First of all, I am not a "troll," whatever you are meaning by that. I just want my system to work, and I don't have a lot of time to mess with these kinds of weird issues like a hard disk partition not mounting where I tell it to in fstab (a filesystem, really, because unlike what the "wizzard" says, you can't mount a partition but you can mount a filesystem). For more normal issues I am more than happy to search and google and read man pages to find out what to do. That's how I learned slackware, and I don't have a problem with doing that. I have done that to a good extent with this problem, also, and I have read every single FAQ on the knoppix site about hard drive installing, home directory, creating users, and so on.

I have also done about two dozens of variations of what you mention in the "wizzard" discussion. I know how to edit an fstab file, and I know how to mount partitions at boot, I have been doing it for months with slackware. (And FYI, it's not even necessary to do any moving. I mounted /dev/hda4 at /home while the default "knoppix" user already had a directory there, created a new user, and it worked fine. In fact, that's the way it was when it WAS working. When I unmounted /dev/hda4, there was the knoppix directory in the /home directory again.) The point is not that I don't understand how to mount a filesystem at boot, but that it's not working the way it's supposed to. (And btw, you can also edit the /root/.knofig file to have the installer create any partitions anywhere you want. You don't have to do it afterward, so maybe you can pass that along to the "wizzard" so to enlighten him a little that adding afterward is not necessary if you edit the .knofig file.)

Next, it's not hogwash at all that the knoppix users don't know. You can read my threads at the knoppix.net/forum yourself, under my same username slackhack. No one knew the answer and basically just gave up trying to find the solution. Please notice what it says right on the front page of the forum:
exactly what I said. Please also notice that all the dates of my posts are before I came here, just in case you want to say I went there after to try to flame me.

Finally, please don't take out the anger you have about your own ignorance on me. If you don't know the answer to something then just keep quiet rather than posting all these personal attacks on me that I am a "troll" and all the rest of your nonsense speeches. If I want to use knoppix, I should be able to use knoppix. There should be a solution to find out why something is not working correctly and fix it, rather than just saying "give up and try debian." Maybe I want to help develop for knoppix, did you ever think of that? So maybe it would be useful to actually have a knoppix install on my system, right?

Thanks.

First of all, I am not a "troll," whatever you are meaning by that. I just want my system to work, and I don't have a lot of time to mess with these kinds of weird issues like a hard disk partition not mounting where I tell it to in fstab (a filesystem, really, because unlike what the "wizzard" says, you can't mount a partition but you can mount a filesystem).
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Yes, you are a troll.
You keep referring to Knoppix as Debian, you accuse some of us in this ng, to not know anything, the people at the knoppix ngs also are ignorant. You refuse to go to the #knoppix in the IRC, where definitely they can explain to you how to solve your problem, WHY?
Because that will end your bad-mouthing Debian, your problem would be solved in half an hour.

Imagine this: i install ArchLinux or Vector (both are based on Slackware), when a problem arises, i don't go to any of their ngs, i go to SLACKWARE, then accuse the boys at Slackware to be ignorant and why am i having problems with ArchLinux, it is SLACKWARE after all, isn't it?, then they tell me to go to #archlinux and its ngs, and solve my problems, i tell them i have no time to waste on something easy as mounting partitions, and besides, ArchLinux is SLACKWARE!

hehehe, you are a troll, allright!

Dude, what is your problem? I'll post it for you again, from the knoppix.net forum:

I'm not saying knoppix is debian, the knoppix people are. So please just stop with the troll comments.

I still say you should try:

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

This installer gives you the option to make all the partitions/filesystems you want. If the Knoppix installer doesn't do what you want, why keep complaining about it in Debian forum? Why not give the genuine Debian installer a go?

If the Knoppix installer doesn't do what you want, why keep complaining about it in Debian forum? Why not give the genuine Debian installer a go?
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LOL!

Patrick Volkerding (the guy who makes Slackware) has said that workstation/desktop users only need one partition/mount point ( / ) in addition to the swap partition. In Slackware you'll probably want to make also /home partition so that you can upgrade your system and keep the files in your /home/user directory.

