On 2011/12/01 23:15 (GMT-0800) Thomas Taylor composed:

a full install from DVD with darn near everything installed only needs less than 32 GB but allow 40-50 to be safe and for future program additions.

Any normal person not compiling software and keeping all the sources and rpms on / would be hard pressed to even consume 20G on / while using a separate partition for /home. I've never come close to half filling a / partition of 10G, a size well above average in my installs. Most of my / partitions are 4.8G, some 4.0G or 4.4G, and the few most used are only 7.2G. Better would be to split that 40G-50G recommendation into 3 each of 10G-12G or so with the remainder left as part of /home. Each of those 10-12s could be used for separate / for experimentation & evaluation, like testing of newer releases or development versions without obliterating satisfactory existing installation(s), or sampling another alien distro like Gentoo or Slackware. Put some thought into partition layout so that it becomes unlikely to need to do it again in the foreseeable future. Partitioning is not a process free of danger to your data, not something to be taken lightly no matter which tool you use to do it with. Grub2 is actually a mini operating system with marginal documentation, gross overkill for an _average_ user who simply wants to boot one to three or five different installed OS versions on a single HD. Grub Legacy in openSUSE is perfectly capable of booting *buntu, but setting up that way means first boot into *buntu after openSUSE installation you'll need to disable *buntu's Grub2 to keep it from mangling the openSUSE boot setup the next and each successive time *buntu is updated. Further reading: http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/partitioningindex.html -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2011/12/02 07:38 (GMT-0500) LinuxIsOne composed:

Felix Miata wrote:

...

Grub2 is actually a mini operating system with marginal documentation, gross overkill for an _average_ user who simply wants to boot one to three or five different installed OS versions on a single HD. Grub Legacy in openSUSE is perfectly capable of booting *buntu, but setting up that way means first boot into *buntu after openSUSE installation you'll need to disable *buntu's Grub2 to keep it from mangling the openSUSE boot setup the next and each successive time *buntu is updated.

Can you tell me the steps for installing in extended partition since Ubuntu is already there.

Conventional partitioning is as much art as science, with definition of "steps" colored heavily by expectations and knowledge or lack thereof. I'm only going to provide general steps (a guide), not details, until and unless you hit snag(s) and report back more specific help needed. I recommend using Ubuntu (Parted Magic or whatever tool is installed or installable via Ubuntu's package manager) to first create a new logical partition at the end of the extended space. How big to make the new partition depends on how much space you want to reserve for one or more / (or other) partitions for use with openSUSE and any others you may wish to install, test or otherwise dabble with. After creating and formatting it, you should rsync all files from /home to it so that it can become the new /home for both Ubuntu and openSUSE. After the rsync, you'll need to modify /etc/fstab to use the specification (UUID) for the new partition in place of the old for /home (a simple process using any plain text editor you're comfortable with). Do 'sudo tune2fs -l <devicenameofnewhomepartition> | grep UUID' from a terminal to get the string for the new partition to put into fstab in place of the existing one. Once that's done, you may want to immediately reboot Ubuntu to verify success. Next is to either actually install openSUSE, or use the same partitioning tool you just used to make the new home to create new partition(s). The partitioner in the openSUSE installer is competent to do all of what follows in preparation for installing the OS as the first major stage of the overall installation procedure. Either way, with regard to partitioning, you should: 1-delete what is currently the /home partition (sda3) 2-create a new primary partition at the start of freespace, somewhere between 80G and 800G in size, to use as a /boot partition, a new sda3. These I usually make 200G and format EXT2. 3-create as many logical partitions in the remaining freespace as you might ever use for openSUSE's /, and any other distro installations you might wish in the future. Note that with a Ubuntu partitioning tool, you'd not necessarily need to separate the move process steps from the process of creating new partitions, but I think you'd more likely avoid getting confused during the whole process by keeping them as two separate group processes. If you do the above while running Ubuntu, you should not need to finish by modifying /etc/fstab once again, because Ubuntu uses unique names (UUID, IIRC). Traditionally one would need to do this because of use of /dev names, and the /dev name will be different after adding partitions in between. e.g., if you added 3 new ones, they would take the names sda3, sda5 and sda6, causing the /home partition at end of disk to become sda7. (sda4 should be assigned to the extended). Knowing the sdaX names is useful to Ubuntu, but not necessary, while they will show up during your openSUSE installation process, where you will need to know what they represent (mount points). Next would be actual openSUSE installation (if not already begun), specifying sda3 to be used as both /boot and as Grub location, sda5 as openSUSE's / location, and the last logical partition as /home. The installer should automatically use sda2 for swap, and add sda1 to the openSUSE Grub menu so that on each boot you can choose either Ubuntu or openSUSE. You may need to specify "expert" at the openSUSE partitioning phase of installation to prevent the installer's automatic selection and specification of partitions, which may or may not match your intentions if left alone. Until you see what it suggests, you won't know if it matches or not. The "size" of the extended partition is automatically controlled by some partitioners, but not by others, even though the "size" is nothing but a sum of what is allocated or not to contiguous space not defined as any primary partition. Don't get tripped by using one that does not do it (combining) automatically. I use a non-FOSS cross-platform partitioner for all my partitioning, which does it automatically, so I'm not familiar with any foibles of other partitioning tools in this regard. The extended should in every case be whatever contiguous block of space exists that is bounded either by an end of the disk or whatever primary partition(S) exist, regardless whether that space contains any logical partition(s). Some tools subtract whatever freespace exists between primary and first logical, or whatever freespace exists after last logical and end of disk (or a divorced primary - an extended can be bounded by primaries at both ends). -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Felix Miata said the following on 12/02/2011 07:55 PM:

