Hello!

On 9/26/21 07:34, Stan Johnson wrote:

Not knowing what the preferred size should be for a GRUB /boot
partition, I decided to let Guided Partioning use its defaults for
/dev/sda. As I recall, the partitioner warned that the number of
cylinders on the disk exceeded the maximum of 65536, but the creation of filesystems and the rest of the installation proceeded anyway, without
any other noticeable errors.

The layout for /dev/sda is as follows:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 2 sectors/track, 37965 cylinders
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: sun

Device Start End Sectors Size Id Type Flags /dev/sda1 0 1000109 1000110 488.3M 1 Boot
/dev/sda2 1000110 284748299 283748190 135.3G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda3 0 286749029 286749030 136.7G 5 Whole disk
/dev/sda4 284748300 286749029 2000730 976.9M 82 Linux swap

Question 1: If I don't plan to install Solaris, is it safe to remove

the "Whole disk" partition (/dev/sda3)?

I think so.

Question 2: What is the best size for /boot (/dev/sda1)? After

installation, the /boot partition had only about 57 MB of files.

It should be at least 150 MB as you can easily run out of disk space
there when multiple kernels are installed. You can also live with 100 MB
or less, but then you always need to make sure to purge old kernels
before installing a new one.

I have often run into the situation that I ran out of disk space when
/boot was small, so we eventually decided to raise the minimum size
for automatic partitioning.

After installation, at every boot, I see this:
-----
GRUB Loading kernel....
Welcome to GRUB!

error: out of memory.
error: no suitable video mode found.
error: no video mode activated.
-----

There are some limitations with GRUB on older machines, unfortunately.

Then the GRUB menu is displayed, and I am able to scroll through the
options using the "v" and "^" keys (but not the up and down arrow keys).

I think that applies to all systems which basically use a (virtual) serial console where arrow keys aren't necessarily available.

After selecting the new Debian SID (or allowing it to be selected by default), the X login eventually comes up, but it seems to be off the
screen. If I login anyway, the Xfce desktop comes up, but it seems to be larger than the screen. This problem, which is similar to a problem I
had with Debian 7.8, can probably be fixed with an appropriate xorg.conf file.
But UUID=052feb55-ef72-4a8a-8f6d-2d63390e76ff doesn't exist.

So this line:

linux /boot/vmlinux-5.14.0-1-sparc64 root=UUID=052feb55-ef72-4a8a-8f6d-2d63390e76ff ro quiet

should be:

linux /boot/vmlinux-5.14.0-1-sparc64 root=UUID=1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca ro quiet

as shown by blkid:

# blkid /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1: UUID="1ca6137b-dcb8-4e76-b3c5-794d453723ca" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext3" PTTYPE="sun"

After making that change, I'm able to boot into my backup Debian SID installation.

Might be an issue with os-prober that is part of GRUB.

So my choices at this point are to return to SILO or follow through with
a bug report for GRUB (I would need help submitting upstream bug reports
for GRUB).

Bear in mind that SILO is basically dead upstream and might have issue with certain filesystems used for /boot.

Question 3: If I return to SILO, is there anything special about

/dev/sda1 other than it needing to be ext2? For example, are there any special flags or other attributes needed for that partition? Is
/dev/sda1 also ext2 when using GRUB or can it be ext3 or ext4?

The point with /boot being small and using an older, simpler filesystem is because the bootloader accesses the kernel and initrd files using blocklists, i.e. by ignoring the actual filesystem.

If you have a filesystem with a complicated on-disk format, both GRUB and
SILO might have trouble finding the blocks of kernel and initrd and loading them.

So, for the sake of compatibility, I recommend not using anything newer than ext3 for /boot.

Adrian

--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
`. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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Hello Hermann!

On 9/27/21 09:56, Hermann.Lauer@uni-heidelberg.de wrote:

The layout for /dev/sda is as follows:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 2 sectors/track, 37965 cylinders
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: sun

Device Start End Sectors Size Id Type Flags
/dev/sda1 0 1000109 1000110 488.3M 1 Boot
/dev/sda2 1000110 284748299 283748190 135.3G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda3 0 286749029 286749030 136.7G 5 Whole disk
/dev/sda4 284748300 286749029 2000730 976.9M 82 Linux swap

this is a sun disk partitioning scheme - not shure, if this is well supported with grub.