In this respect, Debian is different from Slackware. Typically you only need to install Debian once. Debian has a quite ingenious method of upgrading the operating system via network, using apt-get. So there's not really any need for a separate /home partition if you're using Debian simply as a workstation/desktop system. In this respect (and also in many, MANY, other respects), I agree with Patrick Volkerding. I'm a former Slackware user and after reading the many config files && scripts in Slackware I have considerable respect for the man.

So, following Patrick's advice, you only need to create the swap partition and the root partition (with the mount point / ). If you're using Debian only as a workstation/desktop system, your /home/user directory will be safe in system upgrades because Debian can update your system "on the fly".

In short, you don't really need to mount a separate /home partition in Debian.

The point is that it worked once, and now it doesn't. I would like to know why. So thanks, I will keep using knoppix, manually mounting the /home partition after boot, until I figure out what is wrong. Then I will have that much more knowledge -- about knoppix and debian -- instead of having just given up and remaining ignorant.

OK, perhaps your persistence can be useful for others, too. If you find a solution that works for you, please post it in this thread. ;)

Also, what does your /etc/fstab look like? It's possible that tweaking the fstab file solves your problem.

Okay, since I was going to redo knoppix anyway, I just went ahead and installed Debian today. It is quite a nice installer. Coincidentally to your question, out of curiosity I copied the fstab from knoppix and used it with this Debian install, and it works fine with Debian (another reason I like a separate /home partition -- I can save all my configuration files and just reuse them for fast setup in case of anything catastrophic). Knoppix must be more screwed up as a hard drive distro than I thought, at least on my system.

Does anyone know where I can find the default kernel config file? I would like to redo the kernel to 2.6.x, , but I don't know all my hardware yet on this laptop. I'd like to find the default configuration so I can start from that as a base. I looked on the CD, but I didn't see one anywhere.

After sorting out some X issues, the biggest problems now seem to be KDE related. I'm not sure if I will keep it or not as a desktop, but I did want to try it out (I mostly use XFCE4 and sometimes fluxbox on my slackware system). I can just "apt-get uninstall kde" if want to get rid of it, right?

I guess I hit a wrong key during the part of the installer where you choose all the categories (desktop, server, development, etc.) and it took off installing before I could select anything. So I think I got just the basic no-frills install, and it is encouraging to see how easily everything is working through apt starting from that basic level of installl. With all the swaret problems I have been having recently, I might just switch my other system to Debian if this works out. I hope saying that will satisfy macondo at least that I am not a troll. :p

Thanks.

Here's one thread that discusses the kernel config files:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=187413

I personally use the Aptitude frontend to install and uninstall programs and it has worked fine for me. Many other people like Synaptic, but I find it a bit slow when compared to Aptitude. And you can use Aptitude also outside X, which is sometimes quite useful. Before using either of these programs, make sure to take a look at their settings first so that you know how these programs will behave.

Both Aptitude and Synaptic are frontends to apt-get and the main difference is that apt-get only takes care of the required dependencies while Aptitude and Synaptic install also "recommended" packages. Some programs don't work without these recommended packages. So, apt-get is fine if you know what packages you need, but Aptitude and Synaptic are better for us Debian newbies. Removing KDE with apt-get probably works well, but you may want to consider using Aptitude or Synaptic when installing new applications. ;)

Good to hear you decided to give the Debian proper a try. :)

MEPIS
 

I might also suggest you look at MEPIS. It is a debian-based live-evalutation CD which is easier to install to the hard drive than any other distribution I have yet encountered (I have also installed knoppix to the hard drive). MEPIS was designed to make this easy. There is actually an icon on the live-evalution desktop which runs through the installation. It requires just a few mouseclicks, and seemed to be able to handle dual boot (I used the entire hard drive...that required only ~4 clicks and no customization). Worked really nicely.

Re: MEPIS
 

NOW he tells me! :p j/k

I think I'm sticking with Debian. Everything just seems to work after battling swaret for the past month (and then knoppix).


:D (<- click)