On Fri 14 Apr 2017 at 12:05:38 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote: > On 04/13/2017 05:55 PM, Brian wrote: > >On Thu 13 Apr 2017 at 20:05:22 +0200, Pascal Hambourg wrote: > > > >>David is right : you don't really boot from the SD card. > > > >The OP never claimed he was booting from the SD card. He particularly > >said he did not install GRUB to the card. > > > >>GRUB is on the HDD. The kernel is on the HDD. Only the root filesystem is on > >>the SD card. > > > >Yes. That's what the linux line says too. > > I'll try to clarify some details.
Your previous descriptions were good; clarification cannot do any harm. > My installation protocol. > 1. I always use "Expert" as that way the installer will > do fewer things I'm not aware of. Very wise. If you are familiar with each stage of the installation you can more more easily spot anomalies. "Expert"=="more control". > 2. I only install Grub the *first* time I do a Debian install. > By poor design Grub puts the current install first on menu. > When experimenting with configuration as I do, the least > likely install to be functional is the latest. > This requires me to run update-grub on the "good" install. That's ok. I tend to be more promiscuous; usually on a whim, like wanting to put a particular entry at the top of GRUB's menu list. When you do 'update-grub' do you still get no "set root=" line for the SD card in the grub.cfg? > 3. Similarly a swap partition is specified only on the first > install as the installer insists on destroying the UUID of > the existing swap partition. It is simpler to edit only the > fstab of latest install than to edit those for all other > installs each time. That's ok too. I often don't bother with a swap partition. Some of my machines have less than 4 GB of disk space. I see space for packages as more important than swap space. > 4. All installs in this thread have been done using DVD 1 of > 13 of Debian 8.6.0 - thus all intrinsically use the same > kernel. Yes. > I've done some additional observations and test installs. > 1. The BIOS of the Lenovo T510 can be directed to boot from > the CD/DVD drive, hard disk, or any attached USB flash > drive. It *cannot* be directed to boot from the SD card. I'm at a disadvantage here. I do not have an SD card. I do not have a USB hub. However, I thought USB sticks and SD cards were the same (or at least similar) when it came to booting. > 2. I did an install to a USB flash drive including installing > Grub2 to the MBR of that flash drive. When selecting the > SD card from the grub menu I see nothing different. Does that not substantiate what I said just now? > 3. I did a new install to the SD card specifying a different set > of packages and installing grub to the MBR of the SD card. > Once again no behavioral difference. I cannot believe your install to the card would be capable of criticism. > Does any of this justify a bug report. Especially as I do not > have the bandwidth to do a netinstall of a pre-release version? I mentioned "bug" in another mail. I wish I hadn't. It is not that bugs in GRUB or the Debian grub package do not arise, but I'd want to know more about SD cards before committing myself. -- Brian.