Re: Debian Installation on Ultra 30 (was Re: Updated Debian Ports installation images 2021-09-23)
Hi Hermann,
On 9/27/21 1:56 AM, Hermann.Lauer@uni-heidelberg.de wrote:
> 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.
Having the above partitioning scheme seems to work ok with GRUB; the
reason I asked about the "Whole disk" partition is that some
partitioning tools (specifically fdisk, as I recall), refuse to create
additional partitions once "Whole disk" has claimed all of the sectors.
In addition, there is an oddity (I think with parted, but I don't recall
now) where the "Whole disk" partition needed to exist, otherwise the
partitioner only recognized 1 GB. Perhaps this is related to parted
complaining during installation that the number of cylinders on the disk
exceeded the maximum of 65536 cylinders? Maybe parted is reading the
disk geometry from the third partition on the disk regardless of what's
there?
So I ended up using this partitioning scheme; note that parted complains
(but fdisk does not):
# parted /dev/sda
GNU Parted 3.4
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Warning: The disk CHS geometry (562253,255,2) reported by the operating
system does not match the geometry stored on the disk label
(17849,255,63).
Ignore/Cancel? C
Model: SEAGATE ST3146807LC (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 147GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:
(parted) quit
# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 17849 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 1048575 1048576 512M 1 Boot
/dev/sda2 1060290 17837505 16777216 8G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda3 17848215 34625430 16777216 8G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda4 34636140 68190571 33554432 16G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda5 68195925 70293076 2097152 1G 82 Linux swap u
/dev/sda6 70300440 286744184 216443745 103.2G 83 Linux native
>
>> -> 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.
My experience is mostly with m68k and powerpc Macs, so please excuse my
lack of Sun Sparc knowledge. I recall from many years ago that there is
a "bootblk" on Sparc systems. I learned this after finally reading the
manual when a full restore of Solaris on a new disk failed to boot
because the bootblk was missing.
It appears that SILO and GRUB do something similar -- they appear to be
installed in the 1024-byte "boot block" of an ext2 filesystem; for more
information, see this link for ext2 filesystem structure:
http://www.science.smith.edu/~nhowe/teaching/csc262/oldlabs/ext2.html
At appears that at least SILO wants the "Boot" partition to be ext2.
These are the only files that I have in my "Boot" partition:
# ls -l
total 172
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Oct 22 2020 boot -> .
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Oct 22 2020 etc -> .
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1024 Aug 19 2012 fd.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Aug 19 2012 first.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1024 Aug 19 2012 generic.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 692 Aug 19 2012 ieee32.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7040 Aug 19 2012 isofs.b
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Sep 26 16:26 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7680 Oct 22 2020 old.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 53248 Oct 24 2020 second.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 525 Sep 26 16:36 silo.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 473 Oct 24 2020 silo.conf.save
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 50994 Aug 19 2012 silotftp.b
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Aug 19 2012 ultra.b
The Boot partition does NOT have to be mounted as /boot, though it can
be. Here's my silo.conf file:
# cat /mnt/boot/silo.conf
default=Debian_sid
read-only
timeout=100
image=/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-sparc64
partition=2
root=/dev/sda2
label=Debian_7
initrd=/boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-4-sparc64
image=/boot/vmlinuz
partition=3
root=/dev/sda3
label=Debian_sid
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
image=/boot/vmlinuz
partition=4
root=/dev/sda4
label=Gentoo
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
image=/boot/vmlinuz
partition=1
root=/dev/sdb1
label=Backup
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
The advantage to not mounting the Boot partition as /boot is that any
given OS will boot using SILO as long as I create the appropriate
symbolic links for /boot/vmlinuz and /boot/initrd (or I can hardcode the
names as I did above for Debian 7). And according to the silo man page,
silo.conf can be changed at any time using a regular text editor, and
SILO doesn't need to be re-installed after changes. If typos cause the
system to fail to boot, just use rescue mode on any installation CD to
fix silo.conf. I keep Debian 7 so I can re-install the SILO boot block
if necessary (for example on a new disk).
-Stan
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