Conventional partitioning is as much art as science, with definition of "steps" colored heavily by expectations and knowledge or lack thereof.

Very much so. Its a "One man's meat is another man's poison" situation

... How big to make the new partition depends on how much space you want to reserve for one or more / (or other) partitions for use with openSUSE and any others you may wish to install, test or otherwise dabble with.

This is the reason I use LVM. In future I may use BtrFS. I realise at first sight LVM may look more complicated, but when it comes down to it its no more difficult, an install time, than creating an extended partition. The partition manager then just iterates and lets you create partitions inside the LVM just as it would if you had created an extended partition. The important difference, especially for a newbie, is that if you misjudge the size of the partition you can adjust it. I use ReiserFS so I don't even have to unmount the partition to adjust the size of the file system! Of course come BtrFS this all becomes so much simpler! -- Companies don't buy the [ADT] Security service because it makes their warehouses more secure; they buy it because they can get a better deal on their insurance - Bruce Schneier "Secrets and Lies" pp 386 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

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

On 12/3/2011 9:00 AM, Felix Miata wrote:

On 2011/12/03 11:08 (GMT-0500) Anton Aylward composed:

...

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.

Another thing seems to bother them is waiting for requested help. I purposely delayed my response to the OP to see what anyone else might have to say first. After a 12 hour wait I proceeded, as apparently no one else saw fit to respond.

Well, if you have nothing depending on a new install, blowing it away and restarting is not that bad, especially when installs go very quickly. Having done it the first time, the second time is easier. Expecting 24/7 instant response is unreasonable. This is an English list, and most of Europe does not bother reading it, so when North America is sleeping and the Aussies are going to bed you end up waiting 12 hours. Its not a big deal. I had to expand a virtual machine's hard drive (easy enough) and expand the partitions (a bit harder) just yesterday. Two Minutes on Google found me a tutorial on Modify Your Partitions With GParted Without Losing Data located at http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted Booting from Knoppix or Gparted LiveCD had this finished in minutes. Absolutely Flawless. (I already had backups, since it was a virtual machine I was expanding, and I back them up routinely). LVM woud have allowed the same capability. Still there are things about LVM that I don't like. 1) it leaves your partitioning mistakes in place, and papers over them with yet another layer 2) It opens you to files and directories being split across physical partitions where you may lose a part of them rendering the whole unusable depending on how your files are arranged 3) People with multiple drives end up using LVM like raid 0, - see 2 above (I've been bitten by #3 in the past. Someone decided to grow the file system to multiple small disks using LVM, one fails, and the entire logical volume is toast because associated files were scattered. In the end, repartitioning is probably best for the Noob, it gives them experience, and education, and gives them time to learn to use LVM the right way. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Saturday 03 December 2011 14:35:39 Anton Aylward wrote:

Felix Miata said the following on 12/03/2011 12:00 PM:

...

To be sure, LVM solves some problems that should lead to less frequency of need for help with it, but for a thread like this involving a n00b who has no apparent LVM exposure, those competent and willing to provide the exposure seem to be in short supply.

