| Summary: | Vital information missing from warning in 9.13.1, Re the BIOS partition | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora Documentation | Reporter: | Wayne Pollock <pollock> |
| Component: | install-guide | Assignee: | Petr Bokoc <pbokoc> |
| Status: | CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE | QA Contact: | Ruediger Landmann <rlandman+disabled> |
| Severity: | unspecified | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | unspecified | ||
| Version: | devel | CC: | pbokoc, rlandman, zach |
| Target Milestone: | --- | Keywords: | Reopened |
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | i386 | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2013-07-31 14:18:08 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
Hi Wayne, Thanks for all of this - looking into it now. And yes, I think it would be ideal if the other UEFI points could be lodged as a separate bug, if you could. Cheers, Jack (In reply to comment #0) > > I don't believe this is referring to the ESP, or EFI System Partition, normally > mounted at /boot/efi/. But, how do you create a BIOS boot partition in > Anaconda? I don't see that as an option in disk partitioning part of the > documentation, or in any of the screen captures. I think you can create one > with gdisk or cgdisk (but not fdisk or cfdisk?), using a partition type of > 0xEF02? In any case, detailed directions need to be provided. A BIOS Boot partition can be created by selecting the option from the File System Type dropdown menu when creating a Standard Partition on a BIOS system. The option is not relevant to EFI systems, so its absence should not be an issue. If you are being told to create a BIOS Boot partition on an EFI system, this is not intended behaviour - see http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-September/157490.html But if there are further implications to what you're reporting, please let me know. I agree though that the means to create a BIOS boot partition are not clear. I will reword the addition made about this for bug 704244 to clarify that BIOS Boot is a file system selected for a standard partition. > And, should this partition be marked as the bootable one, or the /boot > partition as normal? This partition is in addition to /boot. The Recommended Partitioning Scheme in the guide states that GRUB requires an ext2, ext3, or ext4 file system, so both partitions are required as the BIOS Boot would not serve this purpose. See http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Installation_Guide/s2-diskpartrecommend-x86.html Also, I think > the 1 MiB size should be changed to 128 MiB, since some dual-boot systems will > need the gap between the BIOS boot partition and the next partition (I think > Apple?) > David, can I ask what you think of this recommendation? After reading your comment, I tried it again. I then realized I was trying to create an LVM logical volume, not a "regular" one. If I create a regular partition, the option for a BIOS Boot partition is there. So that bit can be dropped from this bug report, please. but if you still feel it worthwhile to clarify the addition made for bug 704244, please do so. But my confusion as to which partition should be marked bootable continues. Since BIOS firmware can't read the GPT partition information, it would be my guess that the BIOS Boot partition must be marked as bootable, using the BIOS boot flag (and not the GPT boot flag; those are not the same!) Probably, the answer is both are marked bootable, the BIOS Boot partition so BIOS firmware can see the boot flag and not skip the disk, and /boot partition since the loader software within the BIOS Boot partition does read GPT (Is that a loader for UEFI, or the UEFI itself?), and thus needs to see /boot as (GPT) bootable. As for the partition type number I originally reported should be listed, I did some research and exchanged emails with Rod Smith (the author of gdisk). Those numbers are only valid with gdisk, cgdisk, or sgdisk, at least currently. BIOS partitions have a one byte type number, GPT has a much longer one (a BIOS boot partition has the GUID of 21686148-6449-6E6F-744E-656564454649, which is roughly ASCII for “InotNeedEFI”), so gdisk defined some two byte type numbers to be easier to type and remember than the real GPT ones. If a user were to try to format a disk outside of Anaconda, and then install Fedora on it, they no doubt would need to know which partitions to set as BIOS bootable, GPT bootable, and the BIOS and GPT type numbers for the partitions needed. Since few users would need that, I would suggest putting those details in an appendix, and just have a link to that from the main section. Whatever you decide to do about explaining all this is fine by me. (As requested, I am opening a new bug for the UEFI stuff.) Thanks for your help! Wayne, sorry for such a delay in following this up. I've spoken to David Lehman and he's told me that neither the BIOS boot partition nor the /boot partition need to be marked as bootable, because BIOS boot is only needed when using a GPT disklabel and GPT disklabels don't care about boot flags. This partially neutralises the concern about providing partition type GUIDs when naming bootable partitions outside of Anaconda, but David also doesn't believe such a specific use case requiring long ID codes needs to be documented. Consquently, I am closing this bug, but changes will be made for the UEFI bug you created as an offshoot of this one. I neglected to mention that David also felt that a 128MB BIOS Boot partition should not be recommended, and that 1MB should remain the standard. I'm okay with this. I don't see in your comments where the timezone setting question was