Op zaterdag 2 juni 2018 22:14:55 CEST schreef Carlos E. R.:
On 2018-06-02 21:39, Knurpht @ openSUSE wrote:
Op zaterdag 2 juni 2018 21:14:59 CEST schreef Carlos E. R.:
On 2018-06-02 01:11, don fisher wrote:
I have been having a lot of trouble with upgrade, so pardon this if stupid question.
So after your troubles with upgrade, you try fresh install. Understandable.
Do you have a backup of your old system?
I do not use LVM. When I boot the Leap 15 DVD and try to set up partitions, I get 6 rather that the usual 3 generated under 14.3. For some reason, that I can probably research on google, it sets up partition 1 as a BIOS boot partition. Not sure why this is required.
Confirmed, everything works even if it's not mounted, if one removes is the result is an unbootable system. Even though examining it shows that it has not been touched in any way.
Not always, but I think it is now always created if the disk is partitioned with GPT - probably all new disks are now using GPT. And all new computers have UEFI, which is designed to work with GPT (of course, Legacy MBR is supported). So YaST defaults to create that partition. Better do it than fail because does not exist. And better now than cry later because there is no space for it.
AFAICT I've only seen it on systems with UEFI/Secureboot enabled. That would need GPT partioned disks. I'm a firm believer in knowledge and craftmanship of the (open)SUSE devs and packagers so I leave it there, but I can understand the reasoning of users/admins that a non mounted partition is of no use, so remove it. One more reason to trust the devs/packagers and take the proposal made by the installer at least where I don't know a reason not to accept it. Sizes, data mountpoints etc are mine, these system things I leave up to the builders of the distro.
The partition is used by grub boot code. In words from Andrei Borzenkov:
Thanks for elaborating. Note to self: Include "arvidjaar" in searches re. GRUB2.
"It used to store GRUB2 MBR-gap code (as MBR gap does not exist on GPR)".
"bios_boot partition contains grub2 core.img which (for btrfs on BIOS) is about 40K. Still fits into 2M space but no more into legacy 63 post-MBR sectors."
"core.img is exactly *the* code that locates /boot/grub2 which contains bulk of grub2. It is effectively copy of what is written into bios_boot or other location where you chose to install grub2."
(just a quick search, I know he has explained what it is needed for more than once ;-) )
Thus it is not ever needed mounted on the running system. Just used by some systems to boot. And has no filesystem, either, thus can not be mounted. It is "raw".
During Beta phase it was created on some systems that did not need it.
<https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2018-02/msg00032.html>
Summarizing: it's holding the machine's boot code which can find the system's boot loader, like MBR did on MBR partitioned disks. Correct me if that's not what it is. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org