Anton A question for you. Are you running more than one OS on your machine? And if you are, are you using LVM on all of them? I'll tell you why I ask. Nany years ago, SuSE 8.0 I think, I used LVM and thoughbt it was the cat's meow, until I tried yo install 8.2? maybe? with LVM also. Tthe partioner would not allow me to set new LVM partitions for the new install. It insisted on trying to integrate them, old and new. The details are pretty fuzzy now and maybe I was doing something wrong. Anyway, the gist of the story is that I gave up, never looked back and to this day I just make sure that my partitions are big enough, especiall with these huge HDs we have now. Just curious Bob S -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

Another thing seems to bother them is waiting for requested help. I purposely delayed my response to the OP to see what anyone else might have to say first. After a 12 hour wait I proceeded, as apparently no one else saw fit to respond. It turned out that was too long, as the OP in the mean time blew away his original hope and did a wipe and default install.

My experience with such threads is help from LVM users is similar, meaning when list help is requested for LVM issues, far less is available than for those with conventional partitioning issues and questions. To be sure, LVM solves some problems that should lead to less frequency of need for help with it, but for a thread like this involving a n00b who has no apparent LVM exposure, those competent and willing to provide the exposure seem to be in short supply.

Well, while your suggestions were extremely good and I completely read your first reply and it gave me the idea also but I was afraid to practically implement since daily I have to do office work and if anything goes wrong (or I stuck in the middle) I would also be not able to do that inevitable work...So, I was thinking to play this while I would be having no (or low) work so that fixing (default re installation) could also be in case if anything goes wrong...But at this time, I have no idea for LVM, brfts etc...but I would one day do this.. Thanks. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:30 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

I'm frustrated that LVM is *not* default default.  There is no reason it shouldn't be, it would avoid a lot of monkey-labor that using crappy old 'partitioning' causes.

I would definitely try to understand this LVM, if it is really that much good. If it is really that much good, why didn't suse people put it in default might be because of something I don't understand at this level.... There must be some technical reason...

EVERY OTHER OS USES LVM BY DEFAULT!

I have no idea about it, might be, I would see but when once I installed Ubuntu (recently) I didn't see at any stage: LVM in the default installation. Regards. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2011/12/05 08:43 (GMT-0500) Anton Aylward composed:

if you do allocate all the space, LVM lets you do something that the "extended" partition doesn't. A LVM volume group may span more than one disk - logical[5] or spindle. Slide another drive in there, put LVM on it, add it to the first volume group and you can extend the fs across it. This is not mounting a new fs, this really is increasing the size of the fs and making it span more than one drive.

Sounds like the same disadvantage as RAID0: one spindle dies, and takes down more than one's data in the process. I don't have faith in hardware that justifies recommending this to anyone. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2011/12/05 11:00 (GMT-0500) James Knott composed:

Felix Miata wrote:

...

Sounds like the same disadvantage as RAID0: one spindle dies, and takes down more than one's data in the process. I don't have faith in hardware that justifies recommending this to anyone.

Actually, I have LVM on RAID5, so that's not an issue...

...for you. "An" extra disk does not RAID5 make for the average n00b, if anyone. I have 30+ functional systems, most of which have only one internal HD, none of which have more than 2 internal HDs, and none of which have any external HDs except during atypical backups. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2011/12/05 11:13 (GMT-0500) Anton Aylward composed:

Felix Miata said the following on 12/05/2011 10:51 AM:

...

Sounds like the same disadvantage as RAID0: one spindle dies, and takes down more than one's data in the process. I don't have faith in hardware that justifies recommending this to anyone.

Yes, it does SOUND like that, just as if you were to describe RAID and stop at RAID0 it would SOUND like RAID was pretty useless and highly vulnerable.

What I wrote was not meant to imply recommending against LVM to anyone, but only against an uninformed spreading of a volume across multiple spindles.

LVM brings a lot of flexibility to disk management. That's what you keep forgetting. Its not an either/or situation.

