hi,
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
I have tried different suggestions I have found regarding Logical volumes, but have not found anything that work.
I am attempting to save some data, and may do a clean install again, but it no longer seem like a good idea to have all space given to a single volume ? Any tip on this subject ?
//ARNE
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Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
hi,
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
It does?
ext3 supports online resizing, but I think only for growing.
I have tried different suggestions I have found regarding Logical volumes, but have not found anything that work.
I am attempting to save some data, and may do a clean install again, but it no longer seem like a good idea to have all space given to a single volume ? Any tip on this subject ?
New disks are cheap. Adding a second disk is a safe way to accomplish what you want.
I have not resized LVM, but I have done with with straight ext2/ext3 partitions. In fact, I can't see any advantage to me in using LVM.
Tbe procedure, some years ago, for making ext2/2 smaller was something like this. You do not have any partitions on the disk mounted. 0. Backup. 1. e2fsck -f 2. resize2fs to a new size. I suggest smaller than your target. 3. delete the partition. 4. Create the partition. Check very carefully that your new partition is at least as large as you resized to. 5 resize2fs to the partition size. If your partition is smaller than you resized to in step 2, you are in deep do do.
Note. You cannot move the start point of any partition. You can join two or more partitions to make one larger partition, but you can only do this and retain the (physically) first of the partitions.
If you have any doubts and care about your data, buy a new disk. If you're working on a laptop, you can fiddle partitions as you copy the data, and if you need to, you can copy Windows with ntfsprogs; one of the programs in the set, ntfsclone does the grunt work, but there are other useful tools in the set.
Hi,
Thanks.
Note. You cannot move the start point of any partition. You can join two or more partitions to make one larger partition, but you can only do this and retain the (physically) first of the partitions.
It's possible to have dual boot, like Fedora + Windows. Is it not possible to have a dual boot, like FC6 and F8 ?
For LV - there is resize2fs, and lvreduce commands.
In this case, disk would be expensive. There is a Raid Array Controller, and Fedora uses: Fusion MPT base driver 3.04.04 Copyright (c) 1999-2007 LSI Logic Corporation
It would be nice to have it split up, so you could run test versions.
//ARNE
John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org wrote: Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
hi,
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
It does?
ext3 supports online resizing, but I think only for growing.
I have tried different suggestions I have found regarding Logical volumes, but have not found anything that work.
I am attempting to save some data, and may do a clean install again, but it no longer seem like a good idea to have all space given to a single volume ? Any tip on this subject ?
New disks are cheap. Adding a second disk is a safe way to accomplish what you want.
I have not resized LVM, but I have done with with straight ext2/ext3 partitions. In fact, I can't see any advantage to me in using LVM.
Tbe procedure, some years ago, for making ext2/2 smaller was something like this. You do not have any partitions on the disk mounted. 0. Backup. 1. e2fsck -f 2. resize2fs to a new size. I suggest smaller than your target. 3. delete the partition. 4. Create the partition. Check very carefully that your new partition is at least as large as you resized to. 5 resize2fs to the partition size. If your partition is smaller than you resized to in step 2, you are in deep do do.
Note. You cannot move the start point of any partition. You can join two or more partitions to make one larger partition, but you can only do this and retain the (physically) first of the partitions.
If you have any doubts and care about your data, buy a new disk. If you're working on a laptop, you can fiddle partitions as you copy the data, and if you need to, you can copy Windows with ntfsprogs; one of the programs in the set, ntfsclone does the grunt work, but there are other useful tools in the set.
Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
It's possible to have dual boot, like Fedora + Windows. Is it not possible to have a dual boot, like FC6 and F8 ?
Yes you can do that, but there are a few complications. Fedora by default labels the partitions in a simple way (LABEL=/, LABEL=/home) and mounts these by label. If you have two distros installed you'll need to have them labeled so as not to conflict, and that means some manual editing of fstab and labeling the filesystems.
The only alternative I'm aware of for that is hiding partitions from grub, although I'm not sure if that fully fixes the problem once the kernel takes over and anything other than the root is mounted. If you had a common /home and only two separate / partitions which contained the entire install that might work.
