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Linux gotcha

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 8:48 pm
by DrTeeth
I am by no means a Linux maven by any means, but I have come across an
issue that could spell problems for us multi-booters.

I have come across what I am about to mention in two distros so far,
one a minority distro (Manjaro) the other Fedora.

It involves installing grub 2 in the / or boot partition on an ext4
file system. In the former distro it would just not install - it gave
an error message and Fedora does NOT have the option - it is the MBR
or nothing.

The issue is to do with the size of grub 2 and the space available at
the beginning of the ext4 file system being too small.

For more info see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=872826
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 11:15 pm
by TeraByte Support
they only needs one sector, the rest can be anywhere else.

"DrTeeth" wrote in message news:4369@public.tech.misc...

I am by no means a Linux maven by any means, but I have come across an
issue that could spell problems for us multi-booters.

I have come across what I am about to mention in two distros so far,
one a minority distro (Manjaro) the other Fedora.

It involves installing grub 2 in the / or boot partition on an ext4
file system. In the former distro it would just not install - it gave
an error message and Fedora does NOT have the option - it is the MBR
or nothing.

The issue is to do with the size of grub 2 and the space available at
the beginning of the ext4 file system being too small.

For more info see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=872826
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).


Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 8:32 pm
by DrTeeth
On Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:15:22 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
"TeraByte Support" disturbed my
reverie and wrote:

>they only needs one sector, the rest can be anywhere else.

From the link I posted "The problem is ext4's boot sector is only 512
bytes, which is not enough space. The use of --force fragments GRUB,
and installs the pieces into free space without informing the file
system. At any future time the file system can step on any one of
those block lists and render the system unbootable".

There seem to be issues with installing GRUB2 with the --force
parameter, which are beyond my understanding.
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 9:30 pm
by George
On 1/16/2013 1:48 PM, DrTeeth wrote:
> I am by no means a Linux maven by any means, but I have come across an
> issue that could spell problems for us multi-booters.
>
> I have come across what I am about to mention in two distros so far,
> one a minority distro (Manjaro) the other Fedora.
>
> It involves installing grub 2 in the / or boot partition on an ext4
> file system. In the former distro it would just not install - it gave
> an error message and Fedora does NOT have the option - it is the MBR
> or nothing.
>
> The issue is to do with the size of grub 2 and the space available at
> the beginning of the ext4 file system being too small.
>
> For more info see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=872826
> --
>
> Cheers
>
> DrT
> ______________________________
> We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
> our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
> to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
>
>

I install each bootloader to its own / partition. Using the Ubuntu
installer, I select manual partitions and watch carefully for the
bootloader selection. I then tell the installer to install the
bootloader to the installation partition / volume. Then, you can use
BIBM to boot the desired image.
Read the TB knowledgebase notes regarding your Linux system you'll be
installing (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=279 for
Ubuntu). If they're a bit obfuscating, read over similar notes. Then
ask questions to the forum. The first time I installed Linux, I must
have tried four to six times before I succeeded. Now, I can load it on
the first attempt.
Best,
George
---
There are 10 kinds of people in the world.
Those who understand binary and
Those who don't.

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:26 pm
by DrTeeth
On Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:30:03 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
George disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>Now, I can load it on
>the first attempt.

I have no problems installing Linux itself. I have about 15 distros
installed over 3 PCs.

Try and install Manjaro or Fedora. The first gives an error and the
second does not give the option.
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:22 am
by ohaya
Hi,

I guess that I don't understand your problem.

On my newish Toshiba laptop, I am multi-booting:

Fedora 17 (64bit)
Windows 7 (64bit)
Windows 8 (64bit)

I think, like George mentioned, when I did the Fedora 17 installation, I told it to install the bootloader into /.

I'm using BING still, but for Fedora 17, I have only 1 partition.. I don't have a separate Linux Swap partition, but during the installation I create:

swap: 2 GB
/ : 8 GB (ext4)

and then, I use BING as my bootmanager, i.e., in BING Boot Editor, I have 3 items, one for Fedora 17, one for Windows 7, and one for Windows 8.

Jim

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 5:33 pm
by DrTeeth
On Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:22:03 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
ohaya disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>I guess that I don't understand your problem.

Manjaro gives the option of installing to / or /boot, but throws an
error. Fedora 18 does NOT give that option. It is MBR or nothing. It
is all explained in the link in my OP.
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:34 am
by ohaya
Hi,

Ahh. I see. Thanks!

Jim

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:34 pm
by Somebeachsomewhere
So what is the Terabyte Unlimited solution to this? I just tried to install Fedora 18 x64 with no option to install to a partition as was stated. Do we install it to the mbr, then force it to the / partition hoping it will not be overwritten by a future Fedora update, then restore the EMBR? Incidentally, I always do backups with IFW using the IFW rotate script, so I still have a working copy of Fedora 17 that allowed me to choose a partition not the mbr should things go wrong.

Re: Linux gotcha

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:43 pm
by DrTeeth
On Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:34:05 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
Somebeachsomewhere disturbed my reverie and wrote:

The approved way to do it so not to install to MBR. Whilst DVD is in
PC one does "sbin/grub-install /dev/hda --force" from a command prompt
and that forces the install to a partition - working from memory -
check the command before using.
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).