On Wed, Jun 20, 2012, Ian Campbell wrote: > Are you suggesting that I should move the non-flash-kernel related > content of /dev/sdb1 (e.g. vmlinuz, initramfs etc) to /dev/sdb2:/boot > and remove sdb1 from the fstab, leaving it unmounted the majority of the > time?
Exactly; also it should also keep working if you leave your system untouched (if you keep /dev/sdb1 in fstab and if f-k tries to mount it in /tmp to update boot files, it should just get bind-mounted automatically). > I'm happy to do that, just want to make sure I understand before I start > moving stuff about. Yup; it's also best if you have some recovery mechanism -- like being able to pull the SD card and changing it from another device -- and some debug mechanism -- like serial console over mini-USB. > FYI /boot is 205M on this system (I don't recall if I partitioned it, or > if the installer did it or if it came that way), so I'm not worried > about space constraints (205M is bigger than the whole disk on my last > Pentium based firewall machine ;-)). I think the original partition was > VFAT though so that concern is valid. Yup; I'm mostly concerned about the ext2 which is fragile on abrupt shutdowns. > It is possible that other DP users will want /dev/sda* (the internal > sdcard) instead of /dev/sdb* (the external sdcard). Can I express sda vs > sdb in the flash-kernel db somehow? Ah, yes; that's indeed a problem. That means we need some config file to override the boot device (ideally an installer would create this file for you). This is currently missing in flash-kernel, but here I think it should allow overriding parts of the machine db entry. > Looking at my sda it seems the partitioning scheme used by the supplier > there is 100M VFAT + 3.9G EXT. Right; first partition as a small vfat is typically what I expect; it's more reliable than ext2 but doesn't support links, also 100M is a more serious space constraint (especially if initrds get large and kernel versions pile up). > There is also some /dev/mtd devices but I think they are tiny SPI things > and not useful for booting. Hmm ok; in terms of size, some Kirkwoods come with a full Debian or Ubuntu rootfs in flash, I think some 512 MiB or so of flash were enough to do this, but I've had various issues with ubifs on a device here that kind of scared me away of it. It's probably all fixable, but the serious issues in the kernel and userspace tools led me to think it wasn't a good option when compared to SD card. -- Loïc Minier -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
