Odd AlmaLinux install on Dell server

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BashedRoot

New Member
Sep 20, 2022
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Trying to install AlmaLinux 8.8 on a Dell R640. It's equipped with 10 NVMe drives. All show up in iDRAC. All show up *initially* in AlmaLinux 8.8 installion destinationo area. However, once I select all 10 and click the blue done button to proceed to custom partition step, only 2 are selected and I see no option to include the other 8. See attached.

What could it be?
 

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oneplane

Well-Known Member
Jul 23, 2021
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Switch to UEFI booting before you continue. You are currently using CSM booting, perhaps because both options are enabled, perhaps because your installation media defaults to CSM booting (BIOS legacy booting) before UEFI booting.

As for the disks, my general advice is: don't do any fancy disk stuff at install time. Do the OS install first, only then go play with storage.

And then there's the advice to use a VMM, like Proxmox, to make sure your OS and hardware have a bit of flexibility (via Isolation) between them. This would enable you to reboot, reinstall and split your AlmaLinux install as many times as you want without doing a single (slow) hardware reboot.
It also enables general management that is lightyears ahead of iDRAC and ILM.

And next, the GUI: the selection you're making seems to be about MBR GRUB installation, not about much else. If you are doing an LVM installation, your filesystem for the OS resides on LVs, and the GUI seems to show the underlying PVs but nothing else. Perhaps because it also created an ext2 partition for /boot on there. Moving towards UEFI fixes all of this (well, you trade all that for an ESP volume, but that's much more easy to manage).
 
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