LVM, resize /, & FC3 defaults

[Jim Cornette]

Gordon Ewasiuk wrote:

> Hi Fedora List,
>
> Ran into a problem with LVM and FC3.  I can work around the problem 
> but was curious if anyone here has experienced the roadblock I hit.
>
> I installed FC3 in a testbed.  I accepted the default partition scheme 
> which defaulted to LVM use on a single drive.
>
> A few weeks later, I went to resize the LVM partition.  First I had 
> resize the ext3 filesystem with resize2fs.  I couldn't do a resize 
> operation on a mounted / partition.  Not a problem.  I boot from 
> Rescue CD...
>
> which can't see LVM partitions?
>
> I understand the technical problems about a generic rescue CD 
> detecting the infinite number of possible LVM combinations and 
> configurations.  That led me to wonder about the wisdom of having LVM 
> as the default during installation of FC3.
>
> Comments please?
>

Another problem with having LVM installed by default is the trying to 
install the next release in text mode does not recognize the LVM based 
installation.
the LVM is recognized using the GUI installer. This might be similar to 
what you are running into when using the rescue CD to attempt to resize 
the drives. A consideration might be to add a parameter to the boot 
command to load  lvm related processes to be able to adjust your lvm 
sizes to your desired specifications.

I guess having LVM as the default choice is not that negative in itself. 
I think that we now need the tools to deal with them as part of the 
rescue environment.

I don't know how to work with LVM resizing myself. Aren't there programs 
lvcreate, lvresize or similar utilities. I thought that LVM was not 
based on partitions but on sort of a dynamically reconfigurable way to 
deal with sizes given to different filesystems. (data in strips, instead 
of allocating partition areas.) I guess a bit of reading on my part is 
needed, since LVM is the new default.

In short, I don't know how to deal with LVM. I would like to see the LVM 
management tool that allows you to select your filesystem allocations 
would be better to use. I seem to recall that there is a GUI tool out 
for managing LVM filesystems already.

Jim