Hack 9 Explore Expert Mode

Do-it-yourself types may not like all of the automatic configuration and hardware detection that Knoppix does. For people trying to troubleshoot and for the just plain curious, Knoppix provides an expert mode.

The goal of the Knoppix expert mode is to provide the user with complete control over the different steps that Knoppix performs when booting a system. Each step that Knoppix normally performs automatically behind the scenes is presented to the user with a prompt allowing you to configure exactly what Knoppix will do or won't do. This can be particularly useful if you have a system that gets halfway through the boot process, and then mysteriously restarts. With the expert mode, you can see exactly which step in the Knoppix boot process has caused the boot to fail so you can bypass that step next time.

1.10.1 Step Through the Expert Mode

To start into the Knoppix expert mode, simply type this cheat code at the boot: prompt, along with any other cheat codes you might want to use:

expert

A new feature in Knoppix 3.4 is the expert26 cheat code that, like the knoppix26 cheat code, lets you boot with a 2.6 kernel. When booting in expert mode, Knoppix appears to boot normally—you should see a picture of Tux in the corner of the screen and the Linux kernel starting to detect hardware. Once the kernel loads, however, Knoppix begins to ask you questions.

Knoppix starts by listing all of the SCSI modules available on the system followed by the question "Load SCSI Modules?" At the prompt you have the option of typing in the names of any SCSI modules you wish to load, or n for none. If you just hit Enter, Knoppix probes for which SCSI modules to load just like it does by default. After making your choice, you should notice that, in expert mode, Knoppix gives much more output, telling you which particular devices it is probing for and if modules load successfully or not.

Next, Knoppix asks, "Do you want to load additional modules from floppy disk? [Y/N]." This option gives added flexibility to Knoppix in the case that the default Knoppix kernel doesn't have a third-party module that you need for your hardware. After you answer this question, Knoppix enables DMA acceleration for IDE devices, creates the ramdisk, and starts the init process. Knoppix then notifies you that you have entered the interactive configuration's second stage.

The interactive second stage gives you the opportunity to reconfigure many of your hardware settings through a series of questions. The first question is: "Do you want to (re)configure your console keyboard? [Y/N]." If you forgot to set the console keyboard to match your locale, you can now configure it. Following that is an option to configure your sound card. Select "yes" to launch the sndconfig program, which tries to detect your current sound card and loads the appropriate module for it. After you configure the sound card, you can set up your mouse. Select "yes" to start a mouse configuration program that asks you questions, such as how your mouse is connected and which protocol it uses.

After the mouse is configured, Knoppix detects your graphics settings and displays which default X configurations it will use and gives you the option to change them. Select "yes" to launch a full ncurses-based X configuration tool with options to configure your mouse, keyboard, monitor, video card, screen, and layout. This option is great for systems needing some extra tweaking to get X working correctly as you get a finer level of control over options than cheat codes can provide. After X is configured, Knoppix finishes its configuration and launches into the graphical desktop environment.