Disk Partitioning tools, GUI preferably- best for LVM Logical Volume Management ; jor
What are the best tools (ie sw) for doing disk partitioning? Preferably GUI. but, console mode suggestions welcome if that's best, or all there is.
For use in KUbuntu 10.4.
[This list is for all LVM questions, not just RedHat distro questions, yes?]
==
KDE 3 used to have qtPartEd, which used to be able to actually _create_ partitions. That's not in KDE4, ie in KUbuntu 10.4.
I've installed GPartEd, but it can't see into LVs - Logical volumes. Thus, it can't _create_ anything there.
I'd greatly appreciate a competent GUI partitioner. I only partition disks a few times per year, & it's great to have the GUI have the commands available to do the partitions, so one doesn't have to spend the time to keep up on the specifics of commands to deal with new disk formats & partitioning methods, & do hand calculations of partitions sizes, etc.
==
I installed KU 10.4 with the alternate installer. I've used the console mode installer for many years, probably because it gives me the ability to partition my disks well.
I usually put, in order from the beginning, two Linux partititions, a swap partition, then make a LVM for the 4th partition. & put a "/home" partition there, then leave space for further partitions - like, if i want to add another linux partition - so I can set up different distros & boot into them.
[BTW, is making that 4th partition a logical one, & putting more partitions in there necessary anymore? Used to be that disks were limited at 4 partitions, & one had to make a big 4th partition & put sub partitions inside that. After all these years - in Linux, can we yet put as many partitions as we want without making a logical partition? I think there was a limit of 16 partitions before. Can more than that be done now?]
==
So, I've got that big LV 4th partition, with empty space (2TB drive), and now I want to create some more linux partitions so I can install some other distros.
But, GPartEd doesn't show what's in the LVM. And, thus it further can't create any partions there. - It's a tragedy GPartEd isn't better maintained. :(
==
So, what are the easiest tools to create additional partions in Logical Volumes?
Thanks :)
== Join in the Global weekly meetings, via VOIP, about all Free SW HW & Culture
http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/
Quoted 3 lines · giovanni_re
What are the best tools (ie sw) for doing disk partitioning? Preferably GUI. but, console mode suggestions welcome if that's best, or all there is.
This answer is perhaps a little snarky, but LVM is the best partitioning tool. :-) Just make the entire drive a PV.
Reasons to still use the obsolete partition DOS table:
1) so other OSes know there is data on the drive
2) when using software RAID (md driver), partition type allows auto recognition and start of md devices.
3) you are using the grub boot loader, which doesn't speak LVM yet
Signature · 4 lines
Stuart D. Gathman <[email protected]> Business Management Systems Inc. Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154 "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.
Hi!
Quoted 2 lines
[This list is for all LVM questions, not just RedHat distro questions, yes?]
Yes this list is for lvm in general ...
Quoted 2 lines
[BTW, is making that 4th partition a logical one, & putting more partitions in there necessary anymore?
The limitation of the 4 partitions is not a linux thing, the "Master Boot Record" (MBR) is on a single sector on your disk (sectors are usually 512Bytes big), it's a historical thing. The MBR can hold 4 entries and not more.
Quoted 3 lines
I'd greatly appreciate a competent GUI partitioner. I only partition disks a few times per year, & it's great to have the GUI have the commands available to do the partitions ...
As said you may use one drive as pv and divide that into lvs. In Fedora there is also a gui for lvm, but I didn't use it really, so I can't recommend it. I always use command-line for this (partitioning (if ever necessary) with fdisk and lv-commands)
Quoted 1 line · The reasons for dos-partiton as Stuart
3) you are using the grub boot loader, which doesn't speak LVM yet
3) If you have kubuntu 10.04 (I suggest 10.4 is a spell error) you should have grub2 and therefore it should be lvm-aware even on your boot disk (but not every distro can handle this, that�s true ...)
Greetings,
Harald Heigl
Quoted 79 lines
-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Im Auftrag vongiovanni_re
Gesendet: Samstag, 24. Juli 2010 05:28
An: [email protected]
Betreff: [linux-lvm] Disk Partitioning tools, GUI preferably- best for LVM Logical Volume Management ; jorWhat are the best tools (ie sw) for doing disk partitioning? Preferably GUI. but, console mode suggestions welcome if that's best, or all there is.
For use in KUbuntu 10.4.
[This list is for all LVM questions, not just RedHat distro questions, yes?]
==
KDE 3 used to have qtPartEd, which used to be able to actually _create_ partitions. That's not in KDE4, ie in KUbuntu 10.4.I've installed GPartEd, but it can't see into LVs - Logical volumes. Thus, it can't _create_ anything there.