Andrew Farris wrote:
Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
It's possible to have dual boot, like Fedora + Windows. Is it not possible to have a dual boot, like FC6 and F8 ?
Yes you can do that, but there are a few complications. Fedora by default labels the partitions in a simple way (LABEL=/, LABEL=/home) and mounts these by label. If you have two distros installed you'll need to have them labeled so as not to conflict, and that means some manual editing of fstab and labeling the filesystems.
The only alternative I'm aware of for that is hiding partitions from grub, although I'm not sure if that fully fixes the problem once the kernel takes over and anything other than the root is mounted. If you had a common /home and only two separate / partitions which contained the entire install that might work.
I don't think Grub has a lot to do with it.
Conflicting names (partitions and volume groups is a problem).
On Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 07:22:09PM -0800, Andrew Farris wrote:
Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
It's possible to have dual boot, like Fedora + Windows. Is it not possible to have a dual boot, like FC6 and F8 ?
Yes you can do that, but there are a few complications. Fedora by default labels the partitions in a simple way (LABEL=/, LABEL=/home) and mounts these by label.
Anaconda is smart enough to create labels which do not conflict with already existing ones. At least this was the case when I was adding new installations on the same machine. I could redo later these labels to be consistent across a particular installation but this is only for my own sanity. I may have five or six distros, between Fedora and CentOS and x86_64 and i386, on my test box at a given moment.
If you have multiple Linux installations on one host then it is a very good idea to have one "master boot partition", used by grub installed on MBR, with a menu which chainloads grubs, with boot sectors installed on partitions, for all instances. You will see why on the first kernel update. The very first boot may require some "manual work" before boot menus were edited.
That it may be not so easy to get if you did not plan things that way from the very start but in any case one can get pretty close to such organization.
If you are messing around with partitioning layout then it is a really advisable to have a good backup unless your data are truly disposable. It is possible to recover from many partitioning disasters but if you have to ask how to do that then it is likely already too late. OTOH if you have backups then it could be simpler just to remake a layout of your disks and restore what you need from those backups.
Michal
Michal Jaegermann wrote:
On Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 07:22:09PM -0800, Andrew Farris wrote:
Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
It's possible to have dual boot, like Fedora + Windows. Is it not possible to have a dual boot, like FC6 and F8 ?
Yes you can do that, but there are a few complications. Fedora by default labels the partitions in a simple way (LABEL=/, LABEL=/home) and mounts these by label.
Anaconda is smart enough to create labels which do not conflict with already existing ones. At least this was the case when I was adding new installations on the same machine. I could redo later these labels to be consistent across a particular installation but this is only for my own sanity. I may have five or six distros, between Fedora and CentOS and x86_64 and i386, on my test box at a given moment.
I was not aware anaconda was now doing this correctly, that certainly would be an improvement over the last time I tried multiple physical installations.
Andrew Farris wrote:
Anaconda is smart enough to create labels which do not conflict with already existing ones. At least this was the case when I was adding new installations on the same machine. I could redo later these labels to be consistent across a particular installation but this is only for my own sanity. I may have five or six distros, between Fedora and CentOS and x86_64 and i386, on my test box at a given moment.
I was not aware anaconda was now doing this correctly, that certainly would be an improvement over the last time I tried multiple physical installations.
I was wondering why I didn't actually recall name collisions when I was testing FC6, RHEL5 (twice) and some others on one system. I'd put it down to an approaching new decade.
Hi, Am I newbe in linux, but i have two Fedora in my computer. Fedora 32 8 in a Ide Disk and Fedora 8 64 bits in a external USB Woxter 80 GB 2.5 and when i boot fron USB all works fine and it's a cheaper Way
Regards
2008/1/29, John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org:
Andrew Farris wrote:
Anaconda is smart enough to create labels which do not conflict with already existing ones. At least this was the case when I was adding new installations on the same machine. I could redo later these labels to be consistent across a particular installation but this is only for my own sanity. I may have five or six distros, between Fedora and CentOS and x86_64 and i386, on my test box at a given moment.
I was not aware anaconda was now doing this correctly, that certainly would be an improvement over the last time I tried multiple physical installations.
