Re: Boot partitions
Hi Daren,
I had similar problems when trying to make a SPARCstation 4 to work with a
4GB disk. The problem here is really the 1GB limit imposed by some Sun
PROMs. I have a hunch that what SILO (the Linux loader for SPARC) couldn't
read (and was complaining loudly about) was the silo.conf configuration
file (yes, unlike LILO's lilo.conf, silo.conf is read at boottime and not
at SILO instalation time).
What I did was to make sure I had by /boot partition below 1GB and then
put the primary and secondary stage SILO loaders (first.b and second.b)
all kernels, (and other OS boot sectors which I wanted to boot with SILO
(I have Solaris 2.5 and 7 here too, for those who care)) AND silo.conf
inside /boot. Then I symlinked /etc/silo.conf to /boot/silo.conf (so that
I can reflexively type "vi /etc/silo.conf" :-) and also so that I wouldn't
need to specify it's location in the SILO command line (the one to
install SILO on the boot sector, inside linux)), and then I reinstalled
SILO (typing "silo" on the linux command line). From this point on, I
could add new kernels and new OSs by just copying the kernels or boot
sectors to /boot and modifiyng /etc/silo.conf (which we all know by now
that it really is /boot/silo.conf). No need to re-run "silo" because it
reads the conf file at boot time, everytime :-) (I'm really sounding like
an infomercial guy by now...)
Anyway, it can all be summed up in one sentence: "keep everything boot
related below 1GB"
[]'s Leo
On Wed, 31 May 2000, Darren Garside wrote:
> I have a newbie question that I cannot see the answer to in the archives.
>
> I am a Primary School teacher whose school has inherited a SPARC IPX
> running SunOS 4.1.3U. I am new to SPARC's but not to Linux. I've
> installed the base package of SLINK 2.1 (kernel 2.0.35) in a '/boot'
> partition '/sda1' (28MB). I previously used to fire up the Sun with
> the following from the new prompt:
>
> boot /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@3,0
>
> which I believe used to fire up vmunix on /sdb partion 3.
>
> If I now boot using the above the machine fails. The following works
> after a fashion:
> boot /sbus/esp/sd@0,0
> the prom tries three times to find the kernel then shouts loudly that
> it cannot get past the 1GB limit (sorry working from memory). I am
> then faced with a linux prompt from which if I type
> 1/vmlinuz-2.0.35 I can then get the system to boot.
>
> My question: what do I need to change the 'boot-disk' PROM setting to
> in order to enable autmagic booting without all this command line
> stuff? Setting 'boot-disk' using 'setenv /sbus/esp/sd@0,0;
> 1/vmlinuz-2.0.35' has not worked.
>
> Help sorely needed and thankfully appreciated.
>
> Darren Garside
>
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