Re: /boot on a separate partition
On 2005-07-20 21:21, Ross Kendall Axe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've never used it myself, but NetBSD gets mentioned as a suitable OS for a router. I stick with FreeBSD just for compatibility across all my machines, but if you're interested in trying stuff out you might want to see what it offers. Trying stuff out is what I'm here for. I'd noticed I'd started talking about Linux like it was the only OS in the universe, so I thought I'd broaden my mind a little. Well, it *is* the only OS in the universe. It's the universe that is different than this one :-) /me ducks and runs laughing ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
Ross Kendall Axe [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Garance A Drosihn wrote: At 9:30 PM +0100 7/18/05, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: ... I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I doubt you can on FreeBSD. The problem is that the OS would have to mount both / and /boot before it could do anything, and FreeBSD doesn't do that. It assumes the partition that you are loading from is '/', and uses that to find (for instance) /etc/fstab so it can find out what the other partitions are. I would have though that putting '/sbin/mount /boot' at the start of the /etc/rc would sort that out. Surely the contents of /lib, /bin and /sbin are enough to get you that far? The kernel has to be loaded *first*. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Lowell Gilbert wrote: Ross Kendall Axe [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Garance A Drosihn wrote: At 9:30 PM +0100 7/18/05, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: ... I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I doubt you can on FreeBSD. The problem is that the OS would have to mount both / and /boot before it could do anything, and FreeBSD doesn't do that. It assumes the partition that you are loading from is '/', and uses that to find (for instance) /etc/fstab so it can find out what the other partitions are. I would have though that putting '/sbin/mount /boot' at the start of the /etc/rc would sort that out. Surely the contents of /lib, /bin and /sbin are enough to get you that far? The kernel has to be loaded *first*. Yes, by the bootloader, which _can_ read /boot :-) I think I misunderstood Garance's post. I took it to mean that given /, the kernel has no way to find /boot, which seems untrue to me. Re-reading it, I think he meant that given /boot (which the kernel assumes is /) it has no way to find the correct /. Bear in mind that my experience is with Linux, where the location of / is given on the kernel's command line (or hardcoded into the kernel) and thus need not be the same partition that holds the kernel. My understanding (now) is that FreeBSD assumes that the partition the kernel was loaded from is /. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC4CPU9bR4xmappRARAp8JAJ9isKClgSJaW9NY+hcobSa6rlmWrQCg3Vj4 hq5aRhkQ8ToN2yUmYwmPPSQ= =kxsD -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Alex Zbyslaw wrote: Being pragmatic, the problems you are facing are because you have such a tiny disk in an ancient PC. This puts you in a very small minority of FreeBSD users. True. A separate /boot is new to 5.X and I doubt it was done to help you out of this situation. Developer effort is limited and since FreeBSD has never used a separate /boot, it's unlikely to get anyone's attention to do it that way unless there is a very good reason, and tiny disks are unlikely to be it. I admit, I didn't know the /boot was new in FreeBSD, but then, I am a BSD virgin. As for reasons to support a /boot partition, how about BIOS bugs/quirks? There's no shortage of those. Of course, an open source BIOS would be a better solution to that particular problem. Also, please don't misinterpret my cry for help as a demand for a new feature; I may be new to FreeBSD but I'm reasonably seasoned in the ways of the free software world. The oldest PC I have that runs FreeBSD (also a Pentium) has a 4 and an 8Gb disk, and no problem booting off the ends of either. It's who knows how old, and even charities don't want it because they can't think of anything useful that anyone could do with it, even if it was the bees knees when I got it. Pffft. I've got a 486 with a 1/4GB hard disk around here _somewhere_. Depending on where you are located, you might be able to find something very cheap (but still better than yours) in classifieds, computer fairs, 2nd hand shops or the local tip. This particular machine was actually intercepted before it reached the dump. Still, it's powerful enough to make a decent home router. Best, --Alex Thanks to all for your input, but I've actually managed to solve the problem in a different way. Turns out the BIOS was disabling LBA because the logical cylinder count was 1024, so mucking about with the geometry fixed it. Still, I'll keep these comments in mind if I ever decide to install FreeBSD on the aforementioned 486 ;-) Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC3fei9bR4xmappRARAuc/AKCsWkDqBjuxfnL9o1vPxbEjLe42PACeMElv hvmsCK7XVZ528YHhDe+E7mU= =IQtf -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Glenn Dawson wrote: At 07:34 PM 7/18/2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: Bit of pain really, I thought the whole idea of keeping the bootloader files in /boot was so that /boot could be a separate partition. Not sure about that...I always figured it was to keep / from getting too cluttered. I think this is what I must have been thinking of: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN507 Kind of Linux/x86 specific, and not really what I said. Oh well. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC3fom9bR4xmappRARAu4sAKDFzVNkEE6KK6i0KFFRnhRS89jiPQCcCEFT qvy+hQsO3Ym3lOEW8DwEti8= =urXW -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
