is it possible to add a secondary disk to an existing debian systems and install programs to the secondary disk

[Semih Ozlem]

Hi everyone,

First of all thanks to everyone who responded in detail to my previous questions in email. Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my questions.

I would like to ask a different question. Suppose that I install debian on a usb or a hard drive that does not have a lot of space. Suppose I get a second hard disk that has more space. Can I add the second disk to the debian system in a way so that additional programs that can not be installed in the system without the second disk due to "no disk space left" error can now be installed in the system. If the answer is yes, how should one proceed to add the second hard disk to the system so that this can be done?

Thanks

Semih Ozlem

[Brian]

A really intetesting question. Maybe

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#sufficient-space

helps you on your way.

--
Brian.

[Semih Ozlem]

It is a starting point but the problem is really not with whether there is enough space to download installation files, for they can be downloaded remotely to some other disk. The problem is when installing from the downloaded files, the system itself may give an error saying no disk space left. The problem is when installing the file I presume some files are written in linux directory usually I presume or guess in /bin/ or /sbin so that the installed programs become usable. When an external disk is added, it is writable and readable but its space does not become incorporated or available to /bin /sbin or whatever directories in linux filesystem get used... Is it possible to make some changes to filesystem hierarchy so that the additional disk becomes available to the system?

It is possible with some programs... One could extract files to any directory one wishes, and run the program from the extracted directory. I am not sure if it is possible with any program. (are .deb files basically compressed files?)

I guess one problem one could run into is when the program needs to read from and write to the rest of the system it needs to know where it is located and how to access other elements of the system...

But apt-get install or dpkg -i will install files to /bin or /sbin ... Do they have an option to install elsewhere and be able to resolve other problems such as knowing its path and being able to communicate with other paths appropriately?

Brian <ad...@cityscape.co.uk>, 22 Şub 2021 Pzt, 23:22 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[Greg Wooledge]

Semih Ozlem (semihozle...@gmail.com) wrote:
> It is a starting point but the problem is really not with whether there is
> enough space to download installation files, for they can be downloaded
> remotely to some other disk. The problem is when installing from the
> downloaded files, the system itself may give an error saying no disk space
> left. The problem is when installing the file I presume some files are
> written in linux directory usually I presume or guess in /bin/ or /sbin so
> that the installed programs become usable. When an external disk is added,
> it is writable and readable but its space does not become incorporated or
> available to /bin /sbin or whatever directories in linux filesystem get
> used... Is it possible to make some changes to filesystem hierarchy so that
> the additional disk becomes available to the system?

You decide where to mount the new partition(s) or logical volume(s).

Start from the beginning, please. Show us the output of "df -h" or
something. Also tell us how the computer is being used (personal
desktop/laptop, server of some kind, etc.). Tell us where the big
files are, or the big collections of files.

Tell us how big each disk is.

From there, people may be able to give you concrete advice, like "make
a 10 GB partition and mount it as /var", or "mount the entire second
disk as /home".

[Semih Ozlem]

I am currently pre-planning. If it could be done, then I am going to go about searching and purchasing necessary devices in order to do the task. That's why I am asking in the first place. I have a usb device that I can attach for testing now.

Currently I am just running from a live usb. Here is the output of df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           384M  6.4M  378M   2% /run
/dev/sdb1       2.9G  2.9G     0 100% /run/live/medium
/dev/loop0      2.6G  2.6G     0 100% /run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs
tmpfs           1.9G  1.8G   86M  96% /run/live/overlay
overlay         1.9G  1.8G   86M  96% /
tmpfs           1.9G  102M  1.8G   6% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           1.9G  436K  1.9G   1% /tmp
tmpfs           384M  5.8M  378M   2% /run/user/1000

Greg Wooledge <gr...@wooledge.org>, 23 Şub 2021 Sal, 00:14 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[David]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 at 08:38, Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a usb device that I can attach for testing now.

Sorry if I overlooked that you provided this information already
elsewhere, but I think it would help us to help you if you would
properly describe for us the hardware that you are currently using.

1) What processor and motherboard hardware are you currently using?
Make and model?
2) How much RAM is available?
3) What storage devices (eg hard disk drives) are connected to this?
Make and model? Using what busses/interfaces (eg SATA, USB)?
4) What is the software goal? What is the intended use?
What services or applications do you wish to run on this hardware?

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

This is, effectively, what LVM was invented for: with a bit of care, you can
add another disk and "just add it" as extra storage.

[The debian-handbook package may be quite useful: a long book which covers a
lot of the basics and some advanced topics. It was very professionally written
by a Debian developer of long experience and covers a lot of your questions.
The package installs a PDF - you can also purchase print copies online.]

Having said that, if you partition disks using your own partitioning scheme
and run out of space in /var/ , say, you may have locked up the machine enough
that it's hard to undo enough to attach another disk.