answered; was my information about Windows and how the different versions use set the hardware clock incorrect? I appreciate the time taken to look into all the issues I reported. Thanks! Oh, sorry Wayne. I missed that paragraph this time around, thinking it was part of the UEFI section of your original report that got copied to bug 800802. It turns out that I made these changes around the time you filed this bug, and they made it into F17. I evidently failed to update this bug. In [1], I've added the following bullet point under "If you are installing Fedora as an additional operating system on an existing system, record:" "Whether the hardware clock uses local time or UTC. In Linux systems, this information can be found in /etc/adjtime. Changing the hardware clock setting in Section 9.7, “Time Zone Configuration” may cause unexpected behavior in Fedora." And in [2], I rewrote the warning titled "Windows and the System Clock" as follows: "Do not enable the System clock uses UTC option if your machine also runs Microsoft Windows. Microsoft operating systems change the BIOS clock to match local time rather than UTC. This may cause unexpected behavior under Fedora unless you have manually configured Windows 7 to use UTC." To reflect the changes, I'm re-opening this bug and setting it to MODIFIED. Thanks for catching that Wayne, and for your feedback. [1] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Installation_Guide/ch-ent-table.html [2] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Installation_Guide/s1-timezone-x86.html |
Description of problem: The install guide says this at the top of 9.13.1: <quote> If you are creating a custom partition layout on a non-EFI x86 system, you are strongly advised to create a separate, 1MB BIOS boot partition. This will be used by the GRUB boot loader for storage. </quote> I don't believe this is referring to the ESP, or EFI System Partition, normally mounted at /boot/efi/. But, how do you create a BIOS boot partition in Anaconda? I don't see that as an option in disk partitioning part of the documentation, or in any of the screen captures. I think you can create one with gdisk or cgdisk (but not fdisk or cfdisk?), using a partition type of 0xEF02? In any case, detailed directions need to be provided. Also, I think the 1 MiB size should be changed to 128 MiB, since some dual-boot systems will need the gap between the BIOS boot partition and the next partition (I think Apple?) And, should this partition be marked as the bootable one, or the /boot partition as normal? This is especially urgent to fix, as automatic partitioning apparently won't work in this case, so F16 can't be installed! Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Fedora 16 Installation Guide, revision 1.0-0. How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Read install guide 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: The "Important Note" box should be updated, something such as: <quote> If you are creating a custom partition layout on a non-EFI x86 system, you are strongly advised to create a separate, 128 MiB BIOS boot partition. This will be used by the GRUB boot loader for storage. This partition should not be formatted with a filesystem, nor assigned a mount point. It must be a primary partition. If creating this partition using another utility such as gdisk or gparted, make sure to set the correct partition type of 0xEF02. Make sure it is marked as the DOS/MBR bootable partition, instead of /boot. </quote> (I'm not sure about the bit on primary partition, or the bit about marking it as bootable. I do know MBR bootable is different than EFI bootable, but I'm not sure of the details.) Additional info: I have noted a number of places mentioning UEFI need updates or refinements. Feel free to tell me to refile these in a separate bug report. Chapter 6 omits an important pre-install step, namely determining if the hardware clock uses local time or UTC. If Windows ME and older, it is local time. I believe Window7 uses UTC (or it is optional). On Linux, you can look at the last line of /etc/adjtime, which is where this choice is recorded. (Also, the "!" box in chapter 9.6 musty be updated; it says Windows uses local time, but that depends on the version of Windows used.) The note at the top of chapter 7 should be modified from: <quote> Fedora 16 does not support UEFI for 32-bit x86 systems. </quote> to <quote> Fedora 16 does not support UEFI for 32-bit x86 systems. Only BIOS is supported for such systems. </quote> Section 7.1.3 ("Additional Boot Options") doesn't describe using the network install CD at all. Section 9.5.1, the "Note" box says to use system-config-network, but the following paragraph says to use NetworkManager tool. I don't believe those are the same thing, and the actual name of the NetworkManager tool isn't NetworkManager (?); also the wrong font is used, if that is indeed the utility name. The Warning box in section 9.11 "Use Free Space". Says "If your 64-bit x86 system uses UEFI instead of BIOS, you will need to manually create a /boot partition. This partition must have an ext3 file system." Surely this should be "ext2, ext3, or ext4 file system"? This note is repeated in 9.13. This contradicts the note in 9.13.5 ("recommended disk layout"). Section 9.13 omits any reference to the "BIOS boot" partition, or the ESP. Surely the ESP should be shown in the recommended layout, as vfat, 150-300 MiB sized partition mounted at /boot/efi/. With a not stating that ext2, ext3, or ext4 types could be used but may cause problems with dual-booted systems. In Appendix A, table A.1 "Partition Types" is out-dated. At the very least you need to add the entry for a BIOS Boot partition, which I believe is 0xEF02.