Installing grub on ext4 / non-separate boot
Hello,
OS - Slackware 13.37 32 bit, both / and /home are ext4. /boot is not separate. I'm trying to install Xen from Slackbuilds and it requires either grub or mbootpack for creating Xen compatible kernel with lilo, I chose to go with grub as I've worked on grub so far. Removed lilo and installed grub legacy from /extra, ran grub-insall /dev/sda which completed successfully - Quote:
Now, if I try to run grubconfig, it gives me an error of my /boot FS which is mounted on / is read only and exits. There's no menu.lst file in /boot/grub yet so I had to uninstall grub and install lilo to get back to work. I searched and found some hints that grub may not be compatible with both the condition i.e. ext4 FS and non separate /boot. Found a thread which talks about some patch for this, but no further info on that - Can somebody please confirm if it's really this tricky to install grub on Slackware with ext4 and suggest something useful? Regards, -- Prince |
Not that tricky at all.
I install grub leg to a separate (small 256mb) ext 3 partition. |
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GRUB can't handle ext4. A few years ago, when ext4 came out, the Zenwalk folks immediately adopted it as their default filesystem, with GRUB as default boot manager. Those folks who didn't opt for a separate /boot partition in ext2 or ext3 just had an unbootable system. Easiest solution: make a separate /boot partition, format it in ext2 (no need to have a journaled FS there), give it 30 to 100 MB, and you're good. Good luck. |
Or you can use grub2. But I guess it's simpler to create a separate boot partition.
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Code:
dumpe2fs -h /dev/<ext3 f/s> | grep -i "^Inode[[:space:]]+size" |
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bash: syntax error near unexpected token `|' |
Insert your filesystem device name - say /dev/sda3 or whatever.
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dumpe2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010) bash-4.1# |
Hmmm - try it with just "inode". I'm just interested in what the size is for your ext3.
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Guys, thanks for bothering and answering. So I'm at loss with the current setup?
Either I'll need to have a separate /boot partition with ext2/3 format or install grub2...? That grub2 thing is nasty I know! What about any fix for current situation, any patch or the grub version in /extra was the pacthed one for ext4? Regards. |
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Just an aside: why not use LILO? I know it's a little bone-headed, but it still does the job well. I'm using it on both servers (RAID5 and all) and desktops alike, and I'm quite happy with it. Of course, beware the Typo(tm).
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Regards. |
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# fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000afda7 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 63 125837144 62918541 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 125837145 650118419 262140637+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 650118420 1174399694 262140637+ 83 Linux /dev/sda4 1174399695 1465147391 145373848+ 5 Extended /dev/sda5 1174399758 1175443919 522081 83 Linux <--- grub /dev/sda6 1175443983 1183829849 4192933+ 82 Linux swap /dev/sda7 1183829913 1236266009 26218048+ 83 Linux /dev/sda8 1236266073 1288702169 26218048+ 83 Linux /dev/sda9 1288702233 1341138329 26218048+ 83 Linux /dev/sda10 1341138393 1393574489 26218048+ 83 Linux Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000aefdb Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 63 488375999 244187968+ 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 488376000 976768064 244196032+ 83 Linux |
UPDATE : Okay, I happened to install Slackware 13.37 on a spare laptop as the only OS. I created a separated /boot partition with ext2 formatting.
Uninstalled lilo, installed grub legacy on MBR following the official README, sample : http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/slackwa...37/extra/grub/ Final result was success, still there's no sign of menu.lst or grub.conf in /boot/grub. All I have is just Quote:
Where to proceed next? Anything I missed along way? Regards. |
You'll have to create a menu.lst.
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Well, Thanks. After two kernel panic and much gnashing of teeth, finally booted from grub. I must admit after working with LILO for even 3 months only, grub looks like a mess to me.
Anyways, found out much work is left, the xen kernel build script is for kernel 2.6.34 only with some OpenSUSE patches or whatnot. Need to work on that now. Any suggestions for our stable 13.37's 2.6.37 kernel? This thread, however should be marked solved. |
As the original query has been resolved, marking this thread as solved.
Holding the xen issue for another thread. Regards. |
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