[wellylug] Manual Partitioning using LVM

Gerald Roehrbein Gerald.Roehrbein at oraforecast.com
Mon Oct 30 04:10:57 NZDT 2006


Hello Rob,

I've not already read all the stuff given as answers by the others but
most of the answers.

Your drawing is nice. ;-) There are two solutions:
The newbie solution and the professional solution. I would suggest to
use the newbie solution.

The newbie solution is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid. It's just a saying
we have in Germany and the IT worldwide. This does not mean you are
stupid! I always say to myself: "Keep it simple stupid!").


Change your layout this way:


60 GB HDD
-> First partition 2GB for your SWAP (because this is very fast space)
-> Second partition 52GB for your EXT3 LVM RAID 0 with second 120GB HDD
-> Third partition 2GB for / (root and /boot) and NO LVM. Simple EXT3!
-> Fourth partition for Windows NT

120 GB HDD
-> One partition of 52GB for your EXT3 LVM RAID0 with first 60GB HDD
-> One partition the rest of the space

(Do not setup for your private LINUX too much partitions. I would use as
less as possible! Using to much partitions and filesystems will end in
wasting a lot of space!

If you need more space or faster drives add one, move a leaf of your
tree as required to the new HDD and link it to the old place. It's just
UNIX and not Windows. It's easy to change anything after installation
without new installation.

It seems that there is 1GB additional space you will save. I would use
all the physical space for the partition two. Why? If you will use
mkfs.ext3 you can say the ext3  not to use the whole space of the
partition! By default EXT3 will not use the whole space.

Have a look at mkfs.ext3 option -m. By default 5% is already reserved!
So you must not reserve space by physical hide this space from an
filesystem! This is one of the goodies of ETX3.

Most admins do not know that! 

I would use LVM only for the RAID 0 filesystem you spread over disk 1
and disk 2 (I hope you want to do that ...) to get best performance. If
performance is not the goal than forget LVM. 

Because your are a newbie and use just the old KISS method. It becomes
difficult by itself. Why should we add some difficulties nobody needs?

I know. The feature is there we have to use it. ;-) That's a bad idea! I
always use a feature if it will give me a benefit.

I had last week a malfunction of my Notebook HDD with a root directory
LVM.  I had some nice views inside LVM after this. ;-) For me it was
just a good thing because planing of such things including HA is my job
since a lot of years. 

But for a user which wants to do it's business making such experiences
are just bad.

If having only two HDD'S I do not see any advantages in using a lot of
partitions. And if having a lot of drives I would make a extreme value
calculation to get an idea what's best:

Intelligent distribution of directories via 
simple IDE, SATA, SCSI, FC drives
vs.
Software RAID 0
vs.
Hardware RAID 0



Using GRUB instead of LILO: LILO was just my favorite boot loader the
last 10 or 14 years. I love it! Since one year I have to use GRUB. I've
learned a lot about it and think GRUB is just a good replacement for
LILO. Both have advantages and disadvantages. But for normal users I
won't see any difference to talk about. I won't start any religious war
with this statement. Just use whatever you want. Today GRUB is my
favorite loader.


kind regards
Gerald

P.S. If you find a typo you can keep it.
I know: "My English makes me nobody after!" ( A German saying! You
should laugh when you hear it! It's just a 1:1 translation from German
into English and means: "I'm just a super class writer like Ernest
Hemingway!"  ;-))) )



Am Donnerstag, den 26.10.2006, 14:00 +1300 schrieb Rob Collins:
> Just wondered if I could pick your brains re initial manual
> partitioning of 2 hard drive system using LVM prior to installing
> Kubuntu alternative install (again).  I am doing this as a newbie as
> it has become clear that hd room becomes important when talking about
> the /usr and /home balance.  I want to use GRUB not LILO (GRUB I have
> a separate rescue and install cd for incase I need to alter GRUB
> afterwards) and also be able to dual-boot to windows NT.  because of
> this, I intend to make a separate small /boot partition as I
> understand that GRUB will not handle LVM.  I have attached a diagram
> of what I am trying to do and wondered if you would have a look for me
> and pass on any tips/suggestions/pitfall warnings.
> 
> Ta,
> 
> Rob Collins 




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