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/boot is empty


DragonMage
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I just installed Mandrake 10.1 OE for my desktop. My previous partition scheme is like this:

 

/dev/hdb1 /

/dev/hdb2 /home

/dev/hdb3 swap

 

I decided to add a /dev/hdb5 for my /boot directory. Everything seems fine until I rebooted and then I found out that Linux hates my partition scheme, saying that it cannot have more than 4 primary partitions or whatever. Thus it drops me into maintenance mode kinda like init 1. To solve the boot problem, I have to delete my swap and /boot partition and make it like this instead

 

/dev/hdb1 /

/dev/hdb2 /home

/dev/hdb5 swap

/dev/hdb6 /boot

 

After doing this, it boots up fine, the thing is that my /boot partition has only 2 files, the kernel header and its link. No vmlinuz, no initrd, nothing. Yet it still can boot up fine. I am just scared to rerun lilo since it won't find the required files in the /boot partition.

 

So the questions are:

 

1. Is it normal for linux to boot up even though the /boot partition is empty?

2. How to fill up the /boot partition with the required files without reinstalling my mandrake from scratch?

 

Thanks in advance.

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Why the hell you would want a /boot partiton diferent of the / (root) partiton?

I cannot see the point nor believe it would ever work... or maybe is just I'm tired

 

1. Is it normal for linux to boot up even though the /boot partition is empty?

 

It is just a feeling, but what happens if you comment the /boot partition line in your fstab file and you reboot?

 

I guess you are booting safely because there IS a /boot directory in your / partition that is doing the job.

What I feel that is happening is that lilo boots using the root partition as it has to do (see lilo.conf file), which has a plain /boot directory; then in a very late stage in terms of the pure booting process, the partitons specified in /etc/fstab are mounted, including your /boot entry. That /boot partition hides the 'real' /boot directory to your eyes.

 

Conclusion there is a healthy /boot directory in your root partition that is later hidden by your /boot partition mount

 

2. How to fill up the /boot partition with the required files without reinstalling my mandrake from scratch?
Just don't use a /boot partition because it will never work (IMHO, again I must say that I'm tired, so I might be wrong)

 

HTH

Edited by aru
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me tired too but you sure got me confused aru :cheeky:

a lot of people use a separate /boot partition

...or have I miss understood all these years :beer: ??

 

I tried it once and it was utterly insane with 6 distros all trying to use it. Quickly, things went crazy and nothing booted :cheesy: ...I'll never use a separate /boot again :drum:

 

Yeah, your /boot dir is being used.

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A lot of people used too use a separate /boot partition. IIRC gentoo wanted to install one by default when I installed it some time ago. I think it might be a throughback to the days when lilo had trouble with reiserfs and perhaps other new filesystems. People would format their /boot with ext or ext3 and do the rest with reiserfs or whatever. /boot is all that lilo needs to get a hold of so that's where filesystem problems with lilo would show up.

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An older version of System Commander Personal Edition did not recognize ReiserFS, so I had to make the /boot partition (overkill of 128 MB) and when I installed mandrake, I had it put Lilo/Grub in the first sector of the Root partition, which is /boot. No problems whatsoever.

 

Unlike many linux users, I have no problems with proprietary software.

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Well, the reason for me having a separate /boot directory is I want to try Ubuntu without trashing my Mandrake next. It's a lot easier having multiple distros by having a separate /boot directory than copying the /boot directory for the second distro into the first distro.

 

I think I am going to reinstall anyway. As usual, there are some personal quirks that this first installation is having so that it is easier for me to reinstall from scratch than solving it one by one.

 

Thanks for the hidden /boot directory in the / partition tip. I forgot about that :)

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