Re: Possible bug in d-i handling of swap partition
On Monday 28 Nov 2016 07:23:06 Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 11/28/2016 6:31 AM, ChrisBell@gigl wrote:
> > On Monday 28 Nov 2016 04:40:32 Richard Owlett wrote:
> >> I have two use cases which demonstrate the problem.
> >>
> >> First Environment:
> >> I have a laptop exclusively dedicated to being a test platform of
> >> various Debian configurations [Jessie 8.6.0 currently]. I have
> >> limited connectivity, therefore all installs are done from a
> >> purchased set of DVDs. At any time there may exist up to 4
> >> installs available, each in its own partition. As only one
> >> install is active at any time, a single swap partition should be
> >> adequate.
> >>
> >> *HOWEVER* each install "touches" the swap partition changing its
> >> UUID.
> >> This causes a problem with using the chronologically earlier in
> >> stall. Systemd looks for a swap partition with a specific UUID.
> >> The triggered diagnostic takes ~2 minutes while I'm
> >> w-a-i-t--n---g for the system to boot. I've NOT investigated
> >> whether or not the system actually finds and uses the intended
> >> swap partition or not. For THAT PARTICULAR LAPTOP I doubt there
> >> are any consequences as for my particular use I doubt any use of
> >> swap occurs. I suspect a workaround might be editing /etc/fstab
> >> all previous installs when a new install is done.
> >>
> >> Second Environment:
> >> On a second machine [the laptop being out of service due to
> >> hardware problems] I attempted to install Debian to a USB flash
> >> drive for demonstrating Debian to friends on their machines and
> >> testing used machines before purchasing.
> >>
> >> The was no problem until the partitioning phase. It allowed me to
> >> create a ext2 partition on the flash drive for use a / . It
> >> allowed me to create a second partition and to designate it as a
> >> swap partition.
> >>
> >> *HOWEVER* the confirmation screen about writing changes to disk
> >> essentially said it was going to *TRASH* the existing install of
> >> Debian on the machines hard-drive by formatting the hard disk's
> >> swap partition [i.e. changing its UUID].
> >>
> >> I see no conceivable reason to mess with a perfectly fine install
> >> when installing to an unrelated device.
> >>
> >> Thank you
> >
> > I often have more than one installation and each new installation includes
> > an unchanged /srv partition and lists each previous installation as
> > another available partition unchanged but under an amended name, so
> > instead of / it may be /wheezyroot. I can then edit the previous
> > /etc/fstab to match the new uuids and make all bootable. I also find the
> > shared /srv partition useful. Chris Bell
>
> I don't follow your description. Likely I'm missing something
> "obvious" ;/
> I believe you are addressing "First Environment:".
> My disk is organized as:
> /dev/sda1 A fairly stable (for me) Debian install
> /dev/sda2 swap - partition choice a historical accident but
> no reason to change
> Remaining Debian installs are in logical partitions >= /dev/sda5 .
>
> I follow the defaults as to putting / et al in a single physical
> partition.
>
> Thank you for responding.
Each installation has its own / partition, regardless of whether it is a
physical, logical, RAID, etc. I use "expert" installation with "manual"
formatting. If you leave one or more unused spaces for later installations you
can still initially name and format each one as a place saver, perhaps
/spare1, it will be re-formatted when you decide to use it, but if the new
installation lists previous installations unaltered, unformatted, with a
partition name like /old1 you will be able to edit /old1/etc/fstab to show the
details shown in the latest /etc/fstab and each of the original place-saver
names will be able to access later installations. For example I had a demo box
with multiple installations, each with a different desktop version, so each
place-saver was shown with the desktop name.
--
Chris Bell
www.chrisbell.org.uk
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