Ross Kendall Axe wrote: I admit, I didn't know the /boot was new in FreeBSD, but then, I am a BSD virgin. As for reasons to support a /boot partition, how about BIOS bugs/quirks? There's no shortage of those. Well, until someone proves otherwise, I don't believe in them anymore. I believe they *used* to exist, but that comments about cannot boot past cyl 1024 only exist in documentation because this *used* to be true and no-one really knows whether it can safely be deleted, so it's left in. Sure, if you get an old enough PC it could still be true, but as you've proved (congrats, by the way, enjoy FreeBSD) the oldest PC you considered it worth installing FreeBSD on did not have this problem. Your 486 might have this trouble, then then it would probably have trouble addressing a disk that big at all. (Btw, there are minimum memory requirements for 5.X, 32Mb?, if you ever do decide to try FreeBSD on that 486). The oldest PC I have that runs FreeBSD (also a Pentium) has a 4 and an 8Gb disk, and no problem booting off the ends of either. Pffft. I've got a 486 with a 1/4GB hard disk around here _somewhere_. I didn't mean that as a pissing contest :-) I just meant that there must be bucketloads of PCs out there similar to yours, unused, unwanted and unloved, that could do what you thought yours couldn't. Depending on where you are located, you might be able to find something very cheap (but still better than yours) in classifieds, computer fairs, 2nd hand shops or the local tip. This particular machine was actually intercepted before it reached the dump. Still, it's powerful enough to make a decent home router. I've never used it myself, but NetBSD gets mentioned as a suitable OS for a router. I stick with FreeBSD just for compatibility across all my machines, but if you're interested in trying stuff out you might want to see what it offers. --Alex ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Alex Zbyslaw wrote: Ross Kendall Axe wrote: I admit, I didn't know the /boot was new in FreeBSD, but then, I am a BSD virgin. As for reasons to support a /boot partition, how about BIOS bugs/quirks? There's no shortage of those. Well, until someone proves otherwise, I don't believe in them anymore. I believe they *used* to exist, but that comments about cannot boot past cyl 1024 only exist in documentation because this *used* to be true and no-one really knows whether it can safely be deleted, so it's left in. Sure, if you get an old enough PC it could still be true, but as you've proved (congrats, by the way, enjoy FreeBSD) the oldest PC you considered it worth installing FreeBSD on did not have this problem. The situation certainly has improved. _New_ machines generally work perfectly. On the other hand, I have a Celeron machine from 1998 here that hangs at bootup if the BIOS spots a 32GB drive. Still quite old, I know, but I view getting the most out of old hardware as one of the advantages of free OSes. I don't see the BIOS problem ever fully going away until the BIOS is as replaceable as the OS. Still, it shouldn't be the job of the OS to fix that. Your 486 might have this trouble, then then it would probably have trouble addressing a disk that big at all. (Btw, there are minimum memory requirements for 5.X, 32Mb?, if you ever do decide to try FreeBSD on that 486). It just happens that this 486 has exactly 32MB of RAM, so ;-) The oldest PC I have that runs FreeBSD (also a Pentium) has a 4 and an 8Gb disk, and no problem booting off the ends of either. Pffft. I've got a 486 with a 1/4GB hard disk around here _somewhere_. I didn't mean that as a pissing contest :-) I just meant that there must be bucketloads of PCs out there similar to yours, unused, unwanted and unloved, that could do what you thought yours couldn't. I know what you mean. People will quite happily throw away stuff just because they got something better. I don't because I enjoy making good stuff out of would-be junk :-) I've never used it myself, but NetBSD gets mentioned as a suitable OS for a router. I stick with FreeBSD just for compatibility across all my machines, but if you're interested in trying stuff out you might want to see what it offers. --Alex Trying stuff out is what I'm here for. I'd noticed I'd started talking about Linux like it was the only OS in the universe, so I thought I'd broaden my mind a little. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC3rIw9bR4xmappRARAv6+AJ90T+Fx16Fwirqp9SL46e3Kssb4xgCgyHl5 SjiaPrSHstmdG/6Ellpjyuo= =7EQW -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Bob Johnson wrote: On a 1 GB drive you aren't going to have room to do much learning no matter how little you waste in /. Maybe I should just ship you a bigger hard drive. I'm pretty sure I have a 3 or 6 GB drive around that I have no use for. Are you willing to pay shipping? That's a generous offer, but since I've fixed the immediate problem, and I'm only playing for now, it probably isn't worth the effort. In any event, it now looks like a couple of fair sized drives are going to become available here soon anyway. