Disk Recovery Part III

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

Don Levey" <lug at the-leveys.us> wrote:
> I want to keep /home on a separate partition so that I can move/expand it if
> necessary. ...

You sound like you have your reasons and that you're happy with them.  You
don't have to convince me (though I must admit that I'm not convinced, given
what I know of backup utilities and the lvm ;-)

> I'll have to read up on [lvm], as I don't know much about it.  Any favourite
> pointers?

The howto on LVM is worth a quick read.  There is a howto directory on
tldp.org, you can find the most current LVM howto at this link:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/LVM-HOWTO.html

Skip over the silly revision-history header and look for chapter 2.  It
explains exactly your situation and what you'd do with the lvm.

One warning that you can ignore is "root on lv should be used by advanced
users only".  Replace that warning with "you must compile your kernel with lvm
support".

> I'm not sure what you mean here - at this point, it's not an upgrade (yet)
> but a repair.  The upgrade happens only when the system is stable again.

What I meant by that is that whenever you upgrade or replace the disk drive
containing your root fs--almost inevitably with a larger/cheaper/better
unit--you have a golden opportunity to reduce the number of partitions or
logical volumes and reorganize your data so you can find things more easily.

-rich