f8 boots!

[John Summerfield]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 17 December 2007, John Summerfield wrote:
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>> On Monday 17 December 2007, John Summerfield wrote:
>>>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>>> Now, I have a large corpus of email I'd like to transfer over to the f8
>>>>> install, but apparently the lack of a bios extension prevents the sata
>>>>> disk from being seen when booted to FC6.
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be much simpler if I could have MAKEDEV or udev, make
>>>>> a "/dev/VolGroup01" tree when fc6 is booted, however I can't see how
>>>>> that would be done.
>>>>>
>>>>> F8 does see the old drives, all are sdx as opposed to hdx drives, and I
>>>>> can mount the fc6 boot partition while running f8.  But my attempts to
>>>>> mount it all failed cuz there apparently can be only 1 VolGroup0X at a
>>>>> time.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can someone tell me how to mount the fc6 slash to a mountpoint of f8?
>>>>>
>>>>> Or how to mount the f8 VolGroup01 onto fc6?
>>>> man lvm
>>> Doh!  I tried that, but since its lvm2 I used that and got nothing.  But,
>>> that appears to be the tools page.  There is no mention of the word mount,
>>> nor is there a mention of lvm in the mount manpage.  From there:
>>>
>>>        -t vfstype
>>>               The argument following the -t is used to indicate the file
>>> system type.  The file  system  types  which
>>>               are  currently  supported  include:  adfs, affs, autofs,
>>> cifs, coda, coherent, cramfs, debugfs, devpts,
>>>               efs, ext, ext2, ext3, hfs, hpfs, iso9660, jfs, minix, msdos,
>>> ncpfs, nfs, nfs4, ntfs, proc, qnx4, ramfs,
>>>               reiserfs,  romfs,  smbfs,  sysv,  tmpfs,  udf,  ufs, umsdos,
>>> usbfs, vfat, xenix, xfs, xiafs.  Note that
>>>               coherent, sysv and xenix are equivalent and that xenix and
>>> coherent will be removed at  some  point  in
>>>               the  future  âￜￜ  use sysv instead. Since kernel version
>>> 2.1.21 the types ext and xiafs do not exist any-
>>>               more. Earlier, usbfs was known as usbdevfs.
>>>
>>> No mention of lvm, and an attempted mount using ext3 fails, wrong fs
>>> message or??.
>>>
>>> So where is this actually covered?  I'm reticent to attempt editing fstab
>>> until I know it works as I had a heck of a time recovering from a one
>>> character typu in that once before, it will not skip a bad line and
>>> proceed with the rest of the configuration.  Any error there appears to be
>>> fatal.
>> down near the bottom there's a list of other commands; likely renaming a
>> volume group would get you out of trouble,,,,
>>
> I had never named the amandatapes partition, but for this I did.  I don't know 
> if its barfing on that, or the /boot name for the 0,0 partition on the first 
> pata drive.
> 
> I can from here, rename either, but that isn't going to put a comment marker 
> in front of those two lines at the bottom of the f8 /etc/fstab.
> 
> What we have really needed for years is a marker we can put in fstab, below 
> the "gotta have it" stuff, that tells it to report in dmesg any problems it 
> has with the rest of our scribbles, but since it has by then a working 
> system, it should continue the boot so it can be fixed with the normal tools.
> 
> This making everything read-only (in spite of a kernel argument to the 
> contrary at grub load time) so it cannot be fixed which absolutely defeats 
> the purpose of its dropping you to a root shell in the first place, so why 
> bother?
> 
> There is paranoia, and there is extreme paranoia, and there is BS, and this is
> BS when that root shell cannot fix the error being reported.  So it looks as 
> if a one character error in fstab is going to make me re-install f8 (or 
> something else maybe) and recopy all that 30+GB again.  As campers go, this 
> one ain't too happy about that prospect since I already have 2 days in 
> this "Upgrade/Install".

You remind me of my daughter, Rachel. When, at age 5, she started 
school, she expected that within a week she'd be able to read.

Calm down, you can become a capable Linux user, but not today. It takes 
time and work.


> 
> So how the heck do I get that "/dev/mapper/VolGroup01" (the F8 / device) stuff 
> generated or made while I'm booted to fc6, which would allow me to fix that 
> from a fully functioning system?  This is the question I've asked from 
> several points around the bush and which no one has addressed so far.

It complained about having two with the same name. I'd try renaming one. 
I've actually not had to fight with lvm yet, so I can't say what works, 
but I have tried to point you at the tools for the job.


> 
> 
> Linux likes to claim it doesn't have a single point of failure.  But if a typu 

It does?

> in fstab doesn't qualify, I don't know what does.
> 
> Thanks John.
> 
Gene
Most of your problems arise from your ignorance. Ignorance is where we 
all start, and it's curable by acquiring an education, by learning from 
others and from one's own experience.

A good way to learn from others is by reading appropriate books; I have 
dozens of books about matters relevant to Linux, to Windows, to 
computers in general, and other matters. Good books have an organised 
program of study (even if they don't claim to) and help you cover the 
set material without the gaps that relying on experience alone leaves.

And reading a book can lead to a quick education, consumed at your own 
comfortable pace. Some books I have read literally overnight, some I 
pick the most important bits out of and never read the entire tome 
because it's not all relevant.

A good introductory book on Fedora would answer most of the questions 
you've asked here, including how to mount the filesystem rw.

There's a good reason to mount it ro by default, that is exactly what 
you want if you have to do a filesystem check. If there's disk 
corruption, and you start out writing willy nilly to the disk, _ouch_.

I would also expect the book to cover lvm, the basics of virtual 
consoles and logging in on one, system logging, package management and 
building software yourself.

It's also worth reading the RHEL5 manuals, they're online at Red Hat and 
CentOS.





-- 

Cheers
John

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