Hi ! everybody ! New user here, just registered, with some difficulty - I hear the
web server was getting issues __{{emoticon}}__

The question-problem I wish to bring to your sagacious attention is whether it is
possible at all to get AntiX installed onto a hard disk (external USB) which is native 4K-sectorised, i.e. sectors are not 512-byte"emulated" (as seen by the host computer).

I did reserve and pre-format 1.5G swap and ~14 Gbytes ext3 for root & home.
However working from the live system (on USB key), the GUI installer likely does not"see" the prepared partitions and chokes at the stage of part selection __{{emoticon}}__

Using two different partitioners (AntiX's own parted & the extremely competent and versatile DFSwin) in preparing the disk made no difference.

Twofold question : - is it possible at all /in principle/ to intall AntiX into such a device ? - How so ?

I haven't tried the command line installer (if any), deferring to this site's regulars' expertise first !

Happy to meet you all and thanks in advance ! Oh and if posted to the wrong section, let me apologize, I'll be glad to re-pot or move to the appropriate section - if any - as instructed...

--
NinhuX

Howdy and Welcome.

Might I make a suggestion. Post a duplicate thread of this issue at

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Register there if you have not already. The site should be in your bookmarks folder.
Reason I suggest this?

Our forum is still limping a bit from issues I have notified members of.
Mepis forums has the people who know the installer inside and out.
A few of our members like me are busy with testing and tweaking MX-15 alpha 3 and are
hanging out there instead because of both testing and forum issues this past week here.

Is this usb drive a msdos type of partition or gpt type of partition?
Pretty unusual problem you present here?
If you get a fix presented at the Mepis forums.

Can you also post the fix in this thread also.
I know I am asking twice the work.
But I would not ask something of a member I would not do myself.

Happy Trailz, Rok

OK, I'll duplicate the question, per your suggestion. Maybe not before a few days,
real life issues interfering. Thank you, Rokytnji !

>Is this usb drive a msdos type of partition or gpt type of partition?
MBR : ye good olde IBM/MS type, except of course 4K sectors were not standard, back then.... One terabyte in whole partitionned device.

As usual after a couple cups of coffee. I kinda had a brain storm and thought maybe a newer version of Gparted might be in order to deal with your issue as newer versions of gparted have the tools to deal with advanced hard drives and include newer file systems you can format in also.


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You might try presetting partitions with the gparted live session. Then try running the installer. Worth a experiment and besides.
I like keeping certain linux cds on my rack like a wrenches in my tool box in my motorcycle shop.

This is GParted live 0.23.0-1.
=============================

Release Notes
-------------
New in this release:

* The underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded.
This release is based on the Debian Sid repository (as of 2015/Aug/06).
* New GParted 0.23.0.

I can't see 4k sectors being a problem, as they have been used for some time.
Might be the way you created the partitions, using native partitioning tools is always the best way to go.
(I usually use good old fdisk when creating partitions.)

Of course can antiX that.
The problem is less a question of the OS.
The question is: Can your controller that? __{{emoticon}}__


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fatmac wrote:I can't see 4k sectors being a problem, as they have been used for some time.
Might be the way you created the partitions, using native partitioning tools is always the best way to go.
(I usually use good old fdisk when creating partitions.)

Both partitions were visible and accessible to Antix (live), but the installer (GUI) could not seem to find them. Right, Fatmac, this installer may not like something in the way these partitions were setup - although they are primaries (both the swap and ext3) so that the usual ambifuities in how"sectors before" is computed should not be the issue here.

I could try again using fdisk next, and shall report back. T.Y.

rokytnji wrote: a newer version of Gparted might be in order ...

How do I most easily upgrade the Gparted from the Live system, please ?

Mepis community forum...

Registration inited two days ago, account exists but still pending admin approval. Normal delay there or should I try anew ? Maybe moot point anyway
since you and this good here forum are very much helpful and hopefully my issue should be resolved soon...

I think that the graphical installer is very limited in what it sees for partitions. For another example I think that it also does not see gpt partitions. Perhaps try installing using"cli-installer" as root from the terminal.

