Re: [gentoo-user] Another plan for /usr and udev-181

On Sat, 14 Apr 2012 07:35:52 +0100
Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:44:37 -0700, felix@×××××××.com wrote:
>
> > What annoys me the most about this forced change is that I like the
> > old unix style of a single minimal base partition for booting, and
> > being able to manage all the other partitions while unmounted in
> > single user mode.  In my case, /usr is an LVM partition precisely
> > because I want to sit in single user mode while resizing it (it
> > seems to keep on growing ...).
>
> It's been safe to increase the size of mounted filesystems for years.
> But if you can enlarge /usr while using it, you can do the same for/.
> So if that's your only reason for a separate /usr...
>
>

/ on LVM is officially not "supported" (in the sense there are no
official documentation about it) in Gentoo, and is discouraged in the
Gentoo LVM installation guide.  Has been the case since the beginning,
although there are unofficial wiki and mailinglist/forum posts about
it. Of course, / on LVM would require an initrd.

That's one reason why many of us using LVM keeps /usr on LVM while / as
a physical partition.  This allows for maximum flexibility, and is a
supported "legacy" config without an initrd.  I may add many of us had
bad experience with initrd from binary distros rendering system
unbootable (I've been there with Debian and Arch --- back in 2003 or
so you cannot uninstall currently running kernel & initrd after
installing a new kernel, or else the next time your newly installed
kernel won't boot.  Also sometimes the newly installed kernel+initrd
won't boot, and neither would the old kernel+initrd...).

Of course, now that separate /usr requires an initrd, one might as well
put / on LVM and let busybox in initrd handles the case when LVM goes
wrong (urgh!).  Still, Gentoo doesn't officially support this
configuration.

--

Kerwin