This is one of the reasons why it's quite useful to keep a spare desktop style
machine around to practice installs, learn how to deal with breakage, have a
machine to practice upgrades to the next stable version and so on :)

All the best,

Andy C.

[Semih Ozlem]

processor i3-7100 ram 4 gb other details will have to restart the machine to tell.

storage device there is an internal hard disk (500gb) that has windows installed on it, which I can not install another operating system to for now for reasons that I would have to back up files before and I don't have time right now to do that, and I am not sure about what would be the safest way of copying files (or should I clone the disk instead)

I will send lshw output shortly for interfaces and everything else.

Software goal is (i) be able to test different systems, and planning to use virtualization for this purpose (ii) possibly create virtual machines with programs installed (iii) a sort of a potential goal is to build a web site and host it , but mainly just rather for learning how to do it, since probably I can not afford for now actually investing in necessary equipment and probably it is easier to do that by paying some service rather than doing it all on one's own (iv) be able to run some programming projects in python

I sort of like exploring and testing out new things, and most of it is not planned. But basically I would like to have the system be able to hold (i) security tools/antivirus (ii) server (apache and samba), probably LAMP or nginx (iii) math packages / programs (R,gnuplot, lapack, and possibly others) (iv) programming packages (gcc,python,java,rhino) at the very least (v) virtualization (virtualbox) (vi) calibre (document viewing and creating instruments) (v) latex (vi) programs to record and view videos or audios, if possible running on the same machine. Of these, I may forego idea of running a server if this slows things too much.

If possible also programming tools for machine-learning.

David <bounci...@gmail.com>, 23 Şub 2021 Sal, 01:10 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[David]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 at 10:02, Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the info.

What is the make/model of the external USB disk?
Which version of USB port is it connected to?

> storage device there is an internal hard disk (500gb) that has windows installed on it, which I can not install another operating system to for now for reasons that I would have to back up files before and I don't have time right now to do that, and I am not sure about what would be the safest way of copying files (or should I clone the disk instead)

Is there physical space inside this machine into which you could
fit an extra internal (eg SATA) hard disk drive, and use it for experiments
with other operating systems?

[David Christensen]

On 2021-02-22 12:04, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> First of all thanks to everyone who responded in detail to my
> previous questions in email. Thanks for taking the time to read and
> reply to my questions.

YW. :-)

> I would like to ask a different question. Suppose that I install
> debian on a usb or a hard drive that does not have a lot of space.
> Suppose I get a second hard disk that has more space. Can I add the
> second disk to the debian system in a way so that additional programs
> that can not be installed in the system without the second disk due
> to "no disk space left" error can now be installed in the system. If
> the answer is yes, how should one proceed to add the second hard disk
> to the system so that this can be done?

On 2021-02-22 12:55, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> The problem is when installing from the downloaded files, the system
> itself may give an error saying no disk space left.

On 2021-02-22 13:37, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> I am currently pre-planning. If it could be done, then I am going to
> go about searching and purchasing necessary devices in order to do

> the task. That's why I am asking in the first place. I have a usb

> device that I can attach for testing now.
>

> Currently I am just running from a live usb.

On 2021-02-22 15:02, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> processor i3-7100 ram 4 gb other details will have to restart the

> machine to tell. storage device there is an internal hard disk

> (500gb) that has windows installed on it, which I can not install
> another operating system to for now for reasons that I would have to
> back up files before and I don't have time right now to do that, and
> I am not sure about what would be the safest> way of copying files

> (or should I clone the disk instead) I will send lshw output shortly
> for interfaces and everything else.
>
> Software goal is (i) be able to test different systems, and planning
> to use virtualization for this purpose (ii) possibly create virtual
> machines with programs installed (iii) a sort of a potential goal is
> to build a web site and host it , but mainly just rather for
> learning how to do it, since probably I can not afford for now
> actually investing in necessary equipment and probably it is easier
> to do that by paying some service rather than doing it all on one's
> own (iv) be able to run some programming projects in python
>
> I sort of like exploring and testing out new things, and most of it
> is not planned. But basically I would like to have the system be able
> to hold (i) security tools/antivirus (ii) server (apache and samba),
> probably LAMP or nginx (iii) math packages / programs (R,gnuplot,
> lapack, and possibly others) (iv) programming packages
> (gcc,python,java,rhino) at the very least (v) virtualization
> (virtualbox) (vi) calibre (document viewing and creating
> instruments) (v) latex (vi) programs to record and view videos or
> audios, if possible running on the same machine. Of these, I may
> forego idea of running a server if this slows things too much.
>
> If possible also programming tools for machine-learning.

Thank you for providing that information. :-)


You are correct in wanting to back up Windows before going