I'd greatly appreciate a competent GUI partitioner. I only partition disks a few times per year, & it's great to have the GUI have the commands available to do the partitions, so one doesn't have to spend the time to keep up on the specifics of commands to deal with new disk formats & partitioning methods, & do hand calculations of partitions sizes, etc.
==
I installed KU 10.4 with the alternate installer. I've used the console mode installer for many years, probably because it gives me the ability to partition my disks well.I usually put, in order from the beginning, two Linux partititions, a swap partition, then make a LVM for the 4th partition. & put a "/home" partition there, then leave space for further partitions - like, if i want to add another linux partition - so I can set up different distros & boot into them.
[BTW, is making that 4th partition a logical one, & putting more partitions in there necessary anymore? Used to be that disks were limited at 4 partitions, & one had to make a big 4th partition & put sub partitions inside that. After all these years - in Linux, can we yet put as many partitions as we want without making a logical partition? I think there was a limit of 16 partitions before. Can more than that be done now?]
==
So, I've got that big LV 4th partition, with empty space (2TB drive), and now I want to create some more linux partitions so I can install some other distros.But, GPartEd doesn't show what's in the LVM. And, thus it further can't create any partions there. - It's a tragedy GPartEd isn't better maintained. :(
==
So, what are the easiest tools to create additional partions in Logical Volumes?Thanks :)
== Join in the Global weekly meetings, via VOIP, about all Free SW HW & Culture
http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/_______________________________________________
linux-lvm mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Quoted 3 lines · giovanni_re
So, I've got that big LV 4th partition, with empty space (2TB drive), and now I want to create some more linux partitions so I can install some other distros.
I'm a bit confused by your requirements. Are the other distros going to be installed as virtual machines (e.g. using KVM/Xen etc) or are you planning to boot them on "bare metal"?
If you want VMs then partitioning an LV makes sense. You present the entire LV as a virtual disk to the guest and the emulated devices appear to that OS as a regular partitioned disk. This is a very common technique.
If you want to boot these directly on the hardware however you might want to reconsider your approach. Partitioned LVs are not supported out-of-the box by any distro that I know of. I think you would need to mess around with custom boot scripts to get the system to boot properly and you'll probably need to do some special tricks to get a standard distro installer to install onto these partitioned LVs. You would also need to figure out a way of sharing a /boot partition (on the physical disk) between all the installed distributions to avoid conflicts since PC BIOS boot support does not handle LVM devices.
If this is your goal then you might find it easier to allocate a single LV to each new installation and use that directly. With a bit of fancy footwork in grub (and as long as each distro supports installation to an existing LVM2 volume group) I think this should work and would be easier and simpler to set up.
Regards,
Bryn.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAkxNS0YACgkQ6YSQoMYUY94KLgCdFDxsO14zg5EJAxCjeKu9za9a V8AAoNiNptjcwNnzwKGGQpnNP735W/nX
=wioh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Quoted 8 lines · Bryn M. Reeves
Quoted 3 lines · giovanni_re
So, I've got that big LV 4th partition, with empty space (2TB drive), and now I want to create some more linux partitions so I can install some other distros.
If you want VMs then partitioning an LV makes sense. You present the entire LV as a virtual disk to the guest and the emulated devices appear to that OS as a regular partitioned disk. This is a very common technique.
Using Xen modified OSes, you don't need to partition the LVs. The xen storage driver presents each mapped block device as a virtual partition.
Quoted 9 lines
If you want to boot these directly on the hardware however you might want to reconsider your approach. Partitioned LVs are not supported out-of-the box by any distro that I know of. I think you would need to mess around with custom boot scripts to get the system to boot properly and you'll probably need to do some special tricks to get a standard distro installer to install onto these partitioned LVs. You would also need to figure out a way of sharing a /boot partition (on the physical disk) between all the installed distributions to avoid conflicts since PC BIOS boot support does not handle LVM devices.
Booting multiple LVM supporting OSes works fine with LVM. Have a LV for the root filesystem of each Linux OS, and have them all on the Grub menu. Make the /boot partition extra large. I do this with every laptop and desktop as SOP. Make Fedora upgrades much less fearful.
If necessary, you can boot non LVM OSes installed in a DOS partition via a chain menu entry in grub. (e.g. boot Windows)
Quoted 5 lines
If this is your goal then you might find it easier to allocate a single LV to each new installation and use that directly. With a bit of fancy footwork in grub (and as long as each distro supports installation to an existing LVM2 volume group) I think this should work and would be easier and simpler to set up.
