slint 2tb limit

Fri Mar 16 12:59:34 UTC 2018

The slint dvd turned into a coaster but I finally got an install on gpt 
to work.  A three partition arrangement with boot being the first 
partition and having bios_grub set on.  A second partition with type 
linux, and a third partition with type swap.  With that setup, I was 
able to install lilo to the mbr it will not install to the superblock of 
the linux partition though.  That boot partition was set primary and was 
2MIB in size.  I ended up with a 4GB swap partition and had a 2.8T linux 
partition by the time it was all done.  The gpt install is more complex, 
but doing it gets you past the 2TB limit.

On Thu, 15 Mar 2018, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:

> Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 16:58:35
> From: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
> To: blinux-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: slint 2tb limit
> 
> Hello, Didier here.
>
> Could you please name yourself when you post, as this list does not name the sender and I am more comfortable being sure whom I speak to.
>
> Le 15/03/2018 ? 03:50, Linux for blind general discussion a ?crit?:
>> although tools are on slint disks to handle gpt disks anyone attempting to have a gpt label on an efi disk will encounter insurmountable problems from lilo.? I was unable to install on a gpt disk with lilo the mbr was unuseable as a good place and the superblock of the / partition was also unuseable lilo threw errors in both cases.
>
> Well, there is no efi disks, only partitions of type EFI system partition aka ESP. A disk drive that has a GPT (GUID partition table) can include one or more ESP but this is optional.
>
>> From your tests results I infer that lilo can't write the boot sector, neither on the MBR nor on the / partition of a disk equipped with GPT, if the / partition is greater the 2TB.
> I think that's because in this case:
> 1) the protective MBR is at the end of the disk, i.e. after the 2TB limit.
> 2) In case of the / partition this partition would need to be marked bootable, which is not possible AFAIK in case of GPT
>
> However lilo can write on the MBR of a GPT with partitions smaller that 2TB, I've done that many times and when using an UEFI firmware I even recommend to install both lilo and elilo, as this way the system can boot both in UEFI mode and in Legacy mode.
>
>> ? In order to do this at all, I had to put a dos label on the hard drive and restrict myself to 2,044gb for / partition and I used 4gb for the swap partition as well.
>
> I assume that you actually you actually meant 2,044TB, is that right?
>
>> Something else with lilo.? If I put the swap partition first and / as second partition lilo cannot install on the superblock of /dev/sda2 and cannot install on the mbr either.? So long as the / partition is first it's possible to install to the mbr and I have no idea if lilo will be able to install to the superblock of /dev/sda1 either since I didn't try that yet.
>
> I have no clue about this behavior, and unfortunately don't have a proper hardware at hand to test. Did you make the / partition bootable?
>
>> Maybe it will be possible to take that 3rd tb and use it for a data partition eventually unless a tool can be used to break the dos barrier
> This is certainly what I would do. If a partition is not used for booting lilo won't care, at least if it is on another drive than the one on which lies the boot sector, and maybe even if all partitions are on the same drive on the condition that the big partition is the last one. Anyway if you use two separate drives there should be no issue.
>
> The only way I know to break the dos barrier is to format the drive with sectors of more than 512 bytes, at least 1024. But I am not sure it's worthwhile and never tried.
>
>> Other label types are available than gpt and dos I just haven't studied them all that much except for ntfs just yet.
>
> Feel free to experiment and report the results, even though I am not very optimistic on lilo's ability to work with partition tables other than dos or gpt.
>
> Thanks for reporting so far.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Didier
>
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