Success report: GRUB2, LVM, GPT, AMD64, Debian Installer

Success report: GRUB2, LVM, GPT, AMD64, Debian Installer

[Thomas Schwinge]

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Hello!

A short success report about using GRUB2 on a LVM-only system, with GPT
instead of the usual MBR booting, on a AMD64 system, installed with the
20090531-7 Debian Installer.

I had the DI create a GPT partition table, partitioned that into a small
(1 MiB) GRUB booting partition (as suggested on
<http://grub.enbug.org/BIOS_Boot_Partition>, which I had found by pure
chance), and used all the rest for a LVM PV.  I created a VG, and root
(ext3) and swap LVs.  I Installed the system.  For the bootloader to be
installed, only LILO was offered, so I proceeded without installing that
one, switched to a shell, did a ``chroot /target bash'', followed by
``apt-get install grub-pc'' to install GRUB2, and then ``grub-install
/dev/sda''.  This just worked.  When I disabled the GRUB booting
partition again (for testing this), I indeed got a ``can only use
blocklists, which is bad'' warning, so I enabled it again.  Booting this
system also worked fine.

To sum it up: using GRUB2 for booting a LVM-only system, with GPT instead
of the usual MBR booting, on a AMD64 system, installed with the
20090531-7 Debian Installer does work, but currently needs manual
installing.


Regards,
 Thomas

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Re: Success report: GRUB2, LVM, GPT, AMD64, Debian Installer

[Robert Millan]

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 09:43:34AM +0200, Thomas Schwinge wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> A short success report about using GRUB2 on a LVM-only system, with GPT
> instead of the usual MBR booting, on a AMD64 system, installed with the
> 20090531-7 Debian Installer.
> 
> I had the DI create a GPT partition table, partitioned that into a small
> (1 MiB) GRUB booting partition (as suggested on
> <http://grub.enbug.org/BIOS_Boot_Partition>, which I had found by pure
> chance),

Hi Thomas,

Glad everything's working fine for you.

We try our best to explain why blocklists are problematic, why embedding is
the preferred setup, and why embedding on GPT is not possible without the
BBP as a dedicated partition.

If you think this could be better explained, suggestions are welcome.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."