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC3rS59bR4xmappRARAgVwAJ4+jLkXvZR2vMkq6uHcg8tCWWGbAQCfao5g lPkHe9/p824YolBV91Lmooc= =tL4F -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Garance A Drosihn wrote: At 9:30 PM +0100 7/18/05, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: ... I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I doubt you can on FreeBSD. The problem is that the OS would have to mount both / and /boot before it could do anything, and FreeBSD doesn't do that. It assumes the partition that you are loading from is '/', and uses that to find (for instance) /etc/fstab so it can find out what the other partitions are. I would have though that putting '/sbin/mount /boot' at the start of the /etc/rc would sort that out. Surely the contents of /lib, /bin and /sbin are enough to get you that far? I know that linux supports this, as well as some other clever trickery with partitions at system-startup, but FreeBSD doesn't. I must admit, I'm not sure what trickery you're talking about here, unless you're referring to initrd, which _is_ a horrible hack IMHO. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC3rfL9bR4xmappRARAhXyAKC7qiA9t0C9/Eny12Q8nG7XXqE9JgCeLPb9 ZAb5ityPlJ0OpZJvDsm43LY= =goS5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
Ross Kendall Axe wrote: That's what I'm going for now. 100MB in / and the rest of the disk given to /usr and swap. Bit of pain really, I thought the whole idea of keeping the bootloader files in /boot was so that /boot could be a separate partition. Being pragmatic, the problems you are facing are because you have such a tiny disk in an ancient PC. This puts you in a very small minority of FreeBSD users. A separate /boot is new to 5.X and I doubt it was done to help you out of this situation. Developer effort is limited and since FreeBSD has never used a separate /boot, it's unlikely to get anyone's attention to do it that way unless there is a very good reason, and tiny disks are unlikely to be it. The oldest PC I have that runs FreeBSD (also a Pentium) has a 4 and an 8Gb disk, and no problem booting off the ends of either. It's who knows how old, and even charities don't want it because they can't think of anything useful that anyone could do with it, even if it was the bees knees when I got it. Depending on where you are located, you might be able to find something very cheap (but still better than yours) in classifieds, computer fairs, 2nd hand shops or the local tip. Best, --Alex ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
At 9:30 PM +0100 7/18/05, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: ... I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I doubt you can on FreeBSD. The problem is that the OS would have to mount both / and /boot before it could do anything, and FreeBSD doesn't do that. It assumes the partition that you are loading from is '/', and uses that to find (for instance) /etc/fstab so it can find out what the other partitions are. I know that linux supports this, as well as some other clever trickery with partitions at system-startup, but FreeBSD doesn't. I don't particularly want to go for the standard 'small / partition and separate partitions for /usr, /var, /home...' since I only have a 1GB drive to play with and judging the partition sizes down the nearest KB would be... tricky. Create a small-ish / partition, a swap partition, and huge /usr partition. FreeBSD creates a symlink from /home to /usr/home, so your home directories are in /usr anyway. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn= [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Systems Programmer or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteor [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: /boot on a separate partition
Garance A Drosihn wrote: At 9:30 PM +0100 7/18/05, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: ... I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I doubt you can on FreeBSD. The problem is that the OS would have to mount both / and /boot before it could do anything, and FreeBSD doesn't do that. It assumes the partition that you are loading from is '/', and uses that to find (for instance) /etc/fstab so it can find out what the other partitions are. I know that linux supports this, as well as some other clever trickery with partitions at system-startup, but FreeBSD doesn't. I don't particularly want to go for the standard 'small / partition and separate partitions for /usr, /var, /home...' since I only have a 1GB drive to play with and judging the partition sizes down the nearest KB would be... tricky. Create a small-ish / partition, a swap partition, and huge /usr partition. If you want to play with FreeBSD, that's the way to go. You can probably get away with a 40 MB / partition, 55 MB is almost certainly large enough. The two things in / that grow in normal use are /tmp and /var/log. Make /tmp either a symlink to something on /usr, or mount it as a memory disk (see mdconfig(8)). The default logging doesn't accumulate terribly fast anyway, so /var/log isn't very important. If you handle mail or do printing, /var/spool and /var/mail might grow, but usually not enough to be a major issue. The rest of /var probably won't grow enough to matter. On a 1 GB drive you aren't going to have room to do much learning no matter how little you waste in /. Maybe I should just ship you a bigger