What makes you think I "keep" forgetting anything? In general (not always), more flexibility equates to more complexity. The only thing I may have forgotten in this thread, assuming I didn't choose to omit at the time, was to mention LVM as a possibility in my reply to the OP. Nothing I've written in this thread has been meant to directly advocate against LVM. Mainly it's been about ensuring thread readers are informed about some issues involved in choosing a partitioning scheme. One issue not heretofore mentioned is that some users are interested in multiboot that permits sharing data in two directions between M$ and Linux. Is this ever possible when exclusively LVM is in place on Linux (advance writing specific data for a particular purpose to M$ partition from Linux does not count for this question)? IOW, can files ever be natively read from a Linux LVM volume during M$ boot (VMs do not count), much less written directly to a Linux LVM volume? -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 12/05/2011 10:42 AM, Anton Aylward wrote:

But "complexity". The Americans almost always complained about the European signs. These signs are very consistent: the colour and the shape tell you a lot. But except for direction signs they don't have words. (Well, lets not get into arguments about Wales, OK?) so how can the Americans know what they mean? They generally told me that European signage was "too complex". What they meant was that it was "different".

This one resonates with me. There can be different paradigms on which systems are built. Think of Windows and UNIX. But regarding street signs, take one-way street signs. Back in the day the sign consisted of a big arrow pointing in the direction of traffic flow. It was a "do this" kind of a thing. But some decades ago the US adopted "International" signage in which an arrow pointed opposite the direction of traffic with a circle and a line through the arrow. This is a "don't do this" kind of a thing. For years my mind was geared on the "do this" signage and it took conscious effort to think in the "don't do this" paradigm. This could lead to a broader discussion of US/European differences but I don't think we need to go there. :-) Regards, Lew -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday 05 December 2011 15:01:54 Anton Aylward wrote:

In many ways this is like *NIX. A few basic principles applied over and over.

100% agreed. Standards are good, and greatly reduce both the need for training, and the risks of making mistakes because you are not used to the environment Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Anders Johansson said the following on 12/05/2011 03:15 PM:

As for international signs, having travelled in several countries I have never seen a sign like what you describe. "One way traffic" is an arrow pointing in the direction of travel, and at the start of the street in the wrong direction, there is a red circle with a yellow line denoting "motor traffic prohibited"

Let see: Red Circle as warning: Red arrow in your direction black towards you. Yield to oncoming traffic. Makes sense to me, probably confuses Americans. Red arrow in other direction, you have priority. What's the circle? Its informative not warning so it must be BLUE. Red Circle as warning: white bar on red or red bar on white No entry (entry barred) I see this in Canada, but it has "No Entry" written in the bar for the Graphically Challenged American visitors. -- You can not inspect quality into the product; it is already there. - W. Edwards Deming -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Anders Johansson wrote:

On Monday 05 December 2011 16:04:23 Anton Aylward wrote:

...

Red Circle as warning: white bar on red or red bar on white No entry (entry barred)

This is what it looks like in Sweden.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_2_2.svg

It means motor traffic prohibited, and you see it if you try to drive onto a motorway in the wrong direction, for example (I don't think it means 'no entry' in general, because when you see it in a city if you try to go the wrong way down a one-way street, it's typically still allowed to do so by bicycle or walking, the only prohibition I think is for motorized vehicles - motorways excepted naturally)

I guess there's a difference between Sweden and the UK then (apart from the colour of the bar) because in the UK it does mean no entry to any vehicle, including cycles. There's also an implication that there can be oncoming traffic. It doesn't mean 'traffic prohibited' (i.e. there's no traffic at all on the road) that's just a white circle with a red border. If cycle contraflow is permitted, there must be a specific sign allowing it. Walking is always allowed on a highway, except on motorways; that's a fundamental right. Anton Aylward wrote:

A sign may show a bicycle. The red circle and bar - negative - means "no bicycles". The Blue circle - positive - means "this is a bicycle path". One says "don't" the other says "do".

Pedantic point - there's no bar to mean negative. See the pedal cycle prohibition in http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/@mot... The list of everything is at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Knowyourtrafficsigns/index.ht...

In many ways this is like *NIX. A few basic principles applied over and over.

But just like *NIX, there are different flavours with small differences. Cheers, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Anton Aylward wrote:

Lets see: when you partitioned your disk there were four "slots". You probably had, originally, Windows in one "Primary" partition and you created an "extended" partition since you need more than the original four "slots" for the various Linux partitions. That "extended" partition takes up one of the original four "slots".

Sorry to sound so simplistic. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning#Benefits_of_multiple_partitio...

The logic holds well to support additional granularity.

