Boot Loaders, RH3.0, DL380

[Mark Travis]

Anybody know why if I create a big root partition (20G or whatnot) with no separate /boot partition that neither LILO nor GRUB install properly?

I'm installing on top of the embedded raid controller (something 5i).

When I create a small /boot partition as the first partition it's all good.

I'm just wondering why the combination of the raid controller and big / partition = no boot loader.

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

Truth be known, I've not tried any modern linux with a single large boot/root partition, I always throw 100 or so MB to a dedicated /boot/.

Just to flesh out the details, you're using an embedded "SmartArray 5i", which uses the cciss driver.

You are using the driver that is distributed by HP aren't you, and not the one distributed with the OS.

[Mark Travis]

That's a good question about the driver.

I'm using the one distributed by redhat.

I imagine I'm supposed to plug in the modules I find on an HP cd somewhere when I get to that point, right?

Thanks much.

[Stuart Browne]

Yes, there's a process you go through to load external drivers during installation.

Driver Hell can be had from http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/locate/101_4706.html .

That being said, I doubt it'll make much difference.

I do know that both LILO and GRUB state that they have no issues using large file systems as their root, and I'm reasonably certain that the HP BIOS' don't have any such limitations.

[Mark Travis]

Thanks, Stuart, for the info.

I was going to hold off on all of the cruft until I got the OS installed.

But apparently the HP's stuff needs to go in before Redhat's.

[Jeroen Peereboom]

Mark,

No offence: you're free to do what you like, but it's good practice to have a /boot partition. Why try to solve a problem that shouldn't be there?

JP.

[Mark Travis]

I'm not offended.

Why is it "good practice" to have a /boot partition?

I don't like gratuitous partitioning because I've found that I've spent more time symlinking and recreating partitions in heavily partitioned filesystems than I've spent messing with systems that have too few partitions for some reason.

So I ususally just have a big / partition and swap, and I don't add partitions unless I know the box's workload will require it. Though I understand that a separate /boot partition is pretty much necessary for software mirrored root disks, I have the hardware raid controller. Should I rip that thing out and use software raid instead?

[Jeroen Peereboom]

Mark,

I would use the hardware RAID.
By the way, I do not think these things are related.

JP.

(As a /boot partition of 100MB is large enough, why not make an exception on your partitioning philosophy for a /boot partition? Make it 500MB if you like.
You're quite right about keeping the number of partitions low, I don't like unneeded symlinks too.)

[Robert Binkhorst]

Hi,

This has to do with the amount of sectors that can be read during boot. If your boot sector is not within x sectors (I can't remember the exact specs), it can't be found and you won't boot.

If you really want to know, you'll need to read the following doc:
http://lilo.go.dyndns.org/

HTH,

Robert