Re: [ANNOUNCE] Red Hat Linux 9 XFS DVD Released

[Felix <felix.zihlmann@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stefan Smietanowski wrote:
...
> You're basically just doing what the installer does in the step right
> after this, no?
>
> The Post Install script is being run just before the bootloader is
> install. Hmm. Could be that you basically force a few extra writes that
> make things get written to platter.
...

No. %post scripts are executed directly after the install of a package.
Since I found this workaround a while ago, I forgot the second part of it:
For booty you need to apply:
--- booty-0.14/bootloaderInfo.py.fff    2002-11-06 05:13:08.000000000 -0500
+++ booty-0.14/bootloaderInfo.py        2002-11-06 05:14:14.000000000 -0500
@@ -771,21 +771,7 @@
         if not justConfigFile:
             log("GRUB command %s", cmd)

-            # copy the stage files over into /boot
-            rhpl.executil.execWithRedirect( "/sbin/grub-install",
-                                    ["/sbin/grub-install", "--just-copy"],
-                                    stdout = "/dev/tty5", stderr = 
"/dev/tty5",-                                    root = instRoot)
-
-
-
-            # FIXME: hack to try to make sure everything is written to 
the disk-            import isys
-            isys.sync()
-            isys.sync()
-            isys.sync()
-
-            # really install the bootloader
+            # install the bootloader
            p = os.pipe()
            os.write(p[1], cmd + '\n')
            os.close(p[1])

This is important, since the trick of my %post script is, that several 
MB of other packages get installed after the grub %post script is 
executed. This way, it is extremely likely that the *stage* files in 
/boot really hit the platter (it takes more than 30 seconds to install 
all the packages that come after grub and there is so much newer data, 
that the *stage* files are not treated as potential temporary files by 
XFS, I guess), before anaconda wants to install the stage1 loader in the 
MBR.
Without the booty patch above, the *stage* files get installed again and 
immediately afterwards anaconda wants to install the stage1 loader in 
the MBR, which makes my trick useless...

But it really is just a workaround that would not work when grub is the 
last package that gets installed. I would prefer a solution, where
	isys.sync()
	time.sleep(30)
	isys.sync()
really would help; maybe with a dull-journaling mount option.

Felix
--
felix.zihlmann_AT_freesurf.ch