In the past there have been vulnerabilities that arose because /tmp was on the same fs as /sbin. There are good reasons to have /tmp and /var/ on separate fs since they can overflow and lock up the system. More granular partitioning also helps, as I keep saying with managing backups[1].

Into that "extended" partition you created additional partitions. Do not, however, that you can have one and only one "extended" partition. *sigh*

Now suppose that instead of the extended partition you created a LVM in that slot. What's the difference at this point? Well the only functional difference is that you can create more than one LVM partition but only one "extended" partition, but I don't see why that matters since I can't see a good reason for having more than one LVM partition on the disk[2].

If you use an "extended" partition the installation partitioner will then guide you though adding more partitions in that "extended" partition. If you have a very large drive and the extended partition is huge, you may be tempted to use all that space with no particular strategy to allocate space to one fs or another thinking it won't matter. Maybe it won't.

If you use an LVM partition the installation partitioner will then guide you through adding more partitions in that LVM partition[3]. If you have a very large drive and the LVM partition is huge, you may be tempted to use all the space at this point just as you did with the fixed allocation in the "extended" partition model thinking it won't matter. Really it won't, but its not smart; just allocate what you need, you can alter it later if you make the wrong decision. If you do allocate all the space you can do what you can't do with fixed allocation and alter that too, shrinking one fs and its partition and giving the space to another partition and fs.

The point here is if you make a mistake with the fixed partitioner and don't have any slack you are stuck. You have to shut-down, move stuff off, wipe the various fs concerned, reformat, rebuild the fs, do a restore, restart.

On an older system and a smaller drive I've done that and its, as Adam says, 'monkey-labour'. There HAS to be an easier way and there is: use LVM. In frustration I wiped the whole disk, installed LVM and never looked back.

Under LVM it takes just four commands to move space from one "not full" file system and partition to one that is full, and I don't have to unmount the file systems and I don't have to shut down the machine.

In the long run I've learnt there is little justification for large file systems. The time to run FSCK seems to be proportional to the square of the size of the file system, by all accounts. As I've said many times, 4G file systems are easy to back up onto a DVD and avoids the issue of managing many CDs/DVDs for a fs backup[4].

If you use LVM its worth having some slack.

Even so, if you do allocate all the space, LVM lets you do something that the "extended" partition doesn't. A LVM volume group may span more than one disk - logical[5] or spindle. Slide another drive in there, put LVM on it, add it to the first volume group and you can extend the fs across it. This is not mounting a new fs, this really is increasing the size of the fs and making it span more than one drive.

With LVM its hard to make a wrong decision about how much space to allocate to a fs because it can be corrected later on a live system.

[1] If you have time, it can make sense to NOT backup anything that can be reinstalled, so having the firm separation of "code vs data" is a good strategy: don't back up anything in "/" since "/home", "/tmp", "/usr/share" etc are on separate partitions ... [2] Actually I found one but its really rococo. [3] It did in 11.x and it did on my Fedora system, I haven't tried 12.1 [4] If you are using tape your decision may alter, though LVM's ability to take a snapshot may help ensure the integrity of your backups. [5] So if you delete the Windows partition(s) you can create a LVM in their place - this is how you get two LVM partitions on one spindle.

Excellent explanation! Really then next time I must go for LVM! I hope from 12.2 it would be in the default installation, it really overweights the default installation if this is the case! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Adam Tauno Williams said the following on 12/05/2011 06:30 AM:

I see "partitioning in unallocated" and think "Ugh, they didn't use LVM" and I move on.

+1

I'm frustrated that LVM is *not* default default. There is no reason it shouldn't be, it would avoid a lot of monkey-labor that using crappy old 'partitioning' causes. EVERY OTHER OS USES LVM BY DEFAULT!

+1

Once you've moved a file-system, effortlessly, from one disk [physical volume] to another, replaced the disk, and moved your data back again.... Yep, you get a very superior attitude towards those that don't use LVM. And you are entirely justified.

+1 smug :-) -- Our institutions and values are in jeopardy as the mores of the market pervade all social life in this country. Loyalty, honesty, courage, discipline, patriotism, and commitment to family are being crowded out by the goals and rules of economic rationality -- do whatever makes the most money. --Barry Schwartz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Quoting Martin Helm :

Am 05.12.2011 12:30, schrieb Adam Tauno Williams:

...

