Hi Dave, [I see you got this installed now, but since I already wrote all this I'll send it anyway for future reference/whatever]
On 26/07/12 22:08, Dave Bechtel wrote: > What CD/DVD image are you using to install kfreebsd? An installer image that I've successfully used a few times is the alpha1 netinst ISO which is currently available under the netinst heading from: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ It it bigger than mini.iso as it has packages for the base and rescue systems, which is definitely worth it in case you hit a problem like this and have to run the installer again. I always perform a minimal install, then make sure it's bootable, and install whatever else I want by running tasksel/apt-get on the installed system afterwards. > I believe the kfreebsd installer needs quite a bit of work; for one thing, > the " Configure ZFS " menu isn't really all that intuitive; and you can't > change the sizes of partitions on the fly. It is quite new, and I imagine it involved a lot of work to integrate it into the Debian installer, so we're probably lucky to have anything at all for configuring ZFS at the moment. Adjusting the partition sizes I think is a limitation of the Debian installer and not specific to GNU/kFreeBSD. > The installer should not allow a non-working partition setup to be created. The same applies there; I think it already warns about some stuff, like not creating a swap partition, but it should probably also warn about leaving GRUB2 embedding space. > Maybe it's borking because the vdisk was previously formatted with zfs, I'm > not sure. If you choose ufs partition type, it should erase any existing ZFS/UFS signature, as per: http://bugs.debian.org/635272 But if you try to create a ZFS pool using drives that belonged to an older pool, I guess that might fail. But you wouldn't get as far as the Install GRUB step if that was the problem. > I've tried making /boot (UFS, partition 1) and swap (p2) outside the ZFS > partition (p3); grub still errors out. I tried UFS all the way, intending to > move /usr to a separate ZFS vdisk after booting, but the installer still > bombs on Grub. I've tried both msdos and GPT partition tables. I've tried > installing grub2 to the MBR, /dev/da0s1, (hd0), nothing works. With no > LILO/equivalent or even the default "dumb" Freebsd bootloader available, the > VM is effectively brain-dead, even if I finish the install w/o GRUB. This is all useful info, thanks. Wasn't sure if it was just ZFS as root/boot that triggered this bug, but I guess it isn't. > Even Super Grub Disk (beta version) won't detect the kernel; altho I think I > used GPT partitions this last time. I've used the netinst install CD as a rescue disk to recover systems that I accidentally made unbootable. It's not well documented, but you can enter sort of a rescue mode explained at: http://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD_FAQ#Q._How_to_use_the_rescue_mode_of_the_installer The installer menu will be different. I don't think the 'Enter rescue mode' step really works yet, but if you go through the preceding steps you can go into the shell and manually recover your system. `zpool import` scans disks for ZFS pools and should give you their names `zpool import -R /mnt <poolname>` should be able to mount a pool's filesystem[s] under /mnt `chroot /mnt /bin/bash` then gives you a shell, but you should probably also do: `mount -t linprocfs linprocfs /proc` to get a working /proc filesystem `update-grub2` should then be able to [re]write the GRUB2 bootloader if that's what's missing. You must `exit` from the chroot first if you want to run `reboot`. Regards, -- Steven Chamberlain ste...@pyro.eu.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bsd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/5011c177.8000...@pyro.eu.org
