Re: Updated installer images 2021-04-16

["Rick Thomas" <rbthomas@pobox.com>]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021, at 7:16 PM, Rick Thomas wrote:
> I suspect that this difference is what's producing the "error: can't 
> open device" messages on the ppc64, and why they do not appear on the 
> amd64.  If I did a manual partitioning install on the amd64 that 
> mimicked the layout of the ppc64, I suspect I would probably see the 
> same "can't open device" error messages there as well.  (I do plan to 
> try that, and I'll report what I find)

Well... "Curiouser and curiouser!"

I did an expert install on my amd64 VM and accepted defaults up to the partitioning phase.  In the partitioning phase, I chose to do a manual partitioning.  In my manual partitioning I created an ext2 partition on /dev/sda1 with mount point /boot/grub.  The rest of the installation went into an LVM partition with three volumes for root, /home, and swap.  (So /boot is a directory in the root volume.  If grub wants a kernel and initrd, it has to dig around in the LVM to find them)

Unlike the ppc64 installation, the installer did not complain about this setup. (The ppc64 installation complained that there was no partition for /boot to mount on) and happily went ahead with installing a basic (non-gui) system with ssh.  Somewhat surprisingly, when it came time for the reboot, all went smoothly.  There were no "error: can't open device" messages at all, and it proceeded smoothly to a login prompt.

Hope this helps!

Rick