Scientific Linux install questions
 

Hello folks

I have a few questions. I plan on dual-booting windows 7 and scientific linux 6.2 x64. I have windows 7 installed and I have now made three attempts to install SL, but all installs have failed. The installs go to completion, but I get only a Grub> prompt. Two of the three attempts have been with the installer's recommended partitioning scheme, one has been a custom scheme. Twice, I've gotten only a grub prompt, written to the MBR and I've had to use Windows recovery tools to get Windows to boot again.

Question 1: I've read that SL/Grub2 requires a /boot partition. Is this true? If so, what is the recommended size and do I need to set that partition active? And.. is this where I need to install grub?

Question 2: Drive space is not an issue for me, and I have 4Gb of memory. If I choose to manually partition, what should my partitions look like? My early experiences with Linux were that I'd have to have a /, /boot and a /swap. Is this still the case?

The install is being done on an nvidia RAID 0 array if that matters, so the mount points look like /dev/mapper/nvidia_<blah>. doing an "ls" at the Grub> prompt shows (hd0,0), (hd0,1), etc..

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Tony

This means there was some problem installing the boot loader. One way to deal with this would be to boot from the SL DVD and start anaconda (installer) again. Choose to 'Upgrade the existing installation'. As you proceed, there will be an option to install/re-install bootloader. This will simply install the bootloader again. May be this will fix your issue ...


To my knowledge, SL does NOT use grub2. And NO, neither grub2 nor SL *requires* a separate /boot partition. It is your choice. If you do want to setup a /boot partition, 50 MB would be plenty.

I have had installs with just one / partition - without swap even. So, as I mentioned earlier, partitioning scheme is based on your needs. Having said that, if you are encrypting /, then /boot which is unencrypted is essential.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

I'd look to uncomplicate the situation in not dual-booting to Windoze. Why don't you run your SL6 on a virtual product, like Virtual Box or VMWare? Virtual Box is quite easy to deal with, and it will allow you to run the two simultaneously. Just a thought...

You have raid.
So you will need a separate /boot partition of ~ 500MB (to be on the safe side).

We would actually need a bit more info to really be of help here.

hd0,0 will almost certainly be your Windows partition. The designation "hd0,0" is actually the device mapper designation. The standard name would likely be "hda1" or "sda1", for your Windows partition, depending on how your drives are seen by the system.

As far as the other partitions go, only one is actually required, which would be "/". The installer will probably nag if you do not set up a "swap" partition, so it might be advisable to set one up. Another thing to consider is setting up a separate "home" partition. It is not required, but can come in handy if you decide to upgrade or change flavors of Linux. A separate "/boot" partition is only necessary if you are encrypting your Linux system because the boot partition has to be non-encrypted.

I would set it up as follows. Please keep in mind that these are suggestions. The first partition is already Windows. You can set it up to be mounted, but make sure that you don't format it. I would create partition number 2 as "/". Mine is set at 20GB, but you could get by with much less. I would create partition 3 as "/home" and set the size to be as generous as possible. Finally, I would set partition 4 as "swap" and probably keep it at or under 2GB in size. I have 12GB of RAM on my system and still run out of memory on rare occasions, so a swap is probably a good idea.

If SL does indeed use Grub2, I will not be much help. I still prefer Legacy Grub. For Grub2 support, you might check the Ubuntu forums for good info.
If your grub is Legacy Grub, then you might post the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst as that can tell us more about your setup.

Are you installing grub in the MBR of your boot drive or in the "/" directory? If you are getting a grub prompt, then grub is there. There is just a problem with the path to the kernel(vmlinux) and initrd. Grub can't find the Linux files to boot from.

Here is a copy of my 'menu.lst' file. Maybe you can look at it and adapt the paths to fit what you actually have. If you are running Grub2, I think that
menu.lst' will be of very little help.

default 0
timeout 30
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 12.1 - 3.4.4-32
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.4.4-32-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD3000GLFS-01F8U0_WD-WXL508009274-part2 splash=verbose quiet showopts elevator=cfq vga=0x346
initrd /boot/initrd-3.4.4-32-default

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 12.1 - 3.4.4-32
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.4.4-32-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD3000GLFS-01F8U0_WD-WXL508009274-part2 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe vga=0x345
initrd /boot/initrd-3.4.4-32-default

Thanks for your replies. Since I have a good install of SL, I will attempt a reinstall of grub via anaconda as suggested above. Will post results..

with win7 PREINSTALLED the OEM's put a "hiddeen" to windows "rescue" partition on the front of the drive

RHEL/CentOS/SL/Fedora/.....
tend to not like this
the installer WANTS to put grub on that partition

you might be better off making a /boot partition on THE FIRST LINUX partition

1(sda1) win rescue
2(sda2) windows C://
3( sda3) -- EXTENDED PARTITION
4( sda4) /boot ( first linux partition) and make bootable
5(sda5) /
6(sda6) SWAP ( the installed WILL put it here !!)
7( sda7 /home

then set grub to chainload to win7( the win7 bootloader IS hiding on the MBR in the rescue partition )

personally i would just uninstall windows
blank the disk and reinstall win7 without that rescue partition
if win7 gets infected that rescue partition used to " fix" it is also likely to be infected .

Yeah. Agree on those secret little OEM partitions. I've worked on a lot of machines that have those. I build all my own PC's and have been doing so for many years. That's not the problem I have at the moment, though.

If that doesn't work, you could just run Scientific Linux Live System. They have Live CD and DVD - Live USB - or setup a server for Diskless Client.