Bug#416113: installation-guide-i386: debootstrap pitfalls; install-grub+FC4 disk labels

[supaplex <debian@foss.daxal.com>]

Package: installation-guide-i386
Severity: important

grub-install chokes in /etc/mtab if there is a disk label.
After some research, something suggested I cp /proc/mounts /etc/mtab.
I think this is where the problem was introduced first for me.  There
was an existing FC4 install with /boot on /dev/sda1 root on /dev/sda3
and swap on /dev/sda2.  I stole the swap for debian, because it was 2G,
and has just enough to work with durring the transition.

www:~# grub-install /dev/sda
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.

www:~# grep LABEL /etc/mtab
LABEL=debian / ext3 rw 0 0


www:~# grub-install /dev/sda
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

(fd0)   /dev/fd0
(hd0)   /dev/sda

www:~# grep " / " /etc/mtab
/dev/sda2 / ext3 rw 0 0

Maybe stat(2) might be helpful for that instead?

Thanks.

Scott Edwards