Bug 203619 – Inexactness in "Configuring the Bootloader" section of the Handbook

• Product: [OLD] Docs on www.gentoo.org
• Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

[Description Michał Golba 2007-12-28 21:21:12 UTC]

There's a note in Handbook chapter 10.b:

"Note:  If your root filesystem is JFS, you must add " ro" to the kernel line since JFS needs to replay its log before it allows read-write mounting."

It doesn't specify if it refers to "root(hd0,0)" or to "root=/dev/hda3"

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Read the grub configuration instructions
2. Try to understand which root handbook refers to
Actual Results:  
I configured bootloader with two options:

title Gentoo-2.6.23-r5 ro
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.23-gentoo-r5 ro root=/dev/hda3 video=uvesafb:1024x768-32@85,mtrr:3,ywrap

title Gentoo-2.6.23-r5
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.23-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/hda3 video=uvesafb:1024x768-32@85,mtrr:3,ywrap

And no matter which of them i boot, i get no errors, system is working just fine

Expected Results:  
I suggest to pinpoint "If your root(hd0,0) is JFS..." or "If your /dev/hda3 is JFS..."

[Comment 1 Jan Kundrát (RETIRED) 2007-12-28 21:56:39 UTC]

"root filesystem" is data structure that you have your / on. Grub naming or device name aren't relevant here. The sentence means "if you use JFS for the disk partition your / is at, then you have to add "ro" option to the kernel parameters", ie. you should use "kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.23-gentoo-r5 ro root=/dev/hda3".

I don't think the handbook needs any fixes, but thanks for your report anyway.

[Comment 2 Michał Golba 2007-12-29 15:30:30 UTC]

(In reply to comment #1)
> "root filesystem" is data structure that you have your / on. Grub naming or
> device name aren't relevant here. The sentence means "if you use JFS for the
> disk partition your / is at, then you have to add "ro" option to the kernel
> parameters", ie. you should use "kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.23-gentoo-r5 ro
> root=/dev/hda3".
> 
> I don't think the handbook needs any fixes, but thanks for your report anyway.

I think the inexactness is result of fact that english is not my native language. I opened this case because there are more people like me and i wanted to save them some time :)

Anyway, thanks for response and information. Although there's one thing that bothers me: few times i chose to boot without the "ro" parameter and didn't receive any error message...

[Comment 3 Jan Kundrát (RETIRED) 2007-12-29 16:32:49 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Anyway, thanks for response and information. Although there's one thing that
> bothers me: few times i chose to boot without the "ro" parameter and didn't
> receive any error message...

As the handbook says, this is required in case kernel needs to replay the transaction log (journal), which might happen in case of unclean shutdown or system crash.