Re: USB Debian 11 installer and target drive device node [was fstab problem]
On Mon 09 May 2022 at 11:30:39 (-0700), David Christensen wrote:
> On 5/9/22 10:21, David Wright wrote:
> > On Sun 08 May 2022 at 23:39:31 (-0700), David Christensen wrote:
>
> >> As noted by another reader in another thread, the Debian 11 installer
> >> appears to always assign /dev/sda to d-i USB installation media; in
> >> spite of decades of standard practice of using the first drive node
> >> for the target drive. Thus, the target drive may have been /dev/sdb
> >> at installation time, resulting in "sdb" in crypttab(5) and/or
> >> fstab(5) entries rather than the conventional "sda".
>
> > This is news to me, and I'm not sure why you blame the d-i's going
> > against decades of precedent. Yes, it can happen, and I guess it might
> > be the result of the way the buses are configured inside the machine.
> > Gone are the simple days of PATAs on hda.
> >
> > Anyway, here are six machines: three are laptops, three EFIs, one AiO,
> > one i386, all GPT, all netinst, variously 11.1–3 with firmware. All
> > except the last have the installer on sdb, and the reason there is
> > obvious.
I'll factorize the six cases. But for the last, they were listed in
date order, and I won't requote them in full.
Jan 1 bullseye 11.1 amd64 GPT EFI rust laptop
Jan 25 bullseye 11.2 amd64 GPT BIOS rust tower
Feb 1 bullseye 11.2 amd64 GPT BIOS rust minitower
Apr 17 bullseye 11.3 amd64 GPT EFI rust AiO
Apr 21 bullseye 11.2 i386 GPT BIOS rust laptop
Dec 13 bullseye 11.1 amd64 GPT EFI SSD laptop
> > The sole occasion where the devices have been named the "wrong" way
> > round is when I installed Debian on an EFI laptop onto a virgin
> > external hard drive. If memory serves, the d-i was connected through
> > a hub to the USB-C port, the drive was on the single USB3 port.
> > I think.
[ … snipped the listings … ]
> I am unsure what is obvious about the last three. Please clarify.
No, just the last /one/. The USB stick gets names sda because
there's no competition from the SSD, which is nvme0n1.
> Did you install from a USB flash drive or from optical media? If
> optical, was the drive internal or external, and what was the
> interface?
They're all booted off the same USB stick:
2006528 512-byte logical blocks: (1.03 GB/980 MiB)
which is an eight-year-old freebee courtesy of ALS Empirica
at a Houston conference. If you're wondering why it sprouted
an extra partition for Apr 21, look no further than:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2022/04/msg00655.html
I wanted to confirm that a 2003-vintage laptop would BIOS boot
from a GPT disk. I now have no MBR hard-drives in the house.
But to kill two birds with one stone, I was confirming that
creating an extra partition on a d-i stick is as simple as
running fdisk and creating one in the usual way:
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 979.75 MiB, 1027342336 bytes, 2006528 sectors
Disk model: Card Reader
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: dos
Disk identifier: 0x5ec18678
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 0 1155071 1155072 564M 0 Empty
/dev/sdb2 4316 8283 3968 1.9M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sdb3 1163264 2002943 839680 410M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-label/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 14:44 'Debian\x2011.2.0\x20i386\x20n' -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 14:44 I386-11.2 -> ../../sdb3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 08:40 cryptswap -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 08:40 swap -> ../../dm-0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 08:40 toto04 -> ../../sda4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 08:40 toto05 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 9 08:40 toto06 -> ../../dm-1
$
The d-i runs as per usual. Whether the extra partition is usable
for, say, firmware, I haven't tested.
(ISTR creating an extra partition being discussed a while back.)
Cheers,
David.
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