Mouse problem Amiga Forever Knoppix.
 

Hi all.
I lurk here quite a lot but I've only made a couple of posts.

After some Googling I came across a .pdf on a ftp server which helped me convert an old PC, with a CF card hard drive (IDE adaptor), into booting Amiga. Using Amiga Forever.

ftp://81.6.196.67/AmigaForeverInstallationGuide.pdf

I had no problems with the guide and it booted into 3.1, just like when you boot from the AF disc. Sweet I thought until I tried to move the mouse. And then another. No show.
The keyboard seems to tab between ram/work/system OK so hopefully that's alright.
I posted as I wanted to ask if anybody knew who wrote the guide so I could ask if they could help. The .pdf has no address anywhere. Better still would anybody know what the problem might be. What I should check.
The 'af_boot.uaerc' file has a number of entries for 'mouse disabled=0'. Isn't this 2 negatives which equal a positive. ie mouse is enabled?
I would usually start trying things like changing the config file myself and try everything I could think of before posting but given the time I need some sleep (06.15am)
and thought I'd throw this out there and hope somebody might see the problem straight away. I've never owned an Amiga so maybe I'm not seeing something obvious.
Thanks for reading my post. Time for some sleep.

Hi JakeTucker,

First, thanks for the link to the installation guide. :great I've not seen that before and it should be a good read if it helped get you thus far.

You say it is an old PC you have used, and I'm wondering if this might give a clue to the problem.

I'm only guessing here, but I've got a fair amount of experience with Amiga Forever/AmigaOS XL. Are you using a serial mouse? I have always had to use a PS/2 mouse for booting this kind of installation.

Edit: Hey, I can't seem to download the guide! I am told my login request is denied. Is the link correct? Maybe you could upload it to the Zone for me, please? :nervous

Prowler give me a couple of hours and I'll post again.
Just to say now I have that link bookmarked and it works. But I get the same when I click the link. I can't connect. Maybe I have a cookie which has the admin/password.
The pdf links to a few files on the same ftp server which are needed but I still have them so I'll try and get it all up on or another host.
It's based on Amiga Forever 2006.

Will do. Thanks, mate! :great

Edit: It's okay, I can browse the FTP folder by using this link:
ftp://amiga:AF2005@81.6.196.67/

The following files are hosted there:
I'm downloading them now...

Okay, I've got them! :)

I'll have a look at the guide, and see if I can install it using those files on my 1GHz PIII AmigaOS XL machine.

Great.
I was just about to upload but thought I'd check first.
The .pdf doesn't mention the inspectMBR.IMZ file. Hmmm.
If you have any questions I'll try and help. The guide looks like a lot of work but I got through it quickly.
I was probably lucky that I had everything to hand like a 2nd PC and Win98 floppy although in the end I used the FreeDOS.img as it has xfdisk which I prefer. (GUI-like)
I only have 2 USB mice though. I tried them both through a USB to PS2 adaptor as well.

A couple of things.
I think AF2006 works differently to the later releases so you might have trouble if you try to use those. I think it's because AF started to use a modified Knoppix (KXLight?) which doesn't come with a vmlinuz file which is needed.
Also I added some notes to the .pdf I was going to post.

Jake Tucker notes.

Stage 1
i) There are a number of sites with Win98 boot images for download.
MS have never taken them down. I don't know their legal status.
I actually used the FreeDOS .img which has xfdisk which makes things easier.
Stage 2
i) The part where it says copy the uae folder (and use a space and then a period)
My uae folder was in Caps and I had to enter it with Caps for the correct syntax.
ii) Also the MINIROOT.GZ file. It comes spelt with caps so I didn't change it.
I just made sure I used Caps for the syntax again.Same goes for KNOPPIX.
iii) The loadlin.exe. The guide doesn't say anything about where to put it
so I put it at the root which worked. I guess it's obvious but...well.
Stage 3
i) I called my file 'ami' as well but didn't know how to save it so I made 2.
The first I called 'ami' and the second 'ami.txt'. One of them done the job.
ii) I tried 1024x768 first and I got black borders all around.
I'm using an old CRT monitor. So I used 800x600 and it filled my screen.

Hi Jake,

I'm glad I was able to save you the bother of uploading all those files! ;)

I got access to that folder by Googling for the pdf filename, and that link was the first match! :D

The inspectMBR.IMZ is a zipped bootable floppy disk image which I imagine contains a Master Boot Record program at the very least, and maybe partitioning and formatting utilities as well.

I could be wrong about the requirement for a PS/2 mouse, but that's what I have always used with my AmigaOS XL box. If I can get this Knoppix installation running, I'll try it with serial and USB mice as well. :)

And thanks for your additional hints above. :great

Thanks for having a look. I'll be gone for a while now then. I need to eat.
I notice as knoppix boots it detects USB/PS2 mouse.
I guess I need a straight PS2 mouse. I hope you can check it if you have one.
I noticed an email in 'faq.txt'. I won't type it because of bots but isn't that the person behind Amithlon?
I had a bookmark but can't find it which has a tutorial for installing it. I think it's a .co.uk domain.
I've never tried Amithlon.