If every distro sticks to reasonable naming conventions in /boot (so that they don't step on each others kernels), then it all works fine.
Signature · 4 lines
Stuart D. Gathman <[email protected]> Business Management Systems Inc. Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154 "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Quoted 7 lines · Stuart D. Gathman
Quoted 5 lines · Bryn M. Reeves
Quoted 3 lines · giovanni_re
So, I've got that big LV 4th partition, with empty space (2TB drive), and now I want to create some more linux partitions so I can install some other distros.
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 3 lines
If you want VMs then partitioning an LV makes sense. You present the entire LV as a virtual disk to the guest and the emulated devices appear to that OS as a regular partitioned disk. This is a very common technique.
Using Xen modified OSes, you don't need to partition the LVs. The xen storage driver presents each mapped block device as a virtual partition.
Not used Xen for a long time but that's good to know - iirc it did not behave like this the last time I used it (with xvda disks).
Quoted 4 lines
Booting multiple LVM supporting OSes works fine with LVM. Have a LV for the root filesystem of each Linux OS, and have them all on the Grub menu. Make the /boot partition extra large. I do this with every laptop and desktop as SOP. Make Fedora upgrades much less fearful.
That's exactly what I was suggesting :-)
Adding nested partitions _inside_ the LVs (which is what the OP seemed to want) is going to complicate things significantly for bare-metal.
Quoted 2 lines
If every distro sticks to reasonable naming conventions in /boot (so that they don't step on each others kernels), then it all works fine.
Yes although you still need to be a little careful during installations to make sure that there aren't any conflicts (I often want to have a couple of versions of the same distribution, or even different instances of the same version of the same distribution installed together). Also remember never to re-format /boot during an install :)
Regards,
Bryn.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAkxNguYACgkQ6YSQoMYUY97YHACfUlBWe2NnmC8ztIZ0ZGa46xKU ByEAoIfCSb0XUzR+Usy5VE9SGq3AXl2U
=+GcI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Quoted 6 lines · Bryn M. Reeves
Quoted 3 lines
Using Xen modified OSes, you don't need to partition the LVs. The xen storage driver presents each mapped block device as a virtual partition.
Not used Xen for a long time but that's good to know - iirc it did not behave like this the last time I used it (with xvda disks).
xen disk definition on dom0:
disk = [ "phy:/dev/rootvg/C5MAIL,xvda1,w",
"phy:/dev/rootvg/M_SWAP,xvda2,w", "phy:/dev/rootvg/MAIL,xvda3,w" ]
What guest OS running xen kernel sees:
# df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 10165048 1554800 8190820 16% / /dev/xvda3 83716784 48877780 30644700 62% /home tmpfs 1048664 0 1048664 0% /dev/shm
However, it doesn't go so far as to let you access the first sector of /dev/xvda
Signature · 4 lines
Stuart D. Gathman <[email protected]> Business Management Systems Inc. Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154 "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Quoted 6 lines · Stuart D. Gathman
Quoted 4 lines · Bryn M. Reeves
Quoted 3 lines
Using Xen modified OSes, you don't need to partition the LVs. The xen storage driver presents each mapped block device as a virtual partition.
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 2 lines
Not used Xen for a long time but that's good to know - iirc it did not behave like this the last time I used it (with xvda disks).
xen disk definition on dom0:
disk = [ "phy:/dev/rootvg/C5MAIL,xvda1,w",
"phy:/dev/rootvg/M_SWAP,xvda2,w", "phy:/dev/rootvg/MAIL,xvda3,w" ]
Hmm, that's kinda neat. I think when I was using Xen routinely the disk= syntax was limited to associating a backing store with a whole-disk xvda device.
Quoted 8 lines
# df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 10165048 1554800 8190820 16% / /dev/xvda3 83716784 48877780 30644700 62% /home tmpfs 1048664 0 1048664 0% /dev/shmHowever, it doesn't go so far as to let you access the first sector of
/dev/xvda
Understandable but I can't help but wondering what happens if you try? :)
Does it return zeros or just error out?
Regards,
Bryn.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAkxNldYACgkQ6YSQoMYUY96mDwCfXn5p/ecOpAgE35ngVgP9nPd0 QJcAoLsrDMAkcaPEpmvEk0r2qAlwcZT6
=AfUs
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Quoted 6 lines · Bryn M. Reeves
Quoted 6 lines
# df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 10165048 1554800 8190820 16% / /dev/xvda3 83716784 48877780 30644700 62% /home tmpfs 1048664 0 1048664 0% /dev/shm
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines
However, it doesn't go so far as to let you access the first sector of
/dev/xvdaUnderstandable but I can't help but wondering what happens if you try? :)
Does it return zeros or just error out?
