Re: Debian Installation on Ultra 30 (was Re: Updated Debian Ports installation images 2021-09-23)

[Hermann.Lauer@uni-heidelberg.de]

Hi Stan,

On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 11:34:59PM -0600, Stan Johnson wrote:
> Not knowing what the preferred size should be for a GRUB /boot
> partition, I decided to let Guided Partioning use its defaults for
> /dev/sda. As I recall, the partitioner warned that the number of
> cylinders on the disk exceeded the maximum of 65536, but the creation of
> filesystems and the rest of the installation proceeded anyway, without
> any other noticeable errors.
> 
> The layout for /dev/sda is as follows:
> 
> # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
> Disk model: ST3146807LC
> Geometry: 255 heads, 2 sectors/track, 37965 cylinders
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> Disklabel type: sun
> 
> Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type         Flags
> /dev/sda1          0   1000109   1000110 488.3M  1 Boot
> /dev/sda2    1000110 284748299 283748190 135.3G 83 Linux native
> /dev/sda3          0 286749029 286749030 136.7G  5 Whole disk
> /dev/sda4  284748300 286749029   2000730 976.9M 82 Linux swap

this is a sun disk partitioning scheme - not shure, if this is well supported
with grub.

> -> Question 1: If I don't plan to install Solaris, is it safe to remove
> the "Whole disk" partition (/dev/sda3)?

AFAIR sun disklabels allows up to 8 entries - so there is no advantage in
removing the solaris standard whole disk entry.

> -> Question 2: What is the best size for /boot (/dev/sda1)? After
> installation, the /boot partition had only about 57 MB of files.

What's on this partition? Only Grub files or also the kernel stuff?
AFAIR I used around 100-200MB years ago, but this was with SILO.

> 
> Then the GRUB menu is displayed, and I am able to scroll through the
> options using the "v" and "^" keys (but not the up and down arrow keys).
> After selecting the new Debian SID (or allowing it to be selected by
> default), the X login eventually comes up, but it seems to be off the
> screen. If I login anyway, the Xfce desktop comes up, but it seems to be
> larger than the screen. This problem, which is similar to a problem I
> had with Debian 7.8, can probably be fixed with an appropriate xorg.conf
> file.

Congrats, sounds good!

Good luck,
  greetings
   Hermann