I'm frustrated that LVM is *not* default default. There is no reason it shouldn't be, it would avoid a lot of monkey-labor that using crappy old 'partitioning' causes. EVERY OTHER OS USES LVM BY DEFAULT! Just out of curiosity: I wonder what every other OS is since debian, ubuntu, mint, mandriva, mageia for example do not belong to that "every" and the only mainstream distro I am aware of is fedora which uses it by default.

Let's see: ***Microsoft Windows***, HP/UX, AIX, Solaris, ... BTW: Ubuntu, Mandriva... those are not Operating Systems. Those are LINUX distributions. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 12/05/2011 05:34 AM, LinuxIsOne pecked at the keyboard and wrote:

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

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Another thing seems to bother them is waiting for requested help. I purposely delayed my response to the OP to see what anyone else might have to say first. After a 12 hour wait I proceeded, as apparently no one else saw fit to respond. It turned out that was too long, as the OP in the mean time blew away his original hope and did a wipe and default install.

...

My experience with such threads is help from LVM users is similar, meaning when list help is requested for LVM issues, far less is available than for those with conventional partitioning issues and questions. To be sure, LVM solves some problems that should lead to less frequency of need for help with it, but for a thread like this involving a n00b who has no apparent LVM exposure, those competent and willing to provide the exposure seem to be in short supply.

Well, while your suggestions were extremely good and I completely read your first reply and it gave me the idea also but I was afraid to practically implement since daily I have to do office work and if anything goes wrong (or I stuck in the middle) I would also be not able to do that inevitable work...So, I was thinking to play this while I would be having no (or low) work so that fixing (default re installation) could also be in case if anything goes wrong...But at this time, I have no idea for LVM, brfts etc...but I would one day do this..

Thanks.

Install Virtualbox and use it to experiment. That way you don't mess up your "work" machine. -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 12/02/2011 02:06 AM, Felix Miata wrote:

Any normal person not compiling software and keeping all the sources and rpms on / would be hard pressed to even consume 20G on / while using a separate partition for /home.

Hmm... Perhaps qualified with "for desktop use." For server storage with opensuse placing /var and /srv under / by default, I've found it quite easy to fill up 20G. Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on <snip> /dev/mapper/nvidia_baaccajap5 19G 13G 5.1G 71% / <snip> /dev/mapper/nvidia_baaccajap9 15G 5.5G 8.3G 40% /var /dev/mapper/nvidia_baaccajap10 29G 13G 16G 45% /srv Placing /var and /srv on separate partitions will generally make a 20G / more than adequate for virtually all installs. (there are always a few nut jobs out there...) Back to your original questions, just throw the 12.1 disk into your existing ubuntu box and tell YAST to install into the unpartitioned space and then create reasonable sized /, /boot, /home partitions. You are not hurt by leaving 150G unpartitioned as you can always create another partition and then mount it anywhere in your filesystem should you need more storage in the future. For example, if you create: /=15G /boot=150M /home=20G that would leave you roughly 176G unpartitioned. Then if you need more space out of the 176 later, just use fdisk, cfdisk or parted (or YAST again) to create whatever size you need out of the 176G and then use mkfs.ext4 (or mkfs --type={your choice}) to create the filesystem, then mount it into your filesystem say at /data If you don't know what all you are likely to do with the box in the future, then saving unpartitioned space for a future OS install or further expansion makes sense. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

David C. Rankin said the following on 12/09/2011 12:03 AM:

If you don't know what all you are likely to do with the box in the future, then saving unpartitioned space for a future OS install or further expansion makes sense.

And LVM is the most flexible way to do that. In fact put your /home and /var and /tmp there to start with. I'm looking forward to being able to put multiple "/" in LVM ... -- The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become. The sharper men's weapons, The more trouble in the land. The more ingenious and clever men are, The more strange things happen. The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers. -- The Tao Te Ching -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, Dec 09, 2011 at 08:04:50AM -0500, Anton Aylward wrote:

David C. Rankin said the following on 12/09/2011 12:03 AM:

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If you don't know what all you are likely to do with the box in the future, then saving unpartitioned space for a future OS install or further expansion makes sense.

And LVM is the most flexible way to do that. In fact put your /home and /var and /tmp there to start with.

I'm looking forward to being able to put multiple "/" in LVM ...