No problem. It'll probably be at least a couple of days before I can try this.

That might not cure it. I was only guessing, you know, but I'll try it with all three types (Serial, PS/2 & USB).

I think he was one of the guys involved with Amithlon kernel development. There were at least two deveopers working (independently) on the Amithlon kernel.

There is an Amithlon Setup Guide thread here on EAB: :)
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=31613

I'll keep an eye on the thread. Let us know how you get on.
No rush this end either.
One thing I've just remembered. I do have a PS2 keyboard which I did have to use to enter text within Knoppix when copying the files over. I had USB connected at first and that didn't work either.
I can't believe I've only just remembered this.

Hi Jake,

I'll definitely give this a try over the next day or so, and I'll post a full report here.

I have each version of Amiga Forever from 6.0 to the current 2009 Edition, so I should have all files required to get this running. Actually, it was a relief to hear you say that the Knoppix installer requires files from the Amiga Forever CD, because I wouldn't like to think that I had linked to files of dubious legality. ;)

So it looks like a PS/2 mouse could be the solution to your problem with this. :)

I'm still keen to try it. This is the first time I have heard anything about a way of installing Amiga Forever Knoppix to hard disk. I had thought it would only ever be just a quick and dirty boot option added to the CD in order to make it possible to see the Amiga desktop (not a very impressive one I might add) running on your Windows PC without installing anything to hard disk. Maybe that's all it would ever have been without someone having taken the time to provide the Knoppix installer and guide.

It seems like you're the first EAB member to have discovered this development. Thanks for posting the information here. :great I can't believe those files have been sitting there for three years! :shocked

Well I haven't had chance to get a PS/2 mouse yet. I just wanted to post about something else.
On my Linux desktop I just tried a little app. called Unetbootin. They have a Windows build as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetbootin

I made an .iso image of AF2006 and selected it in the menu.
I connected a CF card to the PC with a USB card reader and under 'type'- hard drive or USB I selected USB. Then I selected OK and let it do it's work.

When it had finished I connected the CF card up to my other PC with it's CF to IDE interface.
I fired up and was presented with a boot menu. Not sure if it was Grub, Lilo or something else.
I chose 'af' and now I have the AF Workbench up although yet again no mouse activity.
If this does work with a PS/2 mouse I'm still not sure how I can use the MINIROOT.GZ file which enables read and write. There are options for custom kernel, initrd and bootloader config and I haven't looked at the Windows version yet.
Under the bootmenu it has about 10 options altogether. Mostly Knoppix related but there was another, 'aftxt' I think it was.
I've never understood why is it that Amiga Forever goes to the trouble of making a disc that when booted from brings up Workbench but you can't do much with it.

Hi Jake,

I've had a go at installing Amiga Forever Knoppix on my AmigaOS XL box, but I have run into problems.

The machine has a 38GB EIDE hard disk, and there is already a 9.5GB QNX partition containing the AmigaOS XL installation.

I created a second FAT32 formatted primary partition of 4.7GB with Partition Magic and made it active, copied System files onto it with a Win98 boot floppy and verified that it was booting correctly, then quick formatted it to get rid of the System files once more.

Then I rebooted from the AF2006 CD, selected the knoppix 3 script, and eventually arrived at the Linux DOS prompt.

When I entered mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1/, I got an Unrecognized Filesystem message, and realized it was trying to mount the QNX partition, despite it being hidden. I changed the command syntax to mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 and that was successful.

Thereafter, I changed every instance of hda1 to hda2 in the guide I was following, and eventually ended up with all the files I required from the CD, including the KNOPPIX file, copied to my hard drive.

Earlier, I had prepared a floppy disk containing the MINIROOT.GZ, loadlin.exe, ami and edit.com files from my WinXP machine, but was unable to figure out how to mount or read the floppy disk.

Realizing I needed help at this stage, I decided to copy the CD's miniroot.gz file to the hard drive for the moment and shut down and restart the machine from the hard disk without a boot configuration defined.

All I get now is an Invalid System Disk message displayed, so now I have some questions for you. :nervous

The guide doesn't say what type of filesystem to create when formatting the hard drive and, although it advises to copy the Win98 System files to the hard drive in order to check that it actually boots, it doesn't advise removing them afterwards, but surely this is necessary?

I was hoping to install Amiga Forever Knoppix on the same hard drive as my AmigaOS XL installation, but I suppose the Invalid System Disk message is confirmation that Linux does not support booting from a FAT32 partition? It will be difficult to make a FAT16 partition bootable on the same hard disk without removing AmigaOS XL, so I will start tomorrow with a single partition on another hard drive.

When I know what boot configuration works with the installation, I shall burn all the files to a CD-R, but until then I will use a floppy disk for experimentation.

Could you please confirm for me that Knoppix requires a FAT16 boot partition and that any Windows/DOS System files should first be removed?

Also, can you tell me the Linux DOS syntax for mounting both a floppy disk and CD (when it's not the boot device) for copying files from them to my hard drive, please?