hard drive. I'm pretty sure I have a 3 or 6 GB drive around that I have no use for. Are you willing to pay shipping? FreeBSD creates a symlink from /home to /usr/home, so your home directories are in /usr anyway. That's true if you don't create an explicit /home partition. If you WANT /home to be a separate partition (makes updating easier/safer), then create it, but in this case it probably isn't desirable. - Bob ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: I am currently trying to get to grips with FreeBSD and am trying it out on an old Pentium machine. However, the machine's BIOS can't seem to read past 504MB, so I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? I don't particularly want to go for the standard 'small / partition and separate partitions for /usr, /var, /home...' since I only have a 1GB drive to play with and judging the partition sizes down the nearest KB would be... tricky. I have performed this procedure before (many, many times) on Linux using both LILO and GRUB, but I can't seem to get my head around the FreeBSD bootloader. All I would expect you have to do is use FDISK to make two partitions, remembering to mark the first one as bootable. Then use disklabel to create your slices. Make a /boot slice on the first partition, then make a / slice and a swap slice on the second partition. That should be all that's required for what you're trying to do. A little over a year ago, I had to split up a drive to solve the same problem you're having, but I went the small / route instead, so you might be running into a problem I didn't have. Luke Dean ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Luke Dean wrote: On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: I am currently trying to get to grips with FreeBSD and am trying it out on an old Pentium machine. However, the machine's BIOS can't seem to read past 504MB, so I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? All I would expect you have to do is use FDISK to make two partitions, remembering to mark the first one as bootable. Then use disklabel to create your slices. Make a /boot slice on the first partition, then make a / slice and a swap slice on the second partition. That should be all that's required for what you're trying to do. A little over a year ago, I had to split up a drive to solve the same problem you're having, but I went the small / route instead, so you might be running into a problem I didn't have. Luke Dean I created the partitions easily enough when installing the system. I created a single slice and, inside that, partition d as my small /boot partition and partition a as the root. The problem I'm having is trying to actually boot the system. On boot, the output (after the BIOS) looks like this: error 1 lba 1190783 No /boot/loader FreeBSD/i386 boot Default: 0:ad(0,a)/kernel boot: short delay... No /kernel FreeBSD/i386 boot Default: 0:ad(0,a)/kernel boot: The 'error 1' is presumably due to my dodgy BIOS, and 'No /boot/loader' happens because it's looking on the wrong place for the stage 3 loader. Undaunted, I type 'ad(0,d)/loader' to load the stage 3 loader. The loader appears to load properly, apart from the fact that is displays the message can't load 'kernel. At this point, I type 'boot kernel/kernel', which successfully loads the kernel and produces a momentary 'twirling baton'. The keyboard then resets and the system hangs. Attempt 2: Change all occurrences of /boot/ in all text files in the /boot directory to /. Then, at the stage 3 loader prompt, type 'include /loader.rc' instead of 'boot /kernel/kernel'. Again, the kernel appears to be loaded successfully, and I get the standard boot menu with the ASCII beastie. However, the boot hangs as before, with a keyboard reset. Attempt 3: Try to load the kernel directly from stage 2 by typing 'ad(0.d)/kernel/kernel'. Fails with a register dump and the message 'BTX halted'. It's starting to look to me as though the stage 2 bootloader and kernel both want to be in the /boot directory on partition a. I'd love to be proved wrong :-) I'm using 5.4-RELEASE. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFC3FO99bR4xmappRARAvntAJ9Li1qQiwaOwWjPVS/rIUpAe/D5HgCgn3+h dqOa0NtBGzkctnk4B2JvSbE= =YdAF -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
At 06:13 PM 7/18/2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Luke Dean wrote: On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: I am currently trying to get to grips with FreeBSD and am trying it out on an old Pentium machine. However, the machine's BIOS can't seem to read past 504MB, so I want to place the /boot directory in a small 25MB partition at the start of the drive. Setting up the partition with sysinstall is easy enough, but does anyone have any suggestions of how to diddle the bootloader to accept this configuration? All I would expect you have to do is use FDISK to make two partitions, remembering to mark the first one as bootable. Then use disklabel to create your slices. Make a /boot slice on the first partition, then make a / slice and a swap slice on the second partition. That should be all that's required for what you're trying to do. A little over a year ago, I had to split up a drive to solve the same problem you're having, but I went the small / route instead, so you might be running into a problem I didn't have. Luke Dean I created the partitions easily enough when installing the system. I created a single slice and, inside