Dave wrote:I think that the graphical installer is very limited in what it sees for partitions. Perhaps try installing using"cli-installer" as root from the terminal.

Aha! you're confirming a suspicion that's been in my mind from the start.
Going to try"cli-installer" now, before any further move (just hoping it's not overly newbie-hostile...).

See ya !

So here's the update - and, good news : the command-line installation script worked
perfectly in my situation ! No need to look for further workarounds :=)

The not so good news is this has confirmed what Dave above suggested, the GUI installer that AntiX uses is not quite up to the task - if it's not too presumptuous, I'd suggest it should be enhanced because, of course, that is the tool that most newcomers will want to use first and it makes a bad first impression when said tool does not work as advertised...

Thank you very much to all of you whose advice helped resolve this issue !

Good to hear you are up & running, enjoy.

fatmac wrote:Good to hear you are up & running, enjoy.

Thanx ! Actually this was but preliminary, now the goal is to boot the vmlinuz
from the odd device. I can load and transfer control to the MBR either using Chenall's latest Grub4DOS with USB2 drivers - and that Yaya2007 made 4K-sector aware, unfortunately while it provides fully adequate real mode"int 13" access, its partition enumeration does not work, so I can boot an MBR, /not/ a vmlinuz kernel directly.

Thus I have setup Grub to the external disk's MBR - the version which came with AntiX, that is Grub-2 not grub-legacy, unless I'm mistaken . From Grub4DOS I load and start the code in the device's MBR - the whole sector, 4,096 byte - which IMO should bootstrap Linux properly; BUT the Grub (Antix's) fails miserably (while still in the MBR, still in real mode! Yes I have a primitive debugger usable that early) : probably the"grand" boot loader is lost with 4K-sectors alas!

Is this Antix 15 using an up-to-date Grub (2) ? Is Grub (2) supposed to understand MBR-partitions on 4K-sector-devices ? Is there hope with, say, Syslinux, instead ?

Not sure what you are trying to do in the above.
Are you trying to use the MBR of one disk to boot off another disk?
I think if that were the case you would need to have a small /boot partition on disk one that can contain the data structures (device maps, boot configuration, images / resolution sets , etc)

There is the option to chainload from the mbr install of grub to a partition installed version of grub. I think there are a few forum members that could help you out better there.

There is also the option to specify the location of the kernel / init files on the other disk with the added kernel line parameters of root=*** bdev=**** bdir=***. IIRC the root= is the root device id / dev node, bdev= is essentially the same specifying that device id / dev node of the device you wish to boot from, and bdir= is boot directory where you would like to grab / set the other options. There are also other options which I cannot recall. I think some would set settings similar to the above but using labels blabel=***? plabel=***???? I seem to recall a catch here though... not 100% sure but I think it had to do with the versions needed to be similar as to use the same initrd?

Anywho I would need to double check on most of this... it has been a bit (alpha testing for V15 I think.!#?) that I have played around with mixing boot disks / locations / partitions / directories /etc. As well as mixing iso boot / frugal installs / frugal with common persistance files / iso boot real home partition/ frugal install with real home partition /Real installed systems and a whole host of odds and ends of boot configuration and mixups.

So in short it should be possible to mix up boot devices and such... the only thing that I would not be certain of working is the 4k sector bit as I have never worked with such a configuration as far as I know... but if it works across a mix of msdos and gpt disks I would guess it would also work with 4k sectoring.

I was trying to bootstart (from an auxiliary Grub4DOS) Grub(2) stage 1 which is in the MBR of the disk at issue. Grub(2) failed miserably !

My next trial would bypass grub(2) entirely and have the auxiliary Grub4DOS start
antix's vmlinuz kernel directly, again from the 4K-device (otherwise there would be no fun). Since at the moment Grub4DOS cannot access file systems on 4-K-disks, only sectors, I have to identify the physical placement of vmlinuz and pass it to Grub4DOS as a"blocklist". Though I know very little of the internals of an"ext3" system, I have (mostly) been able to get the blocklist, using"debugfs" - as explained in that page :

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Tomorrow I'll finish connecting the dots and try this. I have good hope...

Update : Grub4DOS does not accept the blocklist notation
for kernel files. So much the worse...