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Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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> On Gentoo it's easy to get away with not using an initramfs. Everything |
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> is built from source and you roll your own kernel so we don't need to |
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> jump through the boot time hoops that a binary distro must to be able |
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> to support everything and boot. |
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> |
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> You will always have a pretty good idea how much space / needs, it |
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> contains /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root and /lib. Unless oyu are in the habit |
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> of storing stuff in /root, 500M is plenty. So put / on a regular |
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> partition, everything else in LVM and your initramfs worries go away. |
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Ok, I was suspecting that putting / outside of LVM might be the |
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solution. Thanks for confirming. |
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> The only case I can think of that *requires* initramfs right now is |
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> booting off a raid device |
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Strangely enough, I am currently booting from a software raid device, so |
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you don't need an initramfs for that either. |
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>> And from what I remember, you can't resize a mounted ext3 partition, |
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> |
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> balls. ext2online and resize2fs have been resizing ext3 partitions for |
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> ages. You can extend a mounted partition with ease and in safety. |
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Have you ever tried pulling the plug while a resize operation was in |
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progress? I guess I'll have to test this myself, as my data is valuable |
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enough to me that I won't just believe what I read. |
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I wasn't aware of ext2online. Doesn't it require a kernel patch? Is it |
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integrated in gentoo-sources? The homepage seems to indicate that it |
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hasn't been updated since 2000. |
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> What you can't do, and to my knowledge no regular fs can do, is to |
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> *reduce* a mounted partition |
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But who would want to do that? I always need *more* space, not less ;-) |
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> Why would lvm not be on your rescue disk? That's just a silly excuse. |
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> What would you do with a reswcue disk that doesn't have fdisk on it? |
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> You'd throw it away and get a different one. |
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Well, I haven't spent much time looking at rescue CDs, I have always |
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used Knoppix up to now and it has been good enough. I'll just check that |
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recent LVM tools are on it. |
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>> But I'd love to be proven wrong on all the points above! This would |
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>> certainly motivate me to look into LVM seriously this time. It really |
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>> seems to be the right solution to the various problems I have seen |
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>> with static partitions. |
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> |
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> You are imagining problems where none exist :-) |
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Not quite. I have a memory of problems that have existed but thankfully |
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have been fixed since. |
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Anything special if I put the LVM over a software raid? |
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-- Remy |
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