Message-ID: <28a77818-9007-469a-94d6-c421e0591b0e@net-c.cat>
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2023 18:11:45 +0100
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From: siiky <github-siiky@net-c.cat>
Subject: Help installing in data mode
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Hi all,

I've been trying to install Alpine in data mode for the past couple of 
days without success. I was using the wiki[0,1] and the handbook[2] as 
references; today I realized that the handbook is largely untouched for 
about a year[3]. Wonder if the content is still up-to-date.

Some details on what I need/want, and what I tried so far.

I want to install Alpine in data mode on an Intel x86_64 SBC with 16GB 
of internal memory. The board only supports UEFI (I think[4]). The disk 
should have at least two partitions: a data partition (e.g. 1GB); and 
the root filesystem partition filling the rest of the disk (minus 
whatever is necessary for boot &c).

In case it does make a difference, I'm currently trying Alpine out with 
QEMU, because it's a little easier than having the board powered on next 
to me. One small (maybe big) problem is I couldn't figure out how to run 
QEMU in UEFI mode, so this makes the install process slightly different 
from what I'll need on the real board, but I figured the difference 
should be easy to overcome once the rest of process is nailed down.

These are the commands I use to create a disk and to start the VM, as 
per [5,6]:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.qcow2 16G
qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2G -nic user -boot d -cdrom 
alpine-standard-3.18.2-x86_64.iso -hda disk.qcow2 -display gtk

After booting and logging in, I run setup-alpine and follow along. When 
it asks which disk to use, and where to store configs, I reply "none" to 
both (I understood from the wiki that setup-alpine can't automatically 
install Alpine the way I want it, and so have to do some steps manually 
later).

I partition the disk according to the plan, adapting the instructions 
from the handbook[7]:

alias p="parted -sa optimal /dev/sda"
p mklabel gpt
p mkpart p 1MiB 2MiB  # none
p mkpart p 2MiB 1G    # boot
p mkpart p 1G 2G      # data
p mkpart p 2G 100%    # rootfs
p set 1 bios_grub
p set 2 boot
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4

And now comes what confuses me most: setup-disk and setup-bootable. Do I 
need to run both? Only one of them? Which one? setup-bootable is used to 
make a whole disk the bootable system? What does setup-disk do?

If I now run the following, it complains /dev/sda3 is not a block device 
suitable for partitioning:

setup-disk -m data -s 0 /dev/sda3

But if I mount /dev/sda3 at e.g. /mnt/data/, and run again I get this:

# setup-disk -m data -s 0 /mnt/data/
extlinux: Not a directory: /mnt/data/boot
# ( a progress bar )
=> initramfs: creating /boot/initramfs-lts
/boot is device /dev/sda3
extlinux: no previous syslinux boot sector found
You might need fix the MBR to be able to boot

So it apparently made the data partition the boot partition? In any 
case, after poweroff the VM doesn't boot from the disk...

With setup-bootable I get the following:

# setup-bootable /media/cdrom/ /dev/sda4
installing /dev/sda4 to alpine-standard-3.18.2 230508
Making /dev/sda4 bootable...
syslinux: invalid media signature (not an FAT/NTFS volume?)


I'm very confused by this all, as you can probably tell (having read 
through many wiki pages other than those already referenced). I would 
really appreciate it if anyone could help me understand what I'm doing 
wrong, and what I should be doing instead.


[0]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation
[1]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Create_a_Bootable_Device
[2]: https://docs.alpinelinux.org/user-handbook/0.1a/Installing/manual.html
[3]: 
https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/docs/user-handbook/-/commits/master
[4]: at least other distros are installed in UEFI, so I'd go for that 
with Alpine too because I don't really need to worry about this otherwise
[5]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Install_Alpine_in_QEMU
[6]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/QEMU
[7]: 
https://docs.alpinelinux.org/user-handbook/0.1a/Installing/manual.html#_bios_gpt


Thanks,
siiky