You remember KISS? Keep It Simple Stupid. By this reason I try hard to keep my root filesystem on a real device. Mounting it via UUID as it is the default since 12.1 - cool working migration btw as soon as you start the YaST -> System -> Partitioner module the first time! - makes booting a bit more reliable in the time of hot plugging USB, SATA, and FireWire devices. Ensure to keep /boot on a separate partition with some ext? fs. I use ext4. And to put cream on top of this all use btrfs! Yes, use btrfs. And once again btrfs is the fs you like to use. You might ask why the heaven should I play beta tester for the btrfs developers? a) It's no longer beta! Check yourself https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/ "Btrfs is under heavy development, but every effort is being made to keep the filesystem stable and fast. As of 2.6.31, we only plan to make forward compatible disk format changes, and many users have been experimenting with Btrfs on their systems with good results." I'm using it since several weeks and it's stable. Well, I'm getting slowly older and therefore no longer use DIY hardware. All I did with my current main workstation is to plug two additional disks to play a bit more with the nice features of - you'll not guess it - btrfs. Also I've added a bit more memory. b) snapper! wtf is snapper? Start YaST -> Miscellaneous -> Snapper @Arvin: Why is this not part of YaST -> Cool Stuff? Honestly why isn't it part of YaST -> System? Snapper is the hot feature of openSUSE 12.1 and even SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 2. See Greg and Matthias demo show at Brainshare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7e6BcI5Fo#t=170 That's a real big gig. Honestly it a long time back that I had been impressed like this. c) We'll make us of this with Samba And to put more cream on top of it we're working on offering access to the btrfs snapshots via Samba to Microsoft Windows users. All a user of a Samba share has to do at the end is a right cklick on the folder in a Microsoft Explorer window and from the properties window you'll have access to the btrfs snapshots like you're able to access native Microsoft Shadow Copy snapshots. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy if you havn't used this before. Lars -- Lars Müller [ˈlaː(r)z ˈmʏlɐ] Samba Team SUSE Linux, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Lars Müller wrote:

c) We'll make us of this with Samba

And to put more cream on top of it we're working on offering access to the btrfs snapshots via Samba to Microsoft Windows users.  All a user of a Samba share has to do at the end is a right cklick on the folder in a Microsoft Explorer window and from the properties window you'll have access to the btrfs snapshots like you're able to access native Microsoft Shadow Copy snapshots.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy if you havn't used this before.

That is beyond cool. In fact it is way beyond cool. I've cc'ed the ext3/ext4 snapshots mailinglist. They may have some questions for you about this. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2011-12-09 at 17:06 +0100, Lars Müller wrote:

On Fri, Dec 09, 2011 at 08:04:50AM -0500, Anton Aylward wrote:

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David C. Rankin said the following on 12/09/2011 12:03 AM

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If you don't know what all you are likely to do with the box in the future, then saving unpartitioned space for a future OS install or further expansion makes sense. And LVM is the most flexible way to do that. In fact put your /home and /var and /tmp there to start with. I'm looking forward to being able to put multiple "/" in LVM ... You remember KISS? Keep It Simple Stupid. By this reason I try hard to keep my root filesystem on a real device.

I disagree. The ability to grow and/or move the root volume is immense flexibility - you can even replace the 'system drive' in the workstation or server. There is no reason not use LVM; KISS doesn't save you anything. I've used a logical volume as root for years and never had any issues.

Ensure to keep /boot on a separate partition with some ext? fs. I use ext4.

Agree. I always keep /boot as a separate 256MB file-system.

And to put cream on top of this all use btrfs! Yes, use btrfs. And once again btrfs is the fs you like to use. You might ask why the heaven should I play beta tester for the btrfs developers? a) It's no longer beta! Check yourself https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/

Agree. BTRFS isn't beta [although people keep repeating that it is]. On the other hand I've seen some issues. I use it on my laptop; I don't trust it yet for my workstation.

Snapper is the hot feature of openSUSE 12.1 and even SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 2. See Greg and Matthias demo show at Brainshare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7e6BcI5Fo#t=170

Snapper and BTRFS snapshot integration is indeed awesome. Needs much better documentation.

c) We'll make us of this with Samba And to put more cream on top of it we're working on offering access to the btrfs snapshots via Samba to Microsoft Windows users. All a user of a Samba share has to do at the end is a right cklick on the folder in a Microsoft Explorer window and from the properties window you'll have access to the btrfs snapshots like you're able to access native Microsoft Shadow Copy snapshots. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy if you havn't used this before.

Note that this is *future tense*. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org