3 isolinux.bin linux24 logo.16 minirt24.gz
nope, so must make boot floppy and change "lilo.conf" accordingly
7. Here is sample lilo.conf file for booting "k.s.Q."
boot = /dev/fd0
install = boot.b
map = map
vga=791
lba32
delay=20
prompt
timeout=150
append="hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi
hdg=scsi hdh=scsi apm=power-off nomce"
default=Quantian
image=/mnt/hda3/what/boot/isolinux/linux24
label=Quantian
initrd=/mnt/hda3/what/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
read-only
root = /dev/hda3
Don't forget to run /sbin/lilo -C /mnt/floppy/lilo.conf !!!
8 If everything worked correctly, "k.s.Q." will now be running upon reboot.
9 No longer need the lilo.conf file but it is good idea to rename it in
case same technique will be used for k.s.Q. upgrade in future
mv /mnt/floppy/lilo.conf /mnt/floppy/lilo.conf.dsk
10. Now modify lilo.conf to boot new hard disk installed version of
k.s.Q. in case of master boot record problems. Here is sample:
boot = /dev/fd0
install = boot.b
map = map
vga=791
lba32
delay=20
prompt
timeout=150
append="hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi
apm=power-off nomce"
default=Quantian
image=/mnt/hda13/boot/vmlinuz
label=Quantian
initrd=/mnt/hda13/boot/initrd.img
read-only
root = /dev/hda13
Now must run "/sbin/lilo" again to change mbr on floppy.
11. Play with k.s.Q. to make sure you want THIS version, and
finally run
knoppix-installer
to install to hard disk and to set up master boot record.
12. If you had dual boot or multi boot previously, boot up in k.s.Q.
and change lilo.conf to get back those features.
13. If your computer doesn't have floppy drive but does have CD-RW
drive as bootable CD-ROM device, same method should work with
suitable modifications to lilo.conf
Harvey Friedman VII2004 fnharvey AT [email withhelp by request]