On Sunday 25 October 2015 08:53:00 David Baron wrote: > On Sunday 25 October 2015 08:19:41 Gene Heskett wrote: > > On Sunday 25 October 2015 06:57:06 David Baron wrote: > > > Using the live disk, went back to the old (failing!) 80gig disk, > > > edited back to where I was, bound the /dev and chroot and mounted > > > what I needed. > > > update-initramfs and lilo worked without any segfault. > > > > > > So back up. Time to buy another big disk and move stuff or > > > reinstall with Jesse. Trouble is these big SATAs are not so great. > > > That 80gig IDE which smart claims is pre-failure (but does not > > > totally support) predates them all. > > > > Another thought comes to mind since you mentioned a big disk, but I > > don't recall the size if it has been quoted in this thread. > > > > But In installing linuxcnc (debian wheezy based) on fresh disks, I > > have twice now been forced to allocate a /boot partition at the > > beginning of a 2 terabyte disk. > > > > This may not be the reason, but my theory is that by the time the > > install gets around to installing grub, (its the last thing it does) > > its boot files are too far into the disk for bios/lilo/grub2 to find > > them, so the reboot at the end of the install fails. > > > > The worst part of that is that the partitioner will not accept a 1 > > gigabyte partition, which is a great plenty, so I was forced to use > > 5% of the disk as a boot partition. > > > > That is about 47 gigabytes, of which <1% is actually used. > > Ridiculous, but it works. Those 3 machines would be happy as clams > > with a 20 gigabyte disk. Even SSD's are bigger than that these > > days. > > > > So I am left wondering if this might be a solution to your boot > > problem. > > > > lilo has been out of favor for a goodly piece of a decade, and with > > even grub1 being far more versatile, I am amazed to hear of someone > > still using it. I have no clue what its LBA capabilities are in > > light of the sizes of todays drives. > > > > If someone could elaborate on that, it might also be of educational > > value here. > > > > Cheers, Gene Heskett > > I started with wheezy 64 bit install and grub2. Did not have any clue > how it worked but it did. When upgraded to Sid, added a kernel and > wanted to keep the older on around just-in-case, I had no idea how to > do this with Grub2 so I went back to Lilo. Lilo also makes it easy of > have a systemd and older-style init choice, the latter saved me > recently. > > Running afoul of having two 1 terra disks around could have been the > problem. I have no understanding of this business. I had no problem > reading and writing the partition I wanted to make root. Just could > not do anything in it, either chroot or on boot into the system which > malfunctioned. > > How do I make custom boot menus, kernel, init choices and such using > the Grub?
Thats a question I'll have to let others answer. All 4 of my machines here are running "pinned" kernels, which have been patched for real time interrupts, AKA "RTAI", so I don't worry about a scripted rerun of grub-install wiping out the hacks I have installed directly into /boot/grub/grub.cfg. That however is frowned on mightily here, and someone will drag out his soap box and read me a few verses of the riot act, for exactly that reason. I.W.F.M. though. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