I'm sure that information will enable me to get this working at the next attempt and I should then be able to write the definitive Amiga Forever Knoppix Installation Guide for Absolute Beginners and confirm which type of mouse is most suitable. :D

mtools gets used with floppys. have a look here: http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/knoppix/doc...sh/mtools.html :)

Edit:
- mounting cdrom, try this:
mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
if this failes try:
mount /dev/scd0 /mnt/cdrom

- partition: i guess its a good idea to play with a spare hdd just in case something went wrong. i'm more or less sure, a fat partition wont work. so you have to create an ext2 / ext3 partition for the linux installation. most common is also a swap partition (good size for swap is the amount of ram you have in your computer).
booting from knoppix live cd, will give you some tools. have a look here: http://techblog.johnner.com/2005/10/...h-knoppix.html for a start. - or xfdisk, JakeTucker mentioned above.

Thanks for those hints and tips, hit, and the links! :great

Partition Magic can create ext2/3 and swap partitions. That and the command line syntax suggestions will give me plenty to try out tomorrow, even if Jake doesn't get round to replying. :)

Will have a look at those links now...

Thanks again, mate! :spin

your welcome :)

Hi Jake,

I finally got Amiga Forever Knoppix installed and working from the hard drive of my Pentium III 1GHz machine today! :)

I started with a clean hard disk and created a maximum size (~2GB) active FAT16 partition on it using Partition Magic, restarted the machine from a Win98SE boot disk and formatted the partition using the command format c: /s to copy the System files and make the disk bootable.

Having then verified that the machine could actually be booted from the hard drive, I left the System files intact.

I realized that the MS-DOS System files were required when I discovered that the loadlin.exe program was an MS-DOS executable file by looking at it with a binary file editor (the first two bytes are the ASCII characters 'MZ', which gives it away ;)).

So, I rebooted the machine from the Amiga Forever 2006 CD and followed the installation guide until all the required files from the CD had been copied to the hard drive, and then shut down Knoppix, removed the CD and booted MS-DOS from the hard drive.

I then copied the downloaded MINIROOT.GZ and loadlin.exe, together with edit.com and a modified version of the ami file from the floppy disk I had prepared last night and entered the command loadlin @ami.

The Knoppix environment booted up, the Amiga Forever splash screen was displayed with a mouse cursor in the shape of an X (I had modified the ami file to display it) and, after a short delay (nothing like 45 seconds on my machine!), this was followed by the Amiga desktop with the mouse fully working! :)

I have not discovered yet how to shut down the machine from the Amiga desktop, so I just pull the plug on it each time.

It works with a PS/2 or serial mouse, but not with a USB mouse.

I have created a batch file with the loadlin @ami command, but I have called it load.bat instead of autoexec.bat to avoid it running automatically. It will be easier to import files into MS-DOS than Knoppix until I get more familiar with the Linux DOS command syntax.

Incidentally, I didn't have any problem with filename case sensitivity with the Win98 System (MS-DOS 7.1) - MS-DOS shows them all uppercase and Knoppix shows then all lowercase!

I have noticed that when Knoppix is loading it reports that a PS/2 mouse port has been detected. I guess it might be possible to get it working with a USB mouse by disabling the PS/2 mouse port in the BIOS, but I haven't tested this.

If you can get hold of a PS/2 (or serial) mouse, you'll have this running properly on your machine too! :)

Edit: By the way, inspectMBR.IMZ is a red herring. I wrote the image it contains to a floppy disk with RAWRITE2.EXE, and found it contains only various utilities for Windows 3.11 and is not bootable. Strictly speaking, faq.txt has no relevance to Amiga Forever Knoppix either. ;)

I have discovered from where the Amiga Forever Knoppix files and guide originated. :)

The story is chronicled in this thread on Amigaworld.net:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/...634&forum=8&36

The author's user name is BiL0, and he is from London.

In his first post in that thread, he presents a draft version of the guide, a lot of which went missing from the final version:

If I had seen that thread before making my first attempt to install AF Knoppix to hard disk, then I would have succeeded straightaway. :rolleyes

PS. I can't check whether disabling the PS/2 mouse port in the BIOS will allow a USB mouse to be used with AF Knoppix, because my PIII 1GHz machine does not have that option. :sad

Nice work Prowler.
Sorry I didn't reply sooner to have a look at your questions.
When I get a PS/2 mouse I'll post about my experience.

Did you look at Unetbootin? Like I say I managed to get it to Workbench just like what we're trying to do here. There's a Windows .exe for it as well.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetbootin

I wish Cloanto would post this guide they've threatened us with for ages as it would be different now they use a stripped down Knoppix.
Any ideas about how to do that yourself?
It's actually the reason why I haven't ordered AF2009 yet.
The methods they descibe are confusing as all they seem to do is install to hard drive but you still need to boot from the disc and they don't make the hard drive writeable either.
Incidentally does the guide writer's modified MINIROOT.GZ make the hard drive writeable like it claims?

I tried emailing an address in that faq.txt file (bombcrater) but it was returned straight away.