SPan Two Drives

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

When you set up a partition to install Linux, how might you span
it across two drives? My Linux requires 4MB which is roughly
the size of my HD but not exactly as much. I was thinking of putting the
partitions on two drives, but I don't quite understand what the second larger
partiton is about.

Can this be done?

- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]

[The Natural Philosopher]

vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
> When you set up a partition to install Linux, how might you span
> it across two drives? My Linux requires 4MB which is roughly
> the size of my HD but not exactly as much. I was thinking of putting the
> partitions on two drives, but I don't quite understand what the second larger
> partiton is about.
>

that's a really small hard disk..what on earth are you using? a 1987
Winchester?

[Michael Black]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012, vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:

> When you set up a partition to install Linux, how might you span
> it across two drives? My Linux requires 4MB which is roughly
> the size of my HD but not exactly as much. I was thinking of putting the
> partitions on two drives, but I don't quite understand what the second larger
> partiton is about.
>
> Can this be done?
>

You're garbling already. 5meg drives go back at least 30 years, maybe a
tad older, if you were lucky to be able to afford a hard drive. Most
computers still topped out at 64K, though by 1982 that was starting to
change.

Once you figure out how much space you have and how much space you need,
the solution is simple. If you really don't have enough drive space, then
you buy another one, which is big enough. If you're cheap, then you pull
a second hard drive out of some scrap computer, which is still likely to
be of decent size. And if that's still not good enough, then you
partition enough space on drive A to be useful, and then put some of the
rest on the second drive, mounting that second drive at an appropraite
point on the first drive.

Michael

[William Colls]

AS suggested by others, you really do need to get a larger disk. Since
you appear to be in the US, suitable units should be available at
reasonable cost at any of the usual suppliers. Or you could try Ebay for
a seconf hand one. Caveat Emptore.

If you really must use available equipment, take a look at Logical
Volume Management (LVM). A google search will get you a number of useful
resources.

[Doug Freyburger]

vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
>
> When you set up a partition to install Linux, how might you span
> it across two drives?

That's what logical volume manager does. Put one or more drives into a
volume group. Pull one or more logical volumes out of the volume group.
Make and mount file systems in those logical volumes.

> My Linux requires 4MB which is roughly
> the size of my HD but not exactly as much. I was thinking of putting the
> partitions on two drives, but I don't quite understand what the second larger
> partiton is about.

The 4 MB number can't be right. Even USB sticks come in 8 GB size now
and that's enough to install a stripped down Linux.

[philo]

On 02/05/2012 03:43 PM, vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
> When you set up a partition to install Linux, how might you span
> it across two drives? My Linux requires 4MB which is roughly
> the size of my HD but not exactly as much. I was thinking of putting the
> partitions on two drives, but I don't quite understand what the second larger
> partiton is about.
>
> Can this be done?
>
>

I am guessing you made a typo and meant 4 gigs

anyway, yes a linux install can span several drives


bur really a 4 gig drive is too small to be of much use

If it's that small it's got to be quite old


I'd install Linux on at least a 30 - 40 gig drive


or perhaps 20 as a bare minimum

[The Natural Philosopher]

hda wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 21:43:42 +0000 (UTC),
> vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
>
>> When you set up a partition to install Linux, how might you span
>> it across two drives? My Linux requires 4MB which is roughly
>> the size of my HD but not exactly as much. I was thinking of putting the
>> partitions on two drives, but I don't quite understand what the second larger
>> partiton is about.
>>
>> Can this be done?
>>
>>
>

> Yes. Install or put /home and /var on the other disk.

/var and the swap are the easiest to shift out.

IIRC you need all of /etc /bin and /usr and /lib on one drive, really.

[Pascal Hambourg]

Hello,

The Natural Philosopher a écrit :

>>
>> Yes. Install or put /home and /var on the other disk.
>
> /var and the swap are the easiest to shift out.
>
> IIRC you need all of /etc /bin and /usr and /lib on one drive, really.

Not /usr.

[JEDIDIAH]

You can install normal Ubuntu on a disk that size. You won't have much
room left for data though. The footprint of my MythTV client boxes are 8G.

SD cards come bigger than that these days.

--
This is a consumer product. |||
World domination simply isn't necessary. / | \

[Aragorn]

On Tuesday 07 February 2012 00:11, Pascal Hambourg conveyed the
following to comp.os.linux.setup...

