Anyone Familiar With SUSE LVM?

[zenarcher 0]

I have been using Mandrake(Mandriva) for the past three versions. I am currently using Mandriva 2005LE. I am now preparing to install SUSE 9.3 Professional, replacing Mandriva, as from what I've read, I can accomplish my goal in an easier manner with SUSE. My SUSE 9.3 Professional DVD should be here in a couple of days, so I'm attempting to avoid installation issues, where possible.

 

My objective has been to set up my two hard drives in a RAID0 array. I have read about doing so in the SUSE documentation, but have also read about using the SUSE LVM to create a single volume from the two hard drives. I am using two identical WD SATA 80GB hard drives in my system. I use an MSI KT6V motherboard, which uses the VIA 8237 for RAID, which I would prefer to avoid, since I understand it does not work well with Linux.

 

Anyway, having read the SUSE documentation, I am still not completely clear on a few items. Perhaps it's age and I just don't comprehend as quickly as I used to. I am wondering if anyone could tell me, since they seem so similar, if there is any significant difference/advantage to using LVM over RAID) or visa-versa. They appear, from my reading, to be quite similar.

 

If I am correct in what I think I've read, using LVM, I can create a single volume, using my pair of SATA hard drives. Would that be correct? I am a bit unclear on partitioning that volume, as well. My thought would be to create /, /usr and swap. I believe that is how I have the partitions now, using one drive only, with Mandriva. I currently have 1GB of PC2700 RAM installed on my system. Could anyone suggest what they feel would be the best partition scheme, using SUSE 9.3 with LVM? And, best sizing for those partitions?

 

Any advice or tips would be most appreciated, since I'm trying to avoid as many pitfalls as possible, doing this installation, when SUSE arrives. I do not run any other operating system on my box, except for Linux. Therefore, only SUSE 9.3 will be on the system.

 

I am using an Nvidia FX5200-128 video card, so I think SUSE has a driver for that. I'm also using a 17" LCD display. I have a separate CD burner and DVD burner and will be installing from a DVD.

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips.

 

Regards,

zenarcher

[egorgry 0]

Create on volume group using vgcreate vg01 /dev/hda /dev/hdb that should give you one vg with the two disks hda and hdb then create you logical volume lvcreate -L 4000 -n nameof_fs home /dev/vg01/lvol1.

 

This is just a starting point read the man pages on the vg and lv commands because I admin hpux and my hobby is linux I sometimes confuse subtle differences. My filesystems are set up like so...

 

/

/home

 

I don't use swap cause I have a bunch o ram and teh sytem feels faster without it.

[zenarcher 0]

Thanks much for the info. Since I use SATA drives, mine would be sda and sdb, rather than hda and hdb, but I understand that.

 

I've been doing a bunch of reading from the SUSE Admin manual, while waiting for the disk to arrive, so have something of a feel for it..but just wasn't too clear on what I should make for partitions. That looks good to me...just as I would have thought. Thanks for confirming that.

 

I'm wondering if I need to bother with swap. As I say, I'm running 1GB of PC2700 RAM on the system, so probably not. If anyone has thoughts on that, I'd appreciate it.

 

Regards,

zenarcher