Yes, it's supported by both debian-installer and GRUB. However, you must use a separate /boot partition or make sure that the root partition isn't too big
as GRUB uses blocklists on systems with Sun partition tables.

Question 2: What is the best size for /boot (/dev/sda1)? After

installation, the /boot partition had only about 57 MB of files.

What's on this partition? Only Grub files or also the kernel stuff?
AFAIR I used around 100-200MB years ago, but this was with SILO.

Since the kernel package installs into /boot, the partition should be at least 150-250 MB. I'm surprised that the installer would make it so small as partman-auto
has a minimum size for /boot configured.

Adrian

--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
`. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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Hi Stan,

On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 11:34:59PM -0600, Stan Johnson wrote:

Not knowing what the preferred size should be for a GRUB /boot
partition, I decided to let Guided Partioning use its defaults for
/dev/sda. As I recall, the partitioner warned that the number of
cylinders on the disk exceeded the maximum of 65536, but the creation of filesystems and the rest of the installation proceeded anyway, without
any other noticeable errors.

The layout for /dev/sda is as follows:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 2 sectors/track, 37965 cylinders
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: sun

Device Start End Sectors Size Id Type Flags /dev/sda1 0 1000109 1000110 488.3M 1 Boot
/dev/sda2 1000110 284748299 283748190 135.3G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda3 0 286749029 286749030 136.7G 5 Whole disk
/dev/sda4 284748300 286749029 2000730 976.9M 82 Linux swap

this is a sun disk partitioning scheme - not shure, if this is well supported with grub.

Question 1: If I don't plan to install Solaris, is it safe to remove

the "Whole disk" partition (/dev/sda3)?

AFAIR sun disklabels allows up to 8 entries - so there is no advantage in removing the solaris standard whole disk entry.

Question 2: What is the best size for /boot (/dev/sda1)? After

installation, the /boot partition had only about 57 MB of files.

What's on this partition? Only Grub files or also the kernel stuff?
AFAIR I used around 100-200MB years ago, but this was with SILO.

Then the GRUB menu is displayed, and I am able to scroll through the
options using the "v" and "^" keys (but not the up and down arrow keys). After selecting the new Debian SID (or allowing it to be selected by default), the X login eventually comes up, but it seems to be off the
screen. If I login anyway, the Xfce desktop comes up, but it seems to be larger than the screen. This problem, which is similar to a problem I
had with Debian 7.8, can probably be fixed with an appropriate xorg.conf file.

Congrats, sounds good!

Good luck,
greetings
Hermann

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On 9/27/21 03:56, Hermann.Lauer@uni-heidelberg.de wrote:

Hi Stan,

On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 11:34:59PM -0600, Stan Johnson wrote:

Not knowing what the preferred size should be for a GRUB /boot
partition, I decided to let Guided Partioning use its defaults for
/dev/sda. As I recall, the partitioner warned that the number of
cylinders on the disk exceeded the maximum of 65536, but the creation of
filesystems and the rest of the installation proceeded anyway, without
any other noticeable errors.

The layout for /dev/sda is as follows:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 136.73 GiB, 146815737856 bytes, 286749488 sectors
Disk model: ST3146807LC
Geometry: 255 heads, 2 sectors/track, 37965 cylinders
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: sun

Device Start End Sectors Size Id Type Flags
/dev/sda1 0 1000109 1000110 488.3M 1 Boot
/dev/sda2 1000110 284748299 283748190 135.3G 83 Linux native
/dev/sda3 0 286749029 286749030 136.7G 5 Whole disk
/dev/sda4 284748300 286749029 2000730 976.9M 82 Linux swap

this is a sun disk partitioning scheme - not shure, if this is well supported with grub.

Question 1: If I don't plan to install Solaris, is it safe to remove

the "Whole disk" partition (/dev/sda3)?

AFAIR sun disklabels allows up to 8 entries - so there is no advantage in removing the solaris standard whole disk entry.

I have had no issues with GRUB and Sun type disk labels and "vtoc" data.
Also there are four bits used to count the disk "slices" but it depends
on if one is on Sparc or x86 to get all four bits. So really one may
have 16 separate entries in the disk vtoc but it won't be portable
across architectures. I don't even know if that was ever documented. I
have not even tried that for a few decades.

I am quite sure that one may have eight disk regions without issue and
they may overlap one another. That results in the old "backup" slice.


--
Dennis Clarke
RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC
UNIX and Linux spoken
GreyBeard and suspenders optional

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