Fw: Bug#985463: debian-installer: kernel complains about /boot partition in LVM install (ext2 filesystem being mounted at /boot supports timestamps until 2038)
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Begin forwarded message:
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 09:23:53 -0600
From: Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com>
To: Laurent Bonnaud <L.Bonnaud@laposte.net>
Subject: Re: Bug#985463: debian-installer: kernel complains about /boot
partition in LVM install (ext2 filesystem being mounted at /boot
supports timestamps until 2038)
On Fri, 19 Mar 2021 15:43:14 +0100
Laurent Bonnaud <L.Bonnaud@laposte.net> wrote:
> On 3/18/21 9:08 PM, Charles Curley wrote:
>
> > How much memory does the computer have?
>
> It is a VM with 1GB of RAM.
OK, then my hypothesis is probably wrong.
>
> > On my FIT-PCs, using the same
> > installer (but with firmware), I see that debian installer (d-i)
> > goes to ext2 rather than ext4. They have 228Mi of physical memory.
> > On my IBM R51, with 1.2Gi of physical memory, I do not see this; I
> > get ext4.
>
> It is strange that the choice of FS depends on the amount of RAM.
I believe it depends on the amount of RAM at installation time. If I
set up my partitions manually, on the 1.2Gi R51 I see ext4 as an option
for formatting. I do not see it on the FIT-PCs (228Mi).
However, if you have 1GB of RAM, your problem is likely something else.
> Did you use LVM on both systems?
Usually, yes. At the moment, I do not have LVM on the R51.
>
> > [...] and I don't know how to check the size of my inodes.
>
> You can see it with tune2fs, for instance:
>
> # tune2fs -l /dev/sda1
> [...]
> Inode size: 256
Thanks. Both machines show 256 byte inodes. In the case of the FIT-PC,
after running the tune2fs below.
>
> > But my work-around is to upgrade from ext2 to ext4, like so:
> >
> > tune2fs -O
> > extent,huge_file,flex_bg,dir_nlink,extra_isize,has_journal\
> > ${dev}
>
> I think that changing inode sizes can only be done by recreating the
> FS.
>
> > N.b.: Apparently on an upgrade like this, we can't do metadata_csum
> > or 64bit.
>
> 32->64 bits can be done, but that's another story...
>
> > I don't know if it will solve your problem, but you are welcome to
> > try
>
> Thanks, but what I usually do is to get rid of the /boot partition.
> However that leaves a small unused disk space at the beginning of the
> disk.
>
Ah. I tried at installation time not creating a separate boot partition
and instead putting /boot inside the / LVM partition. Grub seems to
handle it. Doing so should save you that small unused disk space.
Many early BIOSes have limitations such that the boot code must be
within the first X cylinders. I conjecture that as long as Grub is
entirely within the first X cylinders, it can handle any disk size you
are likely to use with a machine that old as long as the boot files are
in an LVM partition. However, if you are running a virtual machine, I
doubt you are hitting that limitation.
--
Does anybody read signatures any more?
https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/
--
Does anybody read signatures any more?
https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/
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