User:Wulfpack74

My current project:

Requirements:

Boot a laptop off a knoppix CD or any other "live" OS Laptop does not have a harddrive. I want to have a wireless network card which will be connected to my home network Once the laptop boots I want it to automatically run a script which is on my home network. Laptop must be able to boot with a keyboard and mouse or without a keyboard and mouse. Optional: If laptop boots without a keyboard and mouse I want to be able to plug them in and use them, if I have to reboot to use keyboard and mouse that's acceptable. Optional: Use of USB.

Issues I am investigating and would gladly accept any advice on:

Is it possible to boot Knoppix on a laptop without a HD, but with a CDROM and have access to a wireless card that would then start a script that is located on my network? I just need to find out how to get the script to run and to configure the wireless card.

Is it possible to boot without a mouse/keyboard attached? But it would still need mouse/keyboard support incase I needed to connect them and use them at some point

Also It would need to have USB, which I'm assuming Knoppix has good USB support..

UPDATE: 12-14-2005

The system I am currently working with has the following specs.

Used Dell Inspiron 7500 Laptop 500-666 Mhz processor 192 MB RAM 20G Hard Drive Floppy Drive CDROM 15 inch LCD screen Windows 2000 professional

Knoppix loaded but due to some router issue my home network is down so I was unable to test the wireless function of Knoppix.

UPDATE: 12-15-2005

More hardware specs: Linksys Wireless-B 2.4GHz 802.11b Notebook Adapter (Non tested with Knoppix) Model WPC11 Ver 4

I have posted threads at: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=393259 http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22439

UPDATE: 12-18-2005

I successfully loaded DSL(Damn Small Linux 2.0) and Knoppix 3.3 with GUI on a Toshiba 2540CDS. The below steps are for DSL 2.0 but with a few changes you can get it to work with Knoppix 3.3

expert dsl vga=normal xsetup noicons noswap dma

The "noicons" option is optional but will greatly reduce the memory useage when booted into X GUI. The "noswap" option is optional if you DONT have a swap partition setup or if your HD is blank.

The expert mode will ask you a few yes/no question. 1) About modules: press enter (=Autoscan). 2) About loading additional modules from floppy: type "n" for no and press enter if you have no additional modules you want to load from a floppy. 3) About keyboard type "n" and press enter if the keyboard autoselected for you is correct (for me us was correct). 4) About soundcard: type "Y" and if it prints out "/etc/rcS.d/S00knoppix-autoconfig: line 621: sndconfig: command not found" then you wont have sound. For me this happened. I think I might need to load alsa sound drivers module or something from floppy. 5) About mouse: if you have stub in the middle of you keyboard for a mouse then DSL should have autodetected /dev/mouse -> /dev/psaux. If not then press "y", if yes then "n".  6) About configuring your X11 subsystem press "y". if a error similar to the one for qestion 4 comes up, dont worry about it, if you entered the xsetup option at boot prompt.

Now the X setup will come and I think you should try "xvesa xserver". just answer the question according to your needs until quesiton about choosing your mouse port. for mouse port choose "ps2 port" and next "2 button". For screen resolution choose "640x480" for the safe side unless you know your max resolution, which for me was 800x600 pixels. for the color depth choose 16 for safe (for me max is 24). And finally choosing you own dpi select "No".

With all this you should be able to boot properly.

Thanks to Angadap2000 at http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=8;t=10120