Mike Miller cried from the depths of the abyss...
> It gets worse. This time I created two partitions in the RAID 1: / and
> /swap. That should have worked, but when I get to the part where it wants to
> start writing to disk, it can't do it. It couldn't install the package
> manager and it couldn't install GRUB.
Try to do the raid prep/setup outside of the Ubuntu installer first.
This is how I setup software RAID 1's, and this has worked every time for
me. I have to be honest I haven't done this on Ubuntu, but I did just
load the latest Ubuntu live cd to check, and all the commands exist so
this should
work fine. I have done this >30 times on Slackware, and a handful of times on Centos &
Fedora. I actually used a Slackware install disk to setup the
raid's on Fedora & Centos, but this is not necessary. The Ubuntu disk
will work just fine.
I personally like fdisk to create my partitions, but can use cfdisk (or
anything else Ubuntu might have that you like). One disk 1 (lets call it
/dev/sda) Create at least two partitions (one for swap & one for /).
Change the types on both partitions to "Linux RAID autodetect" type "FD".
I like to leave a coupe hundred megs fee at the end of the disk just
in case I need to replace one latter that isn't exactly the same size.
This of course is optional.
Now copy your partitions to the 2nd drive (lets call it /dev/sdb) like:
sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sfdisk /dev/sdb
When this command finishes it will display your Raid disk/partition
scheme. both drives should match.
Next create your raid 1's
1st - root partition (or swap depending how you created your partitions)
mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level 1 --raid-devices 2 \
/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 --metadata=0.90
Do the same for your other partition
mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level 1 --raid-devices 2 \
/dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2
Now format your swap array (assuming your swap is /dev/md1)
mkswap /dev/md1
Now start your install like normal. You should see /dev/md1 available for
your swap, and /dev/md0 available for your root.
At this point I must take a step back. I'm old school, and prefer LILO on
my boxes. There are a few post install steps to config LILO properly. I
can send those if you are interested.
For GRUB you will need to do the following post install (prior to reboot).
I am guessing that UBUNTU(not sure, don't really use it) will attempt to
install grub for you(install in to your MBR). If it does it most likely
will fail (I've been
surprised before though, and perhaps those sneaky people over at Ubuntu
have this figured out). If it fails that is OK. Let's just play it safe
& assume it's all F-ed up, and we are going to make it right.
put grub on disk 1's MBR:
grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/sda
cd /boot/boot/grub
touch menu.lst
Create a menu.lst for GRUB. I usually do something like this:
timeout 10
title Slackware Linux is better than Ubuntu
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/md0 ro
boot
(not sure the naming scheme for Ubuntu, so double check the kernel part &
make sure to point the root= to the proper /dev/md# for your root
partition)
Save this, and take a peek at your /etc/fstab file to make sure your swap
& / are pointing to /dev/md0 & /dev/md1
/dev/md1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/md0 / ext3 defaults 1 1
OK. Now reboot it, and enjoy the ride.
Hope this helps & Good Luck!
Mr. B-o-B