On Fri, Dec 05, 2014 at 09:35:42AM +0100, Tomas Cech wrote: >At Fri, 05 Dec 2014 00:04:23 +0100, >Ludovic Courtès wrote: >> >> Tomas Cech skribis: >> >> > I tried to install Guix as alternative OS to my Gentoo and openSUSE >> > installations to give a try. I tried unsupported scenario - >> > installation on LVM volume and separate /boot partition until I was >> > told it is unsupported. Separate boot wasn't hard as I had to just >> > copy generated files so they are loaded. >> >> OK, but there’s still an open bug on that topic. :-) >> http://bugs.gnu.org/19220 > >Good, I'll give a try again. > >> > 1] if you set device to partition (and not to disk) in your grub-configuration like this: >> > >> > (bootloader (grub-configuration >> > (device "/dev/sda4"))) >> >> Why would you want to use a partition and not a disk? I didn’t know >> this was even possible. > >Because this way I can separate Grub managed by Guix and Grub from my >Gentoo. As I'm playing with that on my notebook I need for work, this >way can reduce risks. > >I'm not sure how Guix installer can manipulate with grub.cfg and I'd >like to always have some working system... > >> >> > `guix system init' will fail on grub installation. By default Grub >> > tries to fit in the beginning of partition and fails if it can't fit >> > in. I asked about this behaviour on Grub mailing list and it seems >> > that there are two options: >> > >> > a] add `--force' to command line and use block list for keeping information about position of Grub's core.img >> > b] use filesystem which allows embedding - BtrFS or ZFS >> > >> > I verified both options (a] and then b] with BtrFS) and it no longer fails. >> > >> > But, >> > ad a] - I don't feel safe passing `--force' to grub-install every >> > time. So if installation fails on this point and you'd like to use >> > your FS anyway, you can pass `--no-grub' to `guix system init' and >> > then rung grub-install manually. >> > >> > ad b] - I don't feel safe using still experimental BtrFS. >> >> OK. I think the conclusion for Guix is to leave the defaults unchanged. >> Perhaps we could add a ‘force?’ field to the ‘grub-configuration’ data >> type to allow those who know what they doing to get the effect of >> ‘--force’. WDYT? After giving some more thoughts and after more experience with the process I do agree that exposing `--force' parameter into grub-configuration is good idea. I'm filing bug for that.