[SOLVED] Install Grub2 on -current failed

DarkVision · 05-21-2016, 08:07 AM

I just installed latest -current for x86-64 from 2016/05/20 in virtualbox and i get the following error when using grub-install /dev/sda:

Quote:

Path `/boot/grub' is not readable by GRUB on boot. Installation is impossible. Aborting.

I enabled debug output with grub-install --debug /dev/sda and i figured out that grub-install fails to detect the correct filesystem using grub-probe:

Code:

grub-probe -t fs /boot/grub

Quote:

grub-probe: error: unknown filesystem.

I did a filesystem check and made sure the filesystem is ext4. This is from dmesg:

Quote:

[ 3.858537] EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)

This is my /etc/fstab:

Code:

/dev/sda2        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/sda1        /                ext4        defaults         1   1
#/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro,comment=x-gvfs-show 0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
tmpfs            /dev/shm         tmpfs       defaults         0   0

And this is the partition table:

Code:

label: dos
label-id: 0x2be168ca
device: /dev/sda
unit: sectors

/dev/sda1 : start=        2048, size=    62914560, type=83, bootable
/dev/sda2 : start=    62916608, size=     4192256, type=82

This worked until a few weeks ago and i have a older virtualbox machine with -current for 32bit and there grub-install works. This is the output from grub-probe on the older install of -current/32bit:

Quote:

ext2

I think this should be OK even if the partition is ext4.

I tried to install latest -current three times to make sure there was no problem during install but grub-install continue to fail.

I tried to downgrade e2fsprogs since that was a recent change but that did not help.

Any ideas what's wrong?

ReaperX7 · 05-21-2016, 09:20 AM

Are you able to generate a grub.cfg with

Code:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

with any success?

DarkVision · 05-21-2016, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaperX7

Are you able to generate a grub.cfg with

Code:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

with any success?

I will re-install -current again and see if this is possible. Right now i found an old backup of the virtual machine with -current/64bit from 2016/05/04 where i had grub already installed. grub-probe detectes the filesystem as ext2.

I used slackpkg upgrade-all to update to -current as of today, created a new virtual disk with an ext4 filesystem. if i use grub-probe to check that partition it says "unknown filesystem".

If i format the partition with ext2 or ext3 instead of ext4 everything is fine. grub-probe detects the filesystem as "ext2".

Looks like a problem with the new e2fsprogs package. If SETUP is using the same programs from e2fsprogs-1.43 then the ext4 partition may be somehow incompatible with grub.

P.S. Just downgraded to e2fsprogs 1.42.13 and that did not help, i then replaced the mke2fs.conf with the one installed by the 1.42.13 package and then everything is fine again. I compared both configs:

Code:

--- /etc/mke2fs.conf.bad	2016-05-20 18:56:57.000000000 +0200
+++ /etc/mke2fs.conf.new	2016-05-21 16:51:59.000000000 +0200
@@ -11,11 +11,12 @@
 		features = has_journal
 	}
 	ext4 = {
-		features = has_journal,extent,huge_file,flex_bg,64bit,dir_nlink,extra_isize
+		features = has_journal,extent,huge_file,flex_bg,uninit_bg,dir_nlink,extra_isize
+		auto_64-bit_support = 1
 		inode_size = 256
 	}
 	ext4dev = {
-		features = has_journal,extent,huge_file,flex_bg,inline_data,64bit,dir_nlink,extra_isize
+		features = has_journal,extent,huge_file,flex_bg,uninit_bg,dir_nlink,extra_isize
 		inode_size = 256
 		options = test_fs=1
 	}

OK, looks like adding 64bit to the mke2fs.conf from 1.42.13 then the ext4-parition will not be detected by grub. I upgraded to e2fsprogs 1.43 and removed 64bit support and then an ext4 partition is detected by grub-probe.

Do we really need 64Bit filesystem support for ext4? Or is there a patch for grub to detect those partitions? If not best thing i can do is to use ext3 when setting up -current since i like to have grub installed.

Fixed: just upgraded to grub 2.02beta3 and everything is fine now even with 64bit support. So i suggest an grub2-update for -current

Tonus · 05-21-2016, 06:01 PM

It could be a problem that I am facing while installing last current on a new ssd. Got to test with last grub as you did...

DarkVision · 05-21-2016, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonus

It could be a problem that I am facing while installing last current on a new ssd. Got to test with last grub as you did...

You can also try to format the target partition without 64bit support. Therefore you need to "patch" mke2fs.conf before running setup:

Quote:

I just did a reinstall of -current but before running setup to start the install i removed the 64bit option from mke2fs.conf:

Code:

sed -i "s:,64bit::g" /etc/mke2fs.conf

This way setup will format the ext4 partitions without 64bit like the previous version of e2fsprogs did. This fixed my issues with the old version of grub shipped with slackware-current.

But of course grub 2.02beta3 will work also. Still not sure if that 64bit-by-default option is a good idea.

Drakeo · 05-21-2016, 08:16 PM

Latest grub works fine. I upgraded my long time 64-14.1 and that installed the latest grub2 and did the the

Code:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

and it did everything perfect. I clicked reboot. then selected the vimlinuz-huge even though I still had my old intrid. the it booted fine. Then I made my new intrid.gz. and edited my grub.cfg like I wanted it. So it would select the vmlinuz-generic. No problems on none of my machines.

Tonus · 05-22-2016, 03:21 AM

@Drakeo : what I've understood is that there's a problem while you format in ext4 with the new e2fs which defaults to 64 bits. Then the actual slackware grub will not boot. Your boot partition might have been formatted in 32 bits with previous e2fs utility.

DarkVision · 05-22-2016, 04:12 AM

@Tonus: From what i understand is that Drakeo updated to latest grub which is 2.02beta3. That update fixes the 64bit issue for -current but it is good to hear that this update does even work for 14.1. Hopefully grub2-update will not break other things

Tonus · 05-22-2016, 07:48 AM

Missed the 14.1 info, thanks for spotting that.