[SOLVED] F2FS and LILO

Jeebizz · 11-05-2021, 12:36 PM

So in a VM of course, I decided to do a dry-run of f2fs (--Current of course) - given that I am using a SSD(SATA , not NVME though) , I set all the partitions as f2fs.

Code:

/boot ~ 300MM
/     ~ 63GB
/home ~ 153GB
swap  ~ 32GB

When getting to the point of installing LILO is where I run into trouble, I select where Linux is installed and then LILO freaks out..

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I know perhaps a while back a similar thread might have been created, but I don't recall nor what the work-around solution is.

Is this a limitation with lilo or f2fs , or both as they just seem to not play nice with each other? What is the suggestion on getting this to work as I would love to have my SSD just run f2fs partitions (with a swap of course).

LuckyCyborg · 11-05-2021, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeebizz

So in a VM of course, I decided to do a dry-run of f2fs (--Current of course) - given that I am using a SSD(SATA , not NVME though) , I set all the partitions as f2fs.

Code:

/boot ~ 300MM
/     ~ 63GB
/home ~ 153GB
swap  ~ 32GB

When getting to the point of installing LILO is where I run into trouble, I select where Linux is installed and then LILO freaks out..

Attachment 37634 Attachment 37635 Attachment 37636 Attachment 37637

I know perhaps a while back a similar thread might have been created, but I don't recall nor what the work-around solution is.

Is this a limitation with lilo or f2fs , or both as they just seem to not play nice with each other? What is the suggestion on getting this to work as I would love to have my SSD just run f2fs partitions (with a swap of course).

IF you use F2FS as root filesystem, you should use a separate boot partition, formatted with a filesystem supported by LILO, i.e. EXT4FS.

LILO cannot work with (and have no support for) this F2FS, because on F2FS filesystem is no guarantee that a file will remain in a "fixed" position on disk.

Jeebizz · 11-05-2021, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg

IF you use F2FS as root filesystem, you should use a separate boot partition, formatted with a filesystem supported by LILO, i.e. EXT4FS.

LILO cannot work with (and have no support for) this F2FS, because on F2FS filesystem is no guarantee that a file will remain in a "fixed" position on disk.

Yep, that did it. I think perhaps the installer should be amended and included F2FS , as requiring a non F2FS partition - just like how the installer always warns you that you cannot install lilo on an XFS superblock - or maybe just before Slackware 15.0 come out - just something in the documentation to give idiots like me a heads up

-edit

Basically - WARNING: If you use XFS or F2FS , make sure you have a separate /boot partition that is any other FS except for XFS or F2FS (I assume BTRFS might work too?)... Still - even though this is now solved, I wonder how GRUB would handle this - I bet GRUB just doesn't care - but I haven't worked with GRUB to know.

LuckyCyborg · 11-05-2021, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeebizz

Yep, that did it. I think perhaps the installer should be amended and included F2FS , as requiring a non F2FS partition - just like how the installer always warns you that you cannot install lilo on an XFS superblock - or maybe just efore Slackware 15.0 come out - just something in the documentation to give idiots like me a heads up

-edit

Basically - WARNING: If you use XFS or F2FS , make sure you have a separate /boot partition that is any other FS except for XFS or F2FS (I assume BTRFS might work too?)... Still - even though this is now solved, I wonder how GRUB would handle this - I bet GRUB just doesn't care - but I haven't worked with GRUB to know.

The GRUB's second stage literally reads the filesystem(s) to find the files - compared with LILO which uses absolute positions on sectors.

Jeebizz · 11-05-2021, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg

The GRUB's second stage literally reads the filesystem(s) to find the files - compared with LILO which uses absolute positions on sectors.

Sounds like another case for GRUB then, would be nice if the installer added that option - I have tried to install grub (in a VM of course) but given that I screwed up somewhere, after rebooting it dumped me in a GRUB console - so yea I screwed the pooch on that one, but I will revisit GRUB at another time.