lvm

[Peter Larsen]

On Sun, 2012-03-04 at 18:27 +0000, mike cloaked wrote: 
> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Peter Larsen
> <plarsen at famlarsen.homelinux.com> wrote:
> > Patric,
> > fdisk (you have to start using -cul instead of -l) reports what-ever the
> > partition table contains. It's utterly ignorant to what's on the actual
> > partition. So simply login with fdisk, do a "t" and change the partition
> > type to what-ever you want.
> >
> > Be aware that linux ignores those types - they have absolutely no impact
> > on how your system works.
> >
> 
> I guess that creating a partition type using a disk partitioning tool
> like gparted or fdisk is different, and independent, to the filesystem
> that is subsequently generated inside the partition!  

Absolutely. The "partition type" is something DOS/Windows uses (to a
degree) and for backwards compatability reasons, you still see MS
products use these labels. Linux, however, does not adhere to or use the
partition types at all.

> This is a piece
> of knowledge, or lack of, that leads to quit a lot of confusion!

It's been this way for ages with Linux. To be frank, I don't recall a
type where the partition types meant anything. The boot flag did before
grub have a meaning, but since legacy grub came around (even lilo if I
remember right) it's also being ignored.

> 
> So you can make a dos partition but then put a filesystem in it that
> is ext4 or LVM for example.....    I wonder if there is a good simple
> tutorial around that explains disk partitioning and filesystems?

The fedora project has some very good documentation on LVM:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/14/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/ch-lvm.html 

To be honest, partitions are really a thing of the past. As we move away
from the DOS partition tables, the last fight is really about boot
security than anything else.  Only on systems that are dual-booted does
partitions make sense. With Grub2 we can now have a single partition for
everything - and the reason we have the partition table is due to the
bios needs during boot. But in essence all we need is a pointer to a
location on the drive where the file-system begins. With LVM we then
divide things up in smaller pieces that can will serve you a lot better
than partitions will.

In other words - you shouldn't have 10,11 or 12 partitions. 

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html-single/Installation_Guide/index.html#ch-partitions-x86

There's plenty of documents in the fedoraproject and while there is room
for improvements you should be able to use the links provided here to
dive a bit into the wonderful world of file systems.


> 
> Anyone know?
> -- 
> mike c


-- 
Best Regards
  Peter Larsen

Wise words of the day:
I could dance with you till the cows come home.  On second thought, I'd rather
dance with the cows till you come home.
		-- Groucho Marx
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