That's up for debate. udev and systemd now both live in "/usr", and
require that "/usr" is mounted at boot time in the earliest stages of
userspace - i.e. from within an initramfs. In addition to that, "/bin",
"/sbin" and "/lib" will now [*] only be symbolic links to "/usr/bin",
"/usr/sbin" and "/usr/lib" respectively.

We have the Mighty Temple of RedHat to thank for that move.

[*] "Now" for Fedora 17, and "in the near future" for other .rpm-based
distributions. Even non-.rpm-based distributions will eventually
have to make the transition, because even though a particular
distribution could be using another init system than systemd, all
modern GNU/Linux systems use udev, which also comes from RedHat,
and which - as stated higher up - will now also install itself
under "/usr".

--
= Aragorn =
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

[The Natural Philosopher]

is all of teh boot stuff in /bin..?

[John Hasler]

Aragorn writes:
> Even non-.rpm-based distributions will eventually have to make the

> transition [to udev under /usr]...

It is not yet established that Debian will.
--
John Hasler
jha...@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

[David Brown]

You can put whatever you want on whatever drives you want. However, you
need to have /etc, /bin, /lib, /sbin, and /usr either all on /, or
mounted by the initramfs, since they are all needed during the boot process.

So unless you are using some sort of medieval Linux distribution, you
will have an initramfs (or at least initrd) and can split your drives,
partitions and filesystems as you like.

/home and swap are the parts that are most commonly separated, along
with /boot (that's useful if you use grub and have / on raid, lvm,
etc.). /var, and parts of it (such as /var/www or /var/log) are also
often split. Some people split off /usr from /, but it's not as common.

[David Brown]

On 07/02/2012 13:13, hda wrote:

> Good idea. My experience is [servertype] /home {downloads} and /var
> {loggings, mail} are the 'growers'.

Logs can usually be limited in total size (with logrotate), but they are
heavily accessed and updated files, which may influence how you separate
them.

For servers I usually put things like mail in separate top-level
directories (such as /mail, or /data for shared files). It's
untraditional, but works well - it is clear what files are where, and
it's easy to put them on separate filesystems as appropriate.

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

4GB Acer Aspire One 8.9" running linpus.com
Added an SD card with another 4GB
Quantian needs 4GB and it finds something like 3.9GB

But Linux needs two partitions one small, one big, so what if I can move
part of the install to the SD

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

Oops, ok 4GB not 4MB,yikes

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

Thanks

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

DO I specify these things to grub/lilo before I run knoppix-install?
(Quantian is a knoppix/debian derivative)



aside: Linpus should not have been such a problem but they had a problem
with the installation routines (I got the entire 8 CDs of
Red Hat from which linpus is derived). Some programs like
dosbox installed fine. (I forget the install routine problem
but if you google <acer aspire vjp2> you will find all my vain
inquiries)

[David W. Hodgins]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:44:47 -0500, <vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com> wrote:

> 4GB Acer Aspire One 8.9" running linpus.com
> Added an SD card with another 4GB
> Quantian needs 4GB and it finds something like 3.9GB

So you need a single file that will be at least 4GB in size.

Here's what I would do. Boot from an cd or dvd with gparted. Shrink
the existing partitions on the existing 4GB drive as much as possible,
moving them, if needed, so all free space is at the end of the drive.
Create a new partition with type 8e (Linux LVM physical volume) in the
free space. Create a single partition on the SD card that is also type
8e. Assign both physical volumes to the same volume group. Now you
can create an lvm logical volume, and format that as ext4, or whatever
you prefer, that can span both physical volumes.

Search for an lvm howto, for more info.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

THanks much

*+-> 4GB Acer Aspire One 8.9" running linpus.com
*+-> Added an SD card with another 4GB
*+-> Quantian needs 4GB and it finds something like 3.9GB

*+-So you need a single file that will be at least 4GB in size.

*+-Here's what I would do. Boot from an cd or dvd with gparted. Shrink
*+-the existing partitions on the existing 4GB drive as much as possible,
*+-moving them, if needed, so all free space is at the end of the drive.
*+-Create a new partition with type 8e (Linux LVM physical volume) in the
*+-free space. Create a single partition on the SD card that is also type
*+-8e. Assign both physical volumes to the same volume group. Now you
*+-can create an lvm logical volume, and format that as ext4, or whatever
*+-you prefer, that can span both physical volumes.

*+-Search for an lvm howto, for more info.

*+-Regards, Dave Hodgins