how do I force an ubuntu install to use BIOS mode rather than EFI / GPT
Disable EFI in the bios? Force the boot selector to boot from the ISO as BIOS (and not from an EFI file)?  At least, those are the two methods I've done in the past, generally speaking.
you boot in usb mode
when you select boot device it should show two
hmm he.net route changed suddenly.
oh and now there's he.net loss
what's he.net doing :/
and now it's fine again.
dont think the machine supports efi, however the ubuntu install  configured the disk to use gpt
gpt is fine
you can use gpt with bios
you just want a boot partition with the sectors of 34 through 2047
cant boot however
after install
something about hd0
i suppose you can't pastebin the partition layout easily
if I liveboot it probably
its a 3tb drive if that makes a difference
3tb NEEDS gpt
so you have gpt/bios or gpt/uefi
the bios boot partition isn't as bad as it sounds
mercutio++
uefi is sometimes a little messy
GUID Partition Table (GPT) specific instructions
On a BIOS/GPT configuration a BIOS boot partition is required. GRUB embeds its core.img into this partition.
Note:
that's from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB
bah
like my hp server doesn't support uefi, and is using gpt with 3tb drives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_boot_partition
BIOS boot partition :: The BIOS boot partition is a partition on a data storage device that GNU GRUB uses on legacy BIOS-based personal computers in order to boot an operating system, when the actual boot device contains a GUID Partition Table (GPT). Such a layout is sometimes referred to as BIOS/GPT boot.  A BIOS boot partition is needed because GPT uses the disk sectors immediately following the Master Boot Record (MBR) to hold the actual...
Also note that the only way to fully/properly install UEFI requires that you be booted by UEFI in the first place, otherwise the install has no access to the EFI nvram to install a boot entry.
maybe that simplifies saying about it
(And so if you're not booted UEFI, then it couldn't possibly have installed UEFI)
so you bsaically create a partition of type EF02
what command do I run to display the partition layout?
gdisk
well that's what i use
[on linux]
ahh yeah, on linux :)
but he said ubuntu
Yeah.
t'was mostly a joke, since the question was vague
i'm trying to see where people say about the 34 to 2047 trick
not to much avail
suppose it doesn't matter where it says it.  all recent systems won't use the sectors between 34 and 2047 normally
so you can just add that partition
because they want to do the sector alignment stuff.  but for grub sector alignment doesn't matter :)
Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              34            2047   1007.0 KiB  EF02  BIOS boot partition
so you can do like that
withotu having to screw around with repartitioning
then you can just do grub-install /dev/sda or whatever your device name is
has anyone else hit some weird refresh bug with chrome?
where pages that reload regularly seem to reload ALL THE TIME
like say smokeping that usually reloads once a minute or something, will reload once a second or somethign
do you guys know anything about 4k monitors?
JC: I'm using a cheap one.
and have been for a while.
it works ok in linux, but windows 4k support on small monitors is pretty broken
I dont see any partitions
live boot ubuntu
with gdisk?
were you looking at the usb stick?
or the hard-drive
I ran gdisk as root
it says type device filename
or press enter to quit
It was a live dvd boot
gdisk /dev/sda
sorry :)
found valid gpt with protective MBR, using gpt
oh you can do both at once
how do I get it to actually boot from this drive though?
maek the ef02 boot partition
if it's not there
it doesn't need to be big
so if it'snot there, you can make it in the empty space between 34 and 2047 sectors
are there a bunch of steps
not really
gdisk is like fdisk
if you've used fdisk
That's what she said!!
not realy used fdisk without the hand holding
of a manual
hmm
what should I search for to find instructions online?
i have something to paste
http://pastebin.com/sNfmngQu
ok
that's the gdisk step although you'll probably want to s/vda/sda/
I have an ef02
oh you do
start 2048 end 4095
ok
cool
then grub-install /dev/sda should just make it work
what happened when you tried to boot it
surely ubuntu doesn't get that bit wrong
grub install error
you probably have to chroot into it
with /proc /sys /dev inside
i wonder if ubuntu installer makes that easy
probably help to know the error I get on boot?
yeah
I remember Debian's rescue mode would chroot and all for you
what do you get on bootup
cool brycec
(in other words, maybe Ubuntu "adopted" a similar rescue mode on their livecd)
stressing maybe? :)
you can do mount command to check
error: attempt to read or write outside of disk 'hd0'
entering rescue mode
grub rescue>
that does sound strange
where is /boot
on the 3tb drive
where abouts on the 3tb drive though
not sure
I left it as defaults
can I force mbr/bios and let the drive show up as 2.something tb
Perhaps it's easiest to just try a clean reinstall and stop when the installer gets to partitioning and examine the defaults for Science.
other people have hit that issue mnathani_
apparently
why not just create 250gb or something for /
and put zfs on the rest
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1284196
looks like grub could have 2tb limit
any idea what I can do differently when I reinstall?
yes
don't use defaults
you can probably use uefi too if it's recent
but you shouldn't need to
but generally speaking with a 3tb drive you probably don't want one huge / anyway
my / is 64gb
with separate /home etc
ie / fits my whole system minus data
but that's with arch, and i don't install stuff i don't use
I usually stick with / at 10GB, and separate home.
brycec: do you have separate /var ?
my /var is 10gb alone :)
yeah, 10GB is more than fine for a Debian server (for instance)
mercutio: Nope, not on this VPS
as part of / though
oh talking about vps
i dbout mnathani_ has a 3tb vps :)
On my desktop /var is part of / (but my / is 63GB, 15GB used)
yeah on vps's it's not so bad normally
brycec: ahh you have the same size as me :)
(My desktop's /var is 7GB)
(used)
/dev/md1                  63G   35G   26G  59% /
zroot            63G   15G   48G  25% /
:P
heh
s/dbout/doubt
<mercutio> i doubt mnathani_ has a 3tb vps :)
(And because it's Linux root on ZFS, I cannot put /var or /usr on separate slices, alas)
brycec: can you set lz4 compression on that?