that, partition d as my small /boot partition and partition a as the root. The problem I'm having is trying to actually boot the system. On boot, the output (after the BIOS) looks like this: error 1 lba 1190783 No /boot/loader FreeBSD/i386 boot Default: 0:ad(0,a)/kernel boot: short delay... No /kernel FreeBSD/i386 boot Default: 0:ad(0,a)/kernel boot: The 'error 1' is presumably due to my dodgy BIOS, and 'No /boot/loader' happens because it's looking on the wrong place for the stage 3 loader. Undaunted, I type 'ad(0,d)/loader' to load the stage 3 loader. The loader appears to load properly, apart from the fact that is displays the message can't load 'kernel. At this point, I type 'boot kernel/kernel', which successfully loads the kernel and produces a momentary 'twirling baton'. The keyboard then resets and the system hangs. Attempt 2: Change all occurrences of /boot/ in all text files in the /boot directory to /. Then, at the stage 3 loader prompt, type 'include /loader.rc' instead of 'boot /kernel/kernel'. Again, the kernel appears to be loaded successfully, and I get the standard boot menu with the ASCII beastie. However, the boot hangs as before, with a keyboard reset. Attempt 3: Try to load the kernel directly from stage 2 by typing 'ad(0.d)/kernel/kernel'. Fails with a register dump and the message 'BTX halted'. It's starting to look to me as though the stage 2 bootloader and kernel both want to be in the /boot directory on partition a. I'd love to be proved wrong :-) I think this is exactly the case. According to the boot(8) man page, you can create a /boot.config that will allow you to customize things. The only catch being that /boot.config has to be on the a partition of the slice you are booting from. Normally the a partition would be / and also contain /boot. / defaults to being 256MB. If you're trying to conserve space, it might be easier to run through an install and see how big / really needs to be and then do a second install and customize the size of / so that it only has the space it really needs. (On one of my 5.4 systems / requires about 53MB) You may have problems later on if you make the size of / too small. -Glenn ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 18 July 2005, Glenn Dawson wrote: At 06:13 PM 7/18/2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: It's starting to look to me as though the stage 2 bootloader and kernel both want to be in the /boot directory on partition a. I'd love to be proved wrong :-) I think this is exactly the case. According to the boot(8) man page, you can create a /boot.config that will allow you to customize things. The only catch being that /boot.config has to be on the a partition of the slice you are booting from. Normally the a partition would be / and also contain /boot. Yes, /boot.config does look like a bit of a showstopper :-( I take it there's no way to get the bootloader to look elsewhere for that? / defaults to being 256MB. If you're trying to conserve space, it might be easier to run through an install and see how big / really needs to be and then do a second install and customize the size of / so that it only has the space it really needs. (On one of my 5.4 systems / requires about 53MB) You may have problems later on if you make the size of / too small. -Glenn That's what I'm going for now. 100MB in / and the rest of the disk given to /usr and swap. Bit of pain really, I thought the whole idea of keeping the bootloader files in /boot was so that /boot could be a separate partition. Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFC3GbK9bR4xmappRARAsL/AKCq23vmsTKiPKexsFZWF33/G38LlwCgiAh4 wKtAoiMVJw+p2SpBoM+DaNg= =z84k -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: /boot on a separate partition
At 07:34 PM 7/18/2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 18 July 2005, Glenn Dawson wrote: At 06:13 PM 7/18/2005, Ross Kendall Axe wrote: It's starting to look to me as though the stage 2 bootloader and kernel both want to be in the /boot directory on partition a. I'd love to be proved wrong :-) I think this is exactly the case. According to the boot(8) man page, you can create a /boot.config that will allow you to customize things. The only catch being that /boot.config has to be on the a partition of the slice you are booting from. Normally the a partition would be / and also contain /boot. Yes, /boot.config does look like a bit of a showstopper :-( I take it there's no way to get the bootloader to look elsewhere for that? I'm sure there is a way, the question is whether it's worth the trouble. / defaults to being 256MB. If you're trying to conserve space, it might be easier to run through an install and see how big / really needs to be and then do a second install and customize the size of / so that it only has the space it really needs. (On one of my 5.4 systems / requires about 53MB) You may have problems later on if you make the size of / too small. -Glenn That's what I'm going for now. 100MB in / and the rest of the disk given to /usr and swap. Bit of pain really, I thought the whole idea of keeping the bootloader files in /boot was so that /boot could be a separate partition. Not sure about that...I always figured it was to keep / from getting too cluttered. -Glenn Ross -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFC3GbK9bR4xmappRARAsL/AKCq23vmsTKiPKexsFZWF33/G38LlwCgiAh4 wKtAoiMVJw+p2SpBoM+DaNg= =z84k -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
