Simple steps to support for /boot in a seperate partition with default install
Hi guys,
I've been using debian since late 1998, and am very happy with it. Thanks.
Now, over that time, I've come accross some things that I end up changing to
support more configurations and fit my needs.
One of those is to boot from the mymlink /boot/vmlinuz or /boot/vmlinuz.old
(created by the default kernel build system, and optionally kernel-package).
Why you may ask. Simple. Under some circumstances, I've needed to make
/boot a seperate partition. On one server I was using a software raid5
setup for the root partition, so, I setup /boot on a raid1 too boot from.
And why not just make a small root partition and mount /home or /var on the
larger drive/partition? Because in most of my server setups, I have ended
up needing shuffle files because one partition was too small, and the
servers always have feature/usage creep. They always end up doing something
more and different in new ways that weren't even thought of when it was
first setup. And if that's not enough reason, this just makes the setup
move versatile with little effort.
Ok, I want to see what you guys think of this, and what objections you might
have with it.
(sorry, this is from a pure x86 standpoint. I used oldworld ppc macs on
debian linux for a while, but quik never was really easy to setup and keep working)
Both grub and lilo support booting from raid1, so it is compatible.
Step 1a: Compare the dates of /vmlinuz and /boot/vmlinuz, move the newest to
/boot, and remove the other.
Step 1b: symlink /vmlinuz -> /boot/vmlinuz
This way, existing setups that use /vmlinuz will be supported.
step 2: automatically boot from /boot/vmlinuz in default install
This involves changing each boot loader, and (is this in the policy
somewhere?) possibly the packaging policy. And as a side affect, "make
install" from the kernel build system (the un-debianized way) will work
without any boot loader configuration changes.
step 3: change the default for kernel-package to use /boot/vmlinuz instead
off /vmlinuz
This way kernel-package is compatible with the standard linux kernel build
process file locations. (as /boot/vmlinuz origionally came from the kernel
build system)
If there are not any problems with the various arch specific boot loaders
and symlinks (I remember quik had some quirks when it came to symlinks),
then we can remove steps 2 and 3, but I put them in here to be thurough, as
well as compatible.
I am in the process of writing a patch for update-grub to add two entries
for /boot/vmlinuz and /boot/vmlinuz.old (is update-grub debian specific or
is it part of grub upstream?). I'll be submitting a bug soon, but it will
only be looking in /boot, and that's why I'm writing this message.
I could tell it to just use /vmlinuz and /vmlinuz.old, but I'd rather
contribute and help move the community forward (also new installs will
become easier for me). :-D
OK, what do you guys think?
Thanks,
Mike
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