[gentoo-user] Lilo vs. LVM

[gentoo-user] Lilo vs. LVM

[Konstantinos Agouros]

Hi,

I have a VM with a gentoo guest. For testing I set it up with an LVM
Volume Group that consisted of only one disk. Now I added a 2nd resized
the FS but lilo stopped working. When I call it I get:

# lilo
device-mapper: table ioctl failed: No such device or address
Fatal: device-mapper: dm_task_run(DM_DEVICE_TABLE) failed

/boot is also on the LVM volume. 

Is maybe grub the answer to my problem?

Regards,

Konstantin
-- 
Dipl-Inf. Konstantin Agouros aka Elwood Blues. Internet: elwood@agouros.de
Altersheimerstr. 1, 81545 Muenchen, Germany. Tel +49 89 69370185
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Captain, this ship will not survive the forming of the cosmos." B'Elana Torres

Re: [gentoo-user] Lilo vs. LVM

[Al]

2010/9/4 Konstantinos Agouros <elwood@agouros.de>:
> Hi,
>
> I have a VM with a gentoo guest. For testing I set it up with an LVM
> Volume Group that consisted of only one disk. Now I added a 2nd resized
> the FS but lilo stopped working. When I call it I get:
>
> # lilo
> device-mapper: table ioctl failed: No such device or address
> Fatal: device-mapper: dm_task_run(DM_DEVICE_TABLE) failed
>
> /boot is also on the LVM volume.
>
> Is maybe grub the answer to my problem?

A don't think so. Grub has more features comparing lilo. More features
== more complex. Dealing with VM, LVM and lilo is already one level of
complexity to much if you ask.

Al

[gentoo-user] Re: Lilo vs. LVM

[walt]

On 09/04/2010 07:11 AM, Konstantinos Agouros wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a VM with a gentoo guest. For testing I set it up with an LVM
> Volume Group that consisted of only one disk. Now I added a 2nd resized
> the FS but lilo stopped working. When I call it I get:

Way back when I was using LILO, it had to be reinstalled to the boot block
of the boot drive whenever the partition table changed.  The partition
table was hard-wired into the boot block, so naturally the boot block
needed to be updated.  Dunno if LILO still does that, and I can't recall
how to re-install the boot block, either :/

> Is maybe grub the answer to my problem?

That's what I use, and it's not subject to the re-install problem.
Bit of a learning curve at first, but worth it IMO.

Re: [gentoo-user] Lilo vs. LVM

[Konstantinos Agouros]

In <AANLkTi=z6RZ7umnm3jbCUPBVbehPqzT4xsd=L_hfaZSf@mail.gmail.com> oss.elmar@googlemail.com (Al) writes:

>2010/9/4 Konstantinos Agouros <elwood@agouros.de>:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have a VM with a gentoo guest. For testing I set it up with an LVM
>> Volume Group that consisted of only one disk. Now I added a 2nd resized
>> the FS but lilo stopped working. When I call it I get:
>>
>> # lilo
>> device-mapper: table ioctl failed: No such device or address
>> Fatal: device-mapper: dm_task_run(DM_DEVICE_TABLE) failed
>>
>> /boot is also on the LVM volume.
>>
>> Is maybe grub the answer to my problem?

>A don't think so. Grub has more features comparing lilo. More features
>== more complex. Dealing with VM, LVM and lilo is already one level of
>complexity to much if you ask.
So how would You solve this?

-- 
Dipl-Inf. Konstantin Agouros aka Elwood Blues. Internet: elwood@agouros.de
Altersheimerstr. 1, 81545 Muenchen, Germany. Tel +49 89 69370185
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Captain, this ship will not survive the forming of the cosmos." B'Elana Torres

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Lilo vs. LVM

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 23:03 on Saturday 04 September 2010, walt did 
opine thusly:

> On 09/04/2010 07:11 AM, Konstantinos Agouros wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have a VM with a gentoo guest. For testing I set it up with an LVM
> > Volume Group that consisted of only one disk. Now I added a 2nd resized
> 
> > the FS but lilo stopped working. When I call it I get:
> Way back when I was using LILO, it had to be reinstalled to the boot block
> of the boot drive whenever the partition table changed.  The partition
> table was hard-wired into the boot block, so naturally the boot block
> needed to be updated.  Dunno if LILO still does that, and I can't recall
> how to re-install the boot block, either :/
> 
> > Is maybe grub the answer to my problem?
> 
> That's what I use, and it's not subject to the re-install problem.
> Bit of a learning curve at first, but worth it IMO.

Well, they are boot loaders,

BOOT_LOADERS ARE DIFFERENT. VERY DIFFERENT.

Not shouting, just emphasis. One cannot think of boot-loaders in OS terms, as 
they are not the OS.

lilo does indeed need to be re-written to disk when the partition table 
changes, it does not have the ability to dynamically read a disk, it has no 
clue what a file or an fs is. This makes life simple, but you need to remember 
the extra step.

grub does support dynamically reading disks, meaning there's no extra step 
when making changes. But it did move the complexity into menu.lst.

Which one to use? It's a trade-off. Decide for yourselves where you want the 
complexity to be, and use that one. You will never eliminate the complexity of 
a boot loader, you can however contain it somewhere YOU are familiar with and 
where you feel comfortable working with it.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Lilo vs. LVM

[Momesso Andrea]

Quoting Konstantinos Agouros <elwood@agouros.de>:

> Hi,
>
> I have a VM with a gentoo guest. For testing I set it up with an LVM
> Volume Group that consisted of only one disk. Now I added a 2nd resized
> the FS but lilo stopped working. When I call it I get:
>
> # lilo
> device-mapper: table ioctl failed: No such device or address
> Fatal: device-mapper: dm_task_run(DM_DEVICE_TABLE) failed
>
> /boot is also on the LVM volume.
>
> Is maybe grub the answer to my problem?
>

Sorry for the late reply, I am way back on this list reading :)

I have the same exact problem that I haven't been able to investigate  
yet, calling lilo gives me:

device-mapper: table ioctl failed: No such device or address
Fatal: device-mapper: dm_task_run(DM_DEVICE_TABLE) fail

The funny thing is that I can workaround that chrooting from a livecd,  
and invoking lilo from that, as described in the gentoo handbook.
The other funny thing is that this problem happens randomly, for  
example last week, I upgraded my kernel, run lilo from my system and  
it worked. If I try today it doesn't, but may work in a few days... I  
really don't know how to explain that, anyway I always keep a livecd  
around, just in case.

Should you switch to grub? I don't know, for me is not an option since  
I'm running a triple boot (osx, windows, and gentoo) on a macbook, and  
my gentoo partition is under lvm (root included since I cannot create  
anymore physical partitions) and last time I checked, grub-static  
(yes, it's a no-multilib profile), didn't support booting directly  
from an lvm partition.

--
TopperH
http://topperh.ath.cx

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