unable to setup bootloader /boot partition
 

Hello team ,

I'm unable to setup bootloader /boot partition. Here is the layout which I'm following :
/dev/sda ---> /dev/sda1 --> I choose Linux ID:BIOS Boot partition and format with FS:EXT4 and mount as /boot.
the above disk is 1GB and I have allocate 500MB only for /boot as a standard partition.

/dev/sdb--> /home,/,/var /tmp and swap.

That's all , these are only neededas of now. I see after creating these , I'm getting a warning :

A partition of type BIOS boot partition is needed to install the bootloader.
such a setup is not supported and may cause problems with the bootloader now or in the future.

Do you want to continue ?

After which the installation completed but server not rebooted. Please help me why this issue is occurring ?

list of queries :
This VM is built on VMware environment and has BIOS SUpporting instead of EFI Support. I have seen this error in the internet but no clear solution that really works.
1.firstly, what type of FS layout is required for SUSE 15. Does it require /boot/efi compulsory ?
please suggest quite urgently.

If you want BIOS boot, you don't need a UEFI boot partition.

Sounds to me like you are confusing different booting methods.

If you wanted to use UEFI, then you would create a partition of about 512MB with a DOS filesystem, with esp & boot flags.

You have a UEFI, so your disk drive will be a GPT type and will need a BIOS boot partition to boot with GRUB in traditional BIOS/mbr mode. On a DOS drive, a stub of GRUB goes into the mbr and the rest into the gap that is usually left between the mbr and the first partition. However GPT drives do not have this gap, so you need a separate partition to do the job. It should be the first partition and should be given the partition type "BIOS boot" and left unformatted. Then your Linux partitions start at sda2.

/boot/efi is a mountpoint for the EFI system partition which GPT drives usually have. You must have such a partition (not necessarily the first one) for a native UEFI boot. But if you want to boot in the traditional mbr way and your UEFI supports this option, you won't need one.

SUSE has no special requirement different from other distros. You would be wise to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_boot_partition and then reconsider your BIOS boot partition's space allocation. 1GB is much too big, unless you plan to repurpose it to an ESP for UEFI booting in the future, in which case 1GB would still be still grossly oversize. Windows makes do with a 100MB ESP partition. SUSE can share that 100MB and still only a small fraction of its total space is consumed. Code to load kernel, initrd and bootloader menu only requires a small storage space, with no filesystem. Somewhere around 32kb is typical for Grub, making even 1MB technically wasteful for a BIOS Grub partition.

Hello team ,

Thanks for replies ,Yes I'm little confused on this topic. There is no UEFI enabled on this VMware VM and totally a BIOS enabled system.
I need to understand why this WARNING is showing me over & over again. ABSOLUTELY, this VM has NO UEFI Enabled. I'm not sure where are you finding my words that UEFI IS ENABLED on this machine.

secondly, someone is mentioning that VM is having more space allocated for /boot which is 500MB which is not needed. Does this really impact in creating FS ? I'm trying to share screenshot in this forum but this is more text driven.

ALso , I want repeat the issue while installing SUSE Linux 15 enterprise on VMware here is the warning :

A partition of type BIOS boot partition is needed to install the bootloader.
such a setup is not supported and may cause problems with the bootloader now or in the future.

Here is the attachment of the screenshot , please help me immediately

A linux /boot partition and a BIOS Grub partition are totally different things.

On a GPT disk used without UEFI, a special quite small unformatted BIOS boot partition is required where Grub (bootloader) code is to live. This is what the installer is complaining you do not have.

A discrete Linux /boot partition is optional and unnecessary for typical installations, typically necessary only when using RAID and/or LVM for the / filesystem. /boot on most installations is simply a directory on the / filesystem with no separate filesystem (partition) mounted to it.

How a VM may affect all this I cannot answer. My installations all go directly to hardware.

Reading other peoples answers regarding GPT partitioning, you need to create a small partition for the boot loader to go into when installing, so just create a 4MB partition for it, then add whatever partitioning you want, & install to the other partitions you created, (that is, ignore the 4MB partition, the installation will automatically use it).

(I normally use MBR partitioning for BIOS installs, & only use GPT for UEFI myself.)

you need at least a 1mb empty partition flagged as bios-boot and/or bios-grub

Hello team,

It was successful. I created /boot and another BIOS boot partition which is not formatted nor mounted.
thanks it was successful
Regards
Ratan K Karri

Hello