I was wondering why I didn't actually recall name collisions when I was testing FC6, RHEL5 (twice) and some others on one system. I'd put it down to an approaching new decade.
--
Cheers John
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Enrique Garcia wrote:
Hi, Am I newbe in linux, but i have two Fedora in my computer. Fedora 32 8 in a Ide Disk and Fedora 8 64 bits in a external USB Woxter 80 GB 2.5 and when i boot fron USB all works fine and it's a cheaper Way
Portable too. I like your style, Henry!
Enrique Garcia wrote:
Hi, Am I newbe in linux, but i have two Fedora in my computer. Fedora 32 8 in a Ide Disk and Fedora 8 64 bits in a external USB Woxter 80 GB 2.5 and when i boot fron USB all works fine and it's a cheaper Way
Regards
I'm really glad that works without difficult setup now, thats a nice improvement from years past. The install experience has more things to improve, but thats a big one thats been done.
2008/1/29, John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org:
Andrew Farris wrote:
Anaconda is smart enough to create labels which do not conflict with already existing ones. At least this was the case when I was adding new installations on the same machine. I could redo later these labels to be consistent across a particular installation but this is only for my own sanity. I may have five or six distros, between Fedora and CentOS and x86_64 and i386, on my test box at a given moment.
I was not aware anaconda was now doing this correctly, that certainly would be an improvement over the last time I tried multiple physical installations.
I was wondering why I didn't actually recall name collisions when I was testing FC6, RHEL5 (twice) and some others on one system. I'd put it down to an approaching new decade.
--
Cheers John
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You cannot reply off-list:-)
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Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
Hi,
Thanks.
Note. You cannot move the start point of any partition. You can join two or more partitions to make one larger partition, but you can only do this and retain the (physically) first of the partitions.
It's possible to have dual boot, like Fedora + Windows. Is it not possible to have a dual boot, like FC6 and F8 ?
I don't understand why you ask that. I have had for or five different Linux distros on one disk.
For LV - there is resize2fs, and lvreduce commands.
In this case, disk would be expensive. There is a Raid Array Controller, and Fedora uses: Fusion MPT base driver 3.04.04 Copyright (c) 1999-2007 LSI Logic Corporation
It would be nice to have it split up, so you could run test versions.
If your CPUs have hardware virtualisation, then you can test inside xen or kvm. It doesn't test everything, of course.
I have already outlined the basic procedure. If you can't backup your data, and you can't add to your disk storage then I suggest a cheaper test system (depending on what you need to test). I really don't like risking important data by doing inherently risky things with my disks.
There is nothing better than a separate test system with all the hardware you need to do the testing you need to do. It neither disrupts not risks your production workload.
//ARNE
John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org wrote: Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
hi,
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
It does?
ext3 supports online resizing, but I think only for growing.
I have tried different suggestions I have found regarding Logical volumes, but have not found anything that work.
I am attempting to save some data, and may do a clean install again, but it no longer seem like a good idea to have all space given to a single volume ? Any tip on this subject ?
New disks are cheap. Adding a second disk is a safe way to accomplish what you want.
I have not resized LVM, but I have done with with straight ext2/ext3 partitions. In fact, I can't see any advantage to me in using LVM.
Tbe procedure, some years ago, for making ext2/2 smaller was something like this. You do not have any partitions on the disk mounted. 0. Backup.
- e2fsck -f
- resize2fs to a new size. I suggest smaller than your target.
- delete the partition.
- Create the partition. Check very carefully that your new partition is
at least as large as you resized to. 5 resize2fs to the partition size. If your partition is smaller than you resized to in step 2, you are in deep do do.
Note. You cannot move the start point of any partition. You can join two or more partitions to make one larger partition, but you can only do this and retain the (physically) first of the partitions.
If you have any doubts and care about your data, buy a new disk. If you're working on a laptop, you can fiddle partitions as you copy the data, and if you need to, you can copy Windows with ntfsprogs; one of the programs in the set, ntfsclone does the grunt work, but there are other useful tools in the set.
Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
hi,
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
I have tried different suggestions I have found regarding Logical volumes, but have not found anything that work.