It doesn't create the /dev entry:
# ls -l /dev/xvda* brw-r----- 1 root disk 202, 1 Jul 26 06:11 /dev/xvda1 brw-r----- 1 root disk 202, 2 Jul 26 06:10 /dev/xvda2 brw-r----- 1 root disk 202, 3 Jul 26 06:10 /dev/xvda3
I will try manually creating minor device 0 sometime, but not on a production system!
Signature · 4 lines
Stuart D. Gathman <[email protected]> Business Management Systems Inc. Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154 "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.
Re: [linux-lvm] Disk Partitioning tools, - for having multi distros bootable - GUI preferably- best for LVM Logical Volume Management ; jor
In reply to Bryn M. ReevesThanks Stuart, Harald & Bryn for your replies :)
Quoted 11 lines · Bryn M. Reeves
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1Quoted 3 lines · giovanni_re
So, I've got that big LV 4th partition, with empty space (2TB drive), and now I want to create some more linux partitions so I can install some other distros.
I'm a bit confused by your requirements. Are the other distros going to be installed as virtual machines (e.g. using KVM/Xen etc) or are you planning to boot them on "bare metal"?
Not as Virtual Machines (VMs), so must be what you are calling "bare metal".
Ie, booting up into GRUB should show:
sda1 - linux distro 1 sda2 - linux distro 2 sda?? - in the sda4 LVM, linux distro 3
sda??+1 - in the sda4 LVM, linux distro 4
etc.
SDA4 LM currently has a /home data partition, & free space
The only place I see to put another distro partition is in the sda4 LVM.
==
BTW, I used to put an extended partition in sda4, & inside that create logical partitions to put more distros into.
But, this time, using the KUbuntu 10.4 "alternate" (I always install with the alternate install) installer CD (text, not gui mode), the 4th partition was created as a LVM, not an extended partition.
Quoted 9 lines
If you want to boot these directly on the hardware however you might want to reconsider your approach. Partitioned LVs are not supported out-of-the box by any distro that I know of. I think you would need to mess around with custom boot scripts to get the system to boot properly and you'll probably need to do some special tricks to get a standard distro installer to install onto these partitioned LVs. You would also need to figure out a way of sharing a /boot partition (on the physical disk) between all the installed distributions to avoid conflicts since PC BIOS boot support does not handle LVM devices.
Based on your discussion following your post, with Stuart, is that still true?
In any case, now that Logical Volume technology exists, in addition to the previous Extended Partition technology, what is the way to configure the partitions with LVs to have multiple partitions available to GRUB to boot from?
Quoted 6 lines
If this is your goal then you might find it easier to allocate a single LV to each new installation and use that directly. With a bit of fancy footwork in grub (and as long as each distro supports installation to an existing LVM2 volume group) I think this should work and would be easier and simpler to set up.
== Join in the Global weekly meetings, via VOIP, about all Free SW HW & Culture
http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/
Re: [linux-lvm] Disk Partitioning tools, - for having multi distros bootable - GUI preferably- best for LVM Logical Volume Management ; jor
Quoted 18 lines · giovanni_re
Not as Virtual Machines (VMs), so must be what you are calling "bare metal".
Ie, booting up into GRUB should show:
sda1 - linux distro 1 sda2 - linux distro 2 sda?? - in the sda4 LVM, linux distro 3sda??+1 - in the sda4 LVM, linux distro 4
etc.SDA4 LM currently has a /home data partition, & free space
The only place I see to put another distro partition is in the sda4 LVM. Based on your discussion following your post, with Stuart, is that still true?
Quoted 5 lines
In any case, now that Logical Volume technology exists, in addition to the previous Extended Partition technology, what is the way to configure the partitions with LVs to have multiple partitions available to GRUB to boot from?
Use a large /boot partition. The last time I used Ubuntu, it did not easily support having a separate /boot filesystem (instead making the root fs bootable), so that could be a problem, unless Ubuntu also supports grub 2 (with LVM support).
So, with distros that support separate /boot (e.g. Fedora and EL), just share the /boot partition between them (they should name the files to avoid conflicts). Each grub entry specifies the root filesystem, which can be a LV.
There can be multiple instances with the same kernel version (e.g. F12 before scary update, F12 after scary update).
With distros that don't support /boot, but *do* support grub 2 (and you have grub 2), then grub entries refer to kernel files in LVs for the distro.
With distros that support both, do it either way.
With OS that do not support LVM (E.g. Windows), you will have to have a partition and chain load in grub.