Handbook Talk:Alpha/Installation/Disks
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A comment [[User:Larry|Larry]] 13:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC) : A reply [[User:Sally|Sally]] 21:33, 19 March 2025 (UTC) :: Your reply ~~~~
fdisk broken on Alpha
Hi,
In section "Deleting all slices" fdisk is used to create a bsd disklabel. fdisk is broken on alpha (since a while back) and will probably not get fixed. I believe using parted is the best way to create a bsd disklabel on a disk which does not already have a valid bsd label. I don't have the permissions to edit the handbooks but I remember getting stuck on this one a while back when I forgot about the brokenness of fdisk on alpha.
- Thanks for reporting, we use a system where prepose changes using the Template:Proposal system. An example of how we do this can be found at Handbook_Talk:AMD64/Installation/Tools#Add_a_NetworkManager_in_section_Networking_tools
- Would you be able to write us up a quick draft of this change please and I'll get to work on getting the correct people seeing this to make it happen.
- Feel free to report as many issues as you find in the Alpha section as it's high on my list to bring these docs up to date, however I currently don't have hardware.
In order to create a bsd disklabel parted must be used since fdisk is broken in that sense, once we have the disklabel in place we can continue using fdisk to create all the slices Lindholm (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
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Creating a BSD disklabel
If the hard drive is completely blank, then first create a BSD disklabel. On alpha, this can't be done using fdisk, so using parted is the way forward here.
Now fire up parted:
root #parted /dev/sda Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted)mklabel bsdWarning: The existing disk label on /dev/sda will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue? Yes/No? yes (parted) quit Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Now that we have a bsd disklabel on our drive, continue creating slices. This can be done using parted, or as in the examples below, using fdisk:
root #fdisk /dev/sdaDeleting all slices
.- Added in Special:Diff/1273120/1343937, thanks!
- --csfore (talk) 17:09, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
create a separete /boot partition
Current gentoo installation follows the "merged-usr" file system layout. However, the aboot boot loader only supports ext2 and ext3 file systems. Using a small /boot partition for kernels and the aboot.conf file, lets the user select other modern file systems for the root file system containing the rest of the system files. Suggestion: add a section about creating a /boot partition separate from root file system to better reflect the "merged-usr" file system layout. This also means that the handbook needs to be adjusted to reflect that, in this example, root file system is in now on sda4 and that sda2 need to be mounted in /boot, also aboot.conf will reside in /boot not in /etc.
Lindholm (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
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Creating the swap slice
On Alpha based systems there is no need for a separate boot slice, but in this example we will create a separate /boot slice to hold the kernels and boot loader configuration files also, the first cylinder cannot be used as the aboot image will be placed there.
We will create a swap slice starting at the third cylinder, with a total size of 1 GB. Use n to create a new slice. After creating the slice, we will change its type to 1 (one), meaning swap.
BSD disklabel command (m for help):nPartition (a-p): a First cylinder (1-5290, default 1): 3 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (3-5290, default 5290): +1024M
BSD disklabel command (m for help):tPartition (a-c): a Hex code (type L to list codes): 1
After these steps a layout similar to the following should be shown:
BSD disklabel command (m for help):p3 partitions: # start end size fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 3 1003 1001 swap c: 1 5290* 5289* unused 0 0
Creating the boot slice
Create a boot file system containing the kernels and boot loader configuration file (aboot.conf). aboot supports ext2 and ext3 filesystems only. Create the boot slice starting from the first cylinder after the swap slice. Use the p command to view where the swap slice ends. In our example, this is at 1003, making the boot slice start at 1004.
BSD disklabel command (m for help):nPartition (a-p): b First cylinder (1-5290, default 1): 1004 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (3-5290, default 5290): +1024M
BSD disklabel command (m for help):tPartition (a-c): b Hex code (type L to list codes): 08
After these steps a layout similar to the following should be shown:
BSD disklabel command (m for help):p3 partitions: # start end size fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 3 1003 1001 swap b: 1004 2005 1001 ext2 c: 1 5290* 5289* unused 0 0
Creating the root slice
We will now create the root slice, starting from the first cylinder after the boot slice. Use the p command to view where the boot slice ends. In our example, this is at 2005, making the root slice start at 2006.
Another problem is that there is currently a bug in fdisk making it think the number of available cylinders is one above the real number of cylinders. In other words, when asked for the last cylinder, decrease the cylinder number (in this example: 5290) with one.
When the slice is created, we change the type to 8, for ext2.
BSD disklabel command (m for help):nPartition (a-p): b First cylinder (1-5290, default 1): 2006 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1004-5290, default 5290): 5289
BSD disklabel command (m for help):tPartition (a-c): b Hex code (type L to list codes): 8
The resulting slice layout should now be similar to this:
BSD disklabel command (m for help):p3 partitions: # start end size fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 3 1003 1001 swap b: 1004 2005 4286 ext2 c: 1 5290* 5289* unused 0 0 d: 2006 5289 3283 ext2
Save the slice layout and exit
Exit the fdisk application by typing w. This will also save the slice layout.
Command (m for help):w- Added in Special:Diff/1343937/1343939, thanks!
- --csfore (talk) 17:16, 23 February 2025 (UTC)