I am attempting to save some data, and may do a clean install again, but it no longer seem like a good idea to have all space given to a single volume ? Any tip on this subject ?
//ARNE
Creating a separate primary partition for /boot, /, /usr, and /home is my general gameplan. If you combine any of those, usr and root are the two to choose. For a desktop machine (or just a couple users), its basically unimportant to separate the diskspace, and even if you wanted to quotas could be used, so isolating /tmp, /opt, /usr, and / is not that necessary.
If you have only 2 primary partitions to use, make boot and home primary, and the rest in an extended partition (which requires a primary of its own to live in).
This lets you nuke the whole install and keep just home if necessary next time. That speeds up reinstalls when working with rawhide or even updates-testing. You can backup any configuration you've got in /etc/ or /root/ to your /home (keeping the perms by cp -a) and just wipe it all. To get from where you are to a configuration like that, tar your home and copy it to somewhere else (a few dvds?).
On 2008/01/28 17:19 (GMT-0800) Arne Chr. Jorgensen apparently typed:
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
Before installing any operating systems. :-)
With a tool that creates partitions compatible with all operating systems that you can imagine ever using. :-)
Leaving unpartitioned any space you don't expect to need for the foreseeable future. :-)
Generic partitioning info & links: http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/partitioningindex.html
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
Trouble, unless you have a good backup system and don't mind risking your data to experiments with unfamiliar disk management software.
Try resizing with gparted. It's what's commonly used by people wanting to add Linux to their systems already fully populated by windoz.
I am attempting to save some data, and may do a clean install again, but it no longer seem like a good idea to have all space given to a single volume ? > Any tip on this subject ?
Lots, but since there is no "best" way to partition, recommendations really need to be based on knowing full details about what exists now, in addition to what you want to do.
http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/tmp/dfsee/gx260L05.txt shows the partitioning of a system that I just configured over the past few days. Disregard the description of Rawhide on partition 11. That partition currently currently carries no OS due to the F8 and Rawhide installers' brokenness, refusing to function after networking has been configured. All SUSE and Mandriva partitions are fully functional, with full access to all partitions on the disk from all installed Linux distros.
http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/tmp/dfsee/gx150L02.txt shows another system's partitioning, on which F6, F7 & F8 are all installed, in addition to a bunch of other distros.
http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/tmp/dfsee/kt880L02.txt shows yet another system's partitioning, where LVM is used and partition count is lower, and where I have Rawhide installed.
Arne Chr. Jorgensen said the following on 01/28/2008 05:19 PM Pacific Time:
hi,
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
I have Fedora core 6 installed, but would like to test F8 and have it as a separate partition However - I had used the entire disk, and I have not found any way to resize the partition. Have tried "resize2fs" - but it says "online resizing required". What does that mean ?
Is virtualization an option for you? Naturally you'll need extra disk space for each virtual machine and memory.
I've been running http://www.virtualbox.org/ for the last week and had great success. I had to tweak a few things to get bridged networking going which I can post on here if there is interest.
Before that I also gave virt-manager and VMWare Server a run though. Right now I'd say Virtualbox is the easiest to configure and use for testing a new release, though I'm sure there will be plenty of people who disagree and have had other experiences :) I am running these virtualization applications on top of Fedora 8 on x86_64
John
John Poelstra poelstra@redhat.com wrote:
Is virtualization an option for you? Naturally you'll need extra disk space for each virtual machine and memory.
This did seem interesting, had a short look - it it had given me a Linux box with wireless, then it sure could solve many problems ;)
//ARNE
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Hi,
Great thanks to you all ;)
As the machine has a hardware RAID controller, things became a bit different then usual. I found it difficult to manually set up partitions, due to the RAID system, or because the way Fedora might "speaks" to the driver.
Michal Jaegermann wrote:
If you have multiple Linux installations on one host then it is a very good idea to have one "master boot partition", used by grub installed on MBR, with a menu which chainloads grubs, with boot sectors installed on partitions, for all instances. You will see why on the first kernel update. The very first boot may require some "manual work" before boot menus were edited.
This is exactly some of the idea I had in mind. How to do it, is the difficult question.
