On Thu, Apr 22, 2021, at 7:16 PM, Rick Thomas wrote:
> I suspect that this difference is what's producing the "error: can't
> open device" messages on the ppc64, and why they do not appear on the
> amd64. If I did a manual partitioning install on the amd64 that
> mimicked the layout of the ppc64, I suspect I would probably see the
> same "can't open device" error messages there as well. (I do plan to
> try that, and I'll report what I find)
Well... "Curiouser and curiouser!"
I did an expert install on my amd64 VM and accepted defaults up to the
partitioning phase. In the partitioning phase, I chose to do a manual
partitioning. In my manual partitioning I created an ext2 partition on
/dev/sda1 with mount point /boot/grub. The rest of the installation went into
an LVM partition with three volumes for root, /home, and swap. (So /boot is a
directory in the root volume. If grub wants a kernel and initrd, it has to dig
around in the LVM to find them)
Unlike the ppc64 installation, the installer did not complain about this setup.
(The ppc64 installation complained that there was no partition for /boot to
mount on) and happily went ahead with installing a basic (non-gui) system with
ssh. Somewhat surprisingly, when it came time for the reboot, all went
smoothly. There were no "error: can't open device" messages at all, and it
proceeded smoothly to a login prompt.
Hope this helps!
Rick