Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:19:30 -0700 From: Glenn Dawson <glenn@antimatter.net> To: Ross Kendall Axe <ross@axe.homelinux.net>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /boot on a separate partition Message-ID: <6.1.0.6.2.20050718190554.11fe1e10@cobalt.antimatter.net> In-Reply-To: <42DC53BE.6040205@axe.homelinux.net> References: <42DC1173.6020307@axe.homelinux.net> <20050718142635.E7170@border.crystalsphere.multiverse> <42DC53BE.6040205@axe.homelinux.net>
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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
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