[Sussex] Debian install - Still no sound (from cdrw/dvd) + kn oppix hard drive install's

[Steve Dobson]

Hi John

On 22 September 2003 at 15:45 John D. wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 September 2003 2:50 am, Steve Dobson wrote:
<snip>
> Just to keep you up to speed on my now "ex-audio cd/cdrw" problem. Two
days 
> ago, I was really starting to get desperate - this was really driving me
up 
> the wall. 

Problem can be like that.
 
> After a rather late night "on the monitor", I found a reference to knoppix
and 
> I don't remember who, but someone suggested at the last moot, that you can

> load it up and either find suggestions or hints and tips,  or do the hard 
> disc install.

Welcome to the world of the geek.  Late nights and "Jolt" cola :-)
 
> Fortunately, some while ago, David Chapman had given me a copy of the
knoppix 
> 3.1, which I had forgotten about, so I booted into it, and was absolutely 
> amazed by it. It gave me ideas as well as the hint/tip that I needed. I 
> noticed that the first thing it did, was to detect that the drive it was
in 
> was a cdrw, which it promptly named /dev/scd1, which I presumed meant that
I 
> must have to have the scsi emulation for debian to deal with my cdrw.

Some of the "features" of a device are done by emulating SCSI.  This is also

true of the USB devices.  The information for this is there in the source
and
sometimes in the docs that come with the kernel.
 
> So after a quick visit to linuxquestions.org the answer came from about
12000 
> miles away, from a chap in Sydney.

Nice guys down there.
 
> His advice was this -
> 
> "Type modprobe ide-scsi. I'm not sure if it will work straightaway (but I 
> think it will), or if you have to load this a boot time. Regardless of the

> outcome of the above command, add the line ide-scsi to your /etc/modules 
> file. Should work on every boot from now on. Mind you, the append line
still 
> has to be present in lilo.conf."
> 
> And I'll be blowed if it didn't start playing "the Smith's track called
Panic"
> 
> One thing that I still don't understand is that from the "lsmod" output
below, 
> I worked out that I would have to call "it" /dev/sr1,
> 
> ide-scsi                7360   1
> scsi_mod               84952   2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
> 
> but why, as knoppix had seen the device as /dev/scd1, and my mandrake
see's it 
> as /dev/scd0 - I also noticed during my digging, that sometimes you may
also 
> have to call a cdrw /dev/sg0 or 1, hence why the different device
identifiers??

Hysterical reasons
 
> Also, when trying knoppix I found, that apparently, if I installed it on
my 
> hard drive, "it just becomes a normal debian install" - Is this correct ?

Yes.  The guy behind knoppix is either a fully fledged DD or very active on
the
Debian MLs, and knoppix is built upon Debian.
 
> And If so, does anyone know if it "looses" any of the setting's or 
> configuration that it sets up ?

That would depend on how you do the upgrade.  When updating a config file
you can
either stick with what you've got or use the developer's new version.  What
needs
to be done depends on the config file in question -  there is no easy answer
here.
 
> I ask this, because having tried the 3.1 that Dave C gave me, I have also 
> downloaded the 3.2, which seems equally as impressive, it also makes my 
> manual configuration of the "visual's" of my sarge, look decidedly drab,
with 
> what seems to be better and infinitely more knowledgable package
selection.

More than likly, but then half the fun of hacking is learning new stuff and
seeing
what others do.