( used with some Win-server-version, but when it crashed, none did seem able to get it running again. Instead of having some loose system CD's floating around, they had been placed under the feet of it during transport !!) - in short: don't have any other OS to consider.
Felix Miata wrote:
What would be a smart way to partition a disk ?
Before installing any operating systems. :-)
Right, and thanks for the good info on partitions ;)
--------------------
Now, let me see if I understood what Michal wrote:
1. a "master boot partition": - would this simply be GRUB ? - with entries like
title LINUX 1st rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 title LINUX 2nd rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1
2. "with boot sectors installed on partitions, for all instances" - hmm... ? ( perhaps I am a bit slow right now.. you would have to create some primary partions ? and then let the install program use automatic LVM ? ...create 2 ? a root '/' and a boot '/boot'..?
------------------------
Guess I am too tired to think right now. ( think a LV's store a structure, and does this have to be inside the "master partion", or.. hmm..)
//ARNE
- new things can be difficult to grasp, as it has to fall into some logical place among all the rubbish collected in the past.
me thinket..;)
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--------------------Now, let me see if I understood what Michal wrote:
- a "master boot partition":
- would this simply be GRUB ?
- with entries like
title LINUX 1st rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 title LINUX 2nd rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1
I use a master boot partition on the first hard drive. In the menu.lst file are entries similar to the above, but that point to the boot partitions for the various versions.
The configfile command brings up the menu. When you install you have to tell it not to write the mbr. You edit the menu.lst on the first hard drive and add entries like these. root is pointing to the /boot partition. If you have a single partition /, the configfile entry needs /boot added to the start. Works flawlessly.
title Fedora 7 sata 1 boot 1 root (hd2,0) configfile /grub/menu.lst title Fedora Rawhide ide 2 boot 1 root (hd1,2) configfile /grub/menu.lst
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 04:24:44PM -0800, Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
Michal Jaegermann wrote:
If you have multiple Linux installations on one host then it is a very good idea to have one "master boot partition",
This is exactly some of the idea I had in mind.
Good! :-)
How to do it, is the difficult question.
Nah! Assuming that you are starting with a "clean slate" leave some small "master boot partition" and install grub for the first installation in its "boot partition". That is not bootable yet although it will have correct "secondary loader" and its menu written by anaconda.
So boot now "rescue" from an installation media, install grub on MBR and write yourself its boot menu which will look roughly like what you propose.
Or you can make your first installation to boot from MBR and after you booted create a "secondary loader setup". Probably the first method is harder to screw up due to minor typos.
Now, let me see if I understood what Michal wrote:
- a "master boot partition": - would this simply be GRUB ?
Right; only GRUB is a bit more that its boot menu. :-) Type:
info grub Installation 'Installing GRUB natively'
and read that if you have not done that already.
- with entries like
title LINUX 1st rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 title LINUX 2nd rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1
Close, but you want things like 'rootnoverify (hd0,3)' and 'rootnoverify (hd1,5)' and similar. You are switching root to a boot partition of a distro you want to boot so these will be all different.
- "with boot sectors installed on partitions, for all instances"
- hmm... ? ( perhaps I am a bit slow right now.. you would have
to create some primary partions ?
No, you do not have to chainload from a primary partition. A "logical" on "extended" partition is fine; although GRUB needs to find it so it cannot be hidden behind LVM. All other partitions for that installation can be.
and then let the install program use automatic LVM ? ...create 2 ? a root '/' and a boot '/boot'..?
"Automatic" does not work the best as it will try to grab all your disk space. Just create some partitons you need, with what is mounted on /boot to be a "real one" and tell installer to put grub on the first sector of your boot partitions _for that distro_. You also do not have to have separate /boot and / either but if you need to more some storage around then LVM can turn out to be handy.
Swap space can be common for everything as long as you do not plan to "hibernate", boot some other distro, and after that to try to "wake up" the first one. Such stunt will likely end up with a file system damage (although it will work, provided it works without booting something else, if you do not share swap).
Michal
-
Andrew Farris -
Arne Chr. Jorgensen -
Enrique Garcia -
Felix Miata -
John Poelstra -
John Summerfield -
Michal Jaegermann -
stan