Yes
i'm being conservative not having / on zfs
zroot  compressratio         1.53x                  -
nice
Gets better too :P  zroot  refcompressratio      1.72x                  -
mdadm is faster than zfs anyway :)
I have no use for mdadm with a single drive :P (plus it's super speedy as is)
is there still issues with mysql on zfs?
heh
yeah it's not like i need the speed
I've never had any issues (running MySQL on FreeBSD/ZFS)
there's some lack of directio or something issues
Been running it for over a year, no issues.
don't remember what options I have set
ahh
yaeh i think you can disable directio/asyncio
because there are options you're supposed to set
i thin problem was it was supporting one but not the other
now my network can do 26 gigabit
i wonder how i'm meant to get my disk speeds up that fast
I am at the screen for configuring the partitions
mnathani_: do you want to use zfs?
http://sprunge.us/RBDL if you care, mercutio
I do not
this is not one of my systems
ok
do you want to have separte /home etc ?
end users are not technologically advanced
sure
separate home would be good
are they going to store all of their user data on /home?
yes
 then you can probably just go with uhh
128gb / and the rest /home ?
well you may want swap too
I need separate boot though?
but compressed ram file system seems fine usually now :/
not if you have seperate / and /home
and / isn't insanely big
i've seen more problems from separate /boot than help from it
i only really do seperate /boot on complex systems, raid etc.
are these primary or logical partitions?
or uefi
with gpt everything is primay
so say partition 1 tiny EF02
partition two /
of 128gb
partition 3 swap of 8gb
partiton 4 /home
of the rest
how small is tiny?
well mine is 1007kb
and sectors 34 through 2047
is ef02 the same as reserved bios boot
it's "bios boot partition"
but probably
btw the problem with /boot being seperate is usually that people make it tiny, and ubuntu keeps updating kernels
and so it overflows the boot partition
because each kernel is like 50mb or something
and each minor change means new kernel
also on hard-disks generally speaking having / on start of disk is faster
cos beginning of disk is faster than end
but there are things like chrome which like to spew lots of crap to /home too
yea, that is a super annoying thing w old ubuntu installs. not sure if they still default o /boot on its own partition or not
just remember dealing with an old lts (6.06 or whatever) at a customer site and it ran out of space for kernel updates
yeah it's a VERY frequent issue
 /boot was useful on really old systems
but anything that can support a 3tb drive is sure to be new enough to not be an issue
3rd attempt at installing ubuntu on this desktop today. Hope this one succeeds
fun times :)
That's what she said!!
rebooting now
good luck
w00t
works now
thanks mercutio! and brycec!
now you can stick windows back on it
congrats.
congrats
mercutio++
Anyone else seeing packet loss? I'm seeing intermittent issues between PCCW and ARP
https://gist.github.com/2bithacker/048c94ee375bc78e091f
Gist: "https://gist.github.com/048c94ee375bc78e091f"
return path is over any2ix to HE
Are we already getting our daily IPv6 issue? It's not even 5pm.
(ARP time, when the daily IPv6 issues have been cropping up)
Oh you're talking about IPv4
I saw you say HE and assumed :p
oddly IPv6 is going to NTT then to HE
I wouldn't call that odd.
you don't peer with HE for IPv6 on an IX?
Me personally? I don't do any peering.
fwiw twobithacker I too saw some packet loss from one of my smokeping slaves https://smokeping.cobryce.com/?target=ARP.ARPWebsite.ARPWebsite4
but only one of them...
(and one day, someday, my slaves will upload traceroutes)
twobithacker: he.net has been having issues with ipv6
twobithacker: there's peering with he.net, that's the issue
my problem is on v4 though, v6 is working fine
incoming he.net ipv6 traffic is having issues
because he.net send all the traffic in via that path, and they seem to be having issues in los angeles.
oh ipv4 issue
with he.net direct connection?
brycec: the he.net issue is actually different from the congestion issue
the congestion has eased off a lot
I'm on Charter, outbound path from ARP is via HE
the hop having issues suggests it may be arp -> charter being the issue
got a charter ip to trace to?
oh, thunder.2bithacker.net   ?
wtf is up with he.net
lax2 again?
probably
it's like it randomly drops all packets
but the lax tunnel server on ipv6 was completely broken even to www.he.net too
sentinel.2bithacker.net is my public IPv4 if you're trying to test
it's not slight degredation, it's on/off issues
two: you're finding it stops working compeltely for periods, and then fine again?
yeah
ok route's changed
tell me if it happens again
err from now
will do