Re: Loadlin and Squeeze kernel 2.6.32
On Mon 16 Jul 2012 at 17:09:54 +0100, Dom wrote:
> On 16/07/12 15:41, Camaleón wrote:
> >
> >I'm not sure to had get it (sorry, I must be a bit dense...). Can you
> >provide a user case for someone using block lists and another case when
> >they're not in use?
> >
>
> As I understand it, when GRUB is installed in the MBR it installs a
> bit more code in the "spare" space between the MBR and the first
> partition. This includes code that recognises various file system
> formats (read only), so it can work out where "/boot/vmlinux-xxx"
> is.
>
> When installed on a partition boot sector it doesn't have that spare
> space, so needs to have the location of the kernel/initrd hard-coded
> in to it as a list of physical disk blocks.
>
> If, for any reason the files moved (say you resize the partition
> containing /boot, or backup/delete/restore /boot), then that block
> list won't match the actual location of the files *unless* you run
> update-grub.
>
> In practice this won't happen very often, if at all.
It only has to done once for you to be presented with the delightful
GRUB rescue prompt. You might even think the warning about installing
GRUB to a partition being unreliable was not so out of place after all.
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