Felix Miata said the following on 12/03/2011 10:33 AM:
LVM is an extra layer that thwarts the way I manage my many multiboot systems, that may or may not thwart a beginner's ability to understand and cope with storage space management and allocation.
I don't dispute that because of decisions you have made, the software you chose to use, your assertion that LVM thwarts you. However from my POV it enables me to overcome many of the problems and defer decisions about sizing, lets me easily split a nearly full file system and then 'shrink to fit', to better allocate disk resources and to facilitate not only multi-boot capability and virtual machine creation. As for beginners, the most common question I get asked when install for other people is "how big should I make the disk partitions?" With LVM I can answer "big enough and then some; if its too big we can shrink later and if its too small we can grow it later". Certainly the lvextend/resize_reiserfs is _way_ simper than your creation/rsync process and avoids any hassle with renaming. In particular, if the disk is fully allocated so there is no space to use your method to create a new partition, shrinking one or two oversized LVM managed partitions and reallocating the space to the needy is possible. LVM has the ability to do much more, to let users experiment with RAID-like concepts, but much more useful is that it can use any space, anywhere, to extend a file system. One thing that makes Linux attractive to home users is that they don't have to upgrade with each new release as they are pretty much required to if they use Windows. Older hardware is still viable. LVM extends this concept to disks. LVM doesn't care about what disk technology you use: SSD. SATA, MFM; and it doesn't care how you mix and match the sized of the drive. Yes, you've made a set of decisions and so have I; mine let me take advantage of LVM to do what I and my clients require. This is different from your situation. If I have a client that doesn't want to use LVM, that's fine; perhaps they want a large RAID array, perhaps they only want to run from a LiveCD or LIveUSB, perhaps ... Well Linux is flexible and capable. But my experience with beginners is that they don't know enough to know what they want and their uncertainty about committing to a fixed disk partitioning is one thing that seems to bother them. You know and I know and most people here know that it isn't really a hurdle; that an error is easily overcome, and that with today's large capacity drive its not like it was decades ago where an incorrect partitioning of a 20Meg drive might mean you didn't have enough /tmp to compile some programs. BTDT. But beginners need reassurance, as we've seen by questions asked here. My point about LVM is that the effort of correcting mistakes and drastically revising sizing is small, less than with your approach, and can be carried out without reboot. LVM has other benefits. One I greatly appreciate is the ability to take snapshots since it simplifies backups. The "old" way of doing backups meant a file system walk, and the file system - an in particular any databases in it - could change as the walk was being done. The LVM snapshot is a "mirror"-like mechanism that guarnetees consistency. Your needs, they way you use your system is different from mine. That doesn't invalidate either. -- He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org