I’m migrating from xubuntu and am new to the opensuse forums. To start, I’d like to mark this solved, already. After installing opensuse on my sony vaio, my machine would not boot. My only message was that in the topic: Operating System Not Found.
Not being a guru, it took me about two weeks to find the solution. It did not help that all initial searches pointed to hardware. Also, my vaio is eleven years old. It’s strictly BIOS–not even EFI with a Legacy option. I spent a good deal of time trying to get the boot flags just right. Eventually, I decided to wipe my hard drive, give it a msdos partition table, and install opensuse, again. I used a video tutorial to manually partition my hard drive. Once finished, I pressed the button to accept the partitions and their memory allocations. Only after this was I informed that a kernel could not be loaded onto a boot partition with such a small amount of memory.
The video didn’t specify how much memory to assign the boot partition, so neither did I. The installer automoatically assigned 1 MiB. After a quick internet search, I gave the boot parition 500 MiB of memory. My computer has been booting ever since.
I hope this helps the opensuse team and prevents anyone from getting the same headache I had. I’m looking forward to my new adventures in the world of openSUSE!
It’s easy to mix up “/boot/” partition and “BIOS Boot partition” (bios_grub in parted parlance). The former can be used on both legacy- and GPT-partitioned disks. It needs a Linux native filesystem that mounts to /boot/, with enough space to store kernels, initrds and various other OS-boot-related files. Its use isn’t very common any more, except on systems employing RAID and/or LVM.
A “bios_grub” partition is typically a mere 32 sectors long, with no filesystem. It provides a place to install Grub on a GPT-partitioned disk, in lieu of the normally otherwise empty MBR track, because that space is consumed by the GPT partition table, leaving no place to install the Grub code stored in that track on a legacy-partitioned disk.
What follows is from a GPT-partitioned disk that includes a /boot/ partition for use in a legacy (non-UEFI) BIOS laptop:
DFSee Linux 17.0 : executing: fdisk -r- -w-
Command timestamp : Saturday 2023-04-29 17:40:40
+---+--+--+-----------------+--------+--------+-----------+----------------------------------------+-----------+
|ID |ux|Dr|Type, description|Format |Related |VolumeLabel|OS2-LVM/BM / GPT / Crypt / additional in| Size MiB |
+--[/dev/sda GPT disk 1]--------+--------+-----------[Model=Hitachi HTS721]-------------------+-----------+
|42 | | |Fsp + GPT hdr/pta|-- -- --|-- -- --|- - - - - -| | 1.0|
|42 | 1| |EFI System (ESP)|FAT32 |GPT/EFI | |P01 EFI System (ESP) | 320.0|
|43 | 2| |BIOS Boot (noEFI)| |unknown | |P02 BIOS Boot (noEFI) | 1.0|
|44 | 3| |Linux Data |EXT2 |GRUB |h6p03boot |P03 Linux /boot | 800.0|
|45 | 4| |Linux Swap |SWAP |LinuxV1 |SWAPSPACE2 |P04 Linux Swap | 2400.0|
|46 | 5| |Linux Data |EXT4 |Linux |h6p05usrlcl|P05 Linux /usr/local | 4000.0|
|47 | 6| |Linux Data |EXT4 |Linux |h6p06pub |P06 Linux /pub | 8000.0|
|48 | 7| |Linux Data |EXT4 |GRUB |h6p07s155 |P07 Linux / openSUSE 15.5 | 7200.0|
|49 | 8| |Linux Data |EXT4 |Linux |h6p08s154 |P08 Linux / openSUSE 15.4 | 7200.0|
|50 | 9| |Linux Data |EXT4 |GRUB |h6p09stw |P09 Linux / openSUSE TW | 7200.0|
|51 |10| |Linux Data |EXT4 |Linux |h6p10tbd |P10 Linux / TBD | 7200.0|
|52 |11| |Linux Data |EXT4 |GRUB |h6p11debian|P11 Linux / Debian | 7200.0|
|53 |12| |Linux Data |EXT4 |Linux |h6p12home |P12 Linux /home | 5709.0|
|55 | | |Fsp + GPT pta/hdr|-- -- --|-- -- --|- - - - - -| | 0.546|
# parted -l
Model: ATA Hitachi HTS72106 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 60.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt_sync_mbr
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 337MB 336MB P01 EFI System (ESP) boot
2 337MB 338MB 1049kB P02 BIOS Boot (noEFI) bios_grub
3 338MB 1177MB 839MB ext2 P03 Linux /boot/
4 1177MB 3693MB 2517MB linux-swap(v1) P04 Linux Swap
5 3693MB 7887MB 4194MB ext4 P05 Linux /usr/local
6 7887MB 16.3GB 8389MB ext4 P06 Linux /pub
7 16.3GB 23.8GB 7550MB ext4 P07 Linux / openSUSE 15.5
8 23.8GB 31.4GB 7550MB ext4 P08 Linux / openSUSE 15.4
9 31.4GB 38.9GB 7550MB ext4 P09 Linux / openSUSE TW
10 38.9GB 46.5GB 7550MB ext4 P10 Linux / TBD
11 46.5GB 54.0GB 7550MB ext4 P11 Linux / Debian
12 54.0GB 60.0GB 5986MB ext4 P12 Linux /home
For this legacy BIOS use, the ESP partition is not required or used. It was placed there as a reservation in order that the disk might be migrated to a UEFI laptop without need to re-partition.