On 2011/04/22 15:14 (GMT-0400) Anton Aylward composed:
So now I have the system un-Hosed and stable, I look to the next part.
I have
# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 26 206848 83 Linux /dev/sda2 27 156 1044225 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda3 2551 9729 57665317+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda6 2558 2836 2241036 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2846 9729 55295698+ 8e Linux LVM
Lord only knows why any partitioner made the 2558 partition sda6 and the 2846 sda5. The only logical way to name that arrangement is the reverse, but Linux partitioners aren't afraid to use illogic.
sda1 - /boot sda2 - swap sda6 - /
I plan to close up the gap by putting in /dev/sda4 from 157 too 300 and moving / there.
A partitioner that isn't retarded will already show sda beginning on either 157, or on 2558, either way showing the whole space from 157-2557 as a contiguous block. A retarded one should nevertheless be able to put it either on 157 or 2558, leaving the whole 157-2557 chunk as available to either append to the start of the extended, or use as a 4th primary, or even divide up between primary #4 and logical space. The only reason to pin sda3 to 2551 would be if Grub was installed there, and you needed it to stay installed there, and you don't. Except for when Grub code is located in the extended's boot sector, the extended is nothing but a location for a partition table entry pointing to the start of the first logical. That can readily be moved to the first logical, or the first free sector following the last primary before the start of space occupied by logicals. IOW, there most likely isn't really any gap between sda6 and sda3 now, unless there used to be a need for Grub code in the extended that is not currently needed to be there. With the partitioner I use, if that disk was here, I'd just shove sda6 back to 157, and enlarge it to whatever size desired, probably half the space from 157-2845. Then I'd add another of same size to use for multiboot to openSUSE-next, allowing to test drive the next release without disturbing what already works. LVM could be left alone. Or, if resizing LVM is an option (I have no idea - I've only ever used LVM once, and have no plans to use it in the foreseeable future), make two / partitions in the free space from 157-2845 using less than all of if, then apply the remainder to the front of sda5. The result with my partitioner would be / on sda5, another / on sda6, LVM on sda7, and no sda4.
In other word, presently there is CURRENTLY
Primary sda1 /boot 202 MB Primary sda2 SWAP 1019.75 MB --- unallocated --- 18.34 GB Secondary sda3 --- unallocated --- 54.94 MB sda6 / 2.14 GB --- unallocated --- 70.63 MB sda5 LVM 52.73 GB
Now in an ideal world, openSuse would have adopted Grub2 a long time back (what's holding it up?)
The holdup is it is far from ready for use by normal humans. Much about it is very very very different from Grub1. Only its devs and a tiny handful of dedicated followers know enough about it to actually use it. Its documentation is hopelessly incomplete. I don't remember seeing any estimate of how complete it is, but I have to guess 10% complete would be an optimistic overstatement.
and thus be able to boot from LVM and the whole disk would be LVM and none of this nonsense with shuffling partitions would arise!
Part of the nonsense is artificial freespace division and arbitrary placement of sda3.
In a next to ideal world gparted would be able to do all the Partition Magic can do and more and shuffle partitions and grow them regardless of contents.
Parted Magic is supposed to do what Partition Magic can do and more. I don't use either. I use DFSee, which is not FOSS, but comes as a package of executables that produce identical results whether you run it from OS/2, DOS (e.g. floppy or CD), Windows, Mac, or Linux. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dfsee
But this is here and now.
What I need to do is to create a partition - sda4 - in that 18G unallocated gap up close to sda2 and move what is presently in sda6 into it, update grub and fstab.
Not Grub, just menu.lst & fstab.
That leaves me with two unallocated areas, one about 16GB and one of about 2.26 GB.
As stated above, you really only have one unallocated area, 157-2557.
In a better world, I'd be able to expand the front-end of that secondary partition to eat up 16 GB and expand the front end of the LVM partition to eat up the resulting 18 GB.
I wish!
But what to do really?
Find out whether one LVM can be grown into preceeding freespace before doing or deciding anything else. If it can't, investigate the ramifications of creating an adjacent LVM, and whether that can be functionally merged with the existing one before deciding anything else.
Unfortunately moving the whole lot off and reformatting the disk isn't practical.
I wouldn't be afraid to do that myself, but it's not something I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't already have everything backed up in a fashion that makes restoration a reasonable process. Of course, if you do have that backup, why not just wipe everything from 157-up and restore from backup after creating the partition arrangement you want? -- "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 For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org