On Tue, May 03, 2005 at 10:10:08AM -0400, Toni L. Harbaugh-Blackford [Contr] wrote:
> I have experimented a bit with the debian installer and also with
> swriteboot, and there is something I don't understand.
> If I disklabel a disk under Tru64, and then run swriteboot
> against the disk under debian, swriteboot preserves Tru64's
> ability to read the label. But the debian installer does not.
> Even if I do not provide an aboot partition *and* tell the installer
> not to install aboot, the installer 'blows away' the beginning
> of the disk, so that Tru64 cannot read the label:
> fchelp{root}# disklabel -r dsk2
> disklabel: read record #0: No such file or directory
> Note that fdisk on debian can still see the label, even when
> Tru64 cannot.
> I am curious: how does the debian installer write aboot to the
> disk? If it uses swriteboot, why does it corrupt the beginning
> of the disk when running swriteboot by-hand does not?
d-i does use swriteboot to install aboot to the disk. That's not the issue.
The issue is the same that it's always been: Tru64 doesn't cope with
disklabels that don't include a full-disk slice, and the debian-installer
can't reasonably create such a slice for us (for various and sundry reasons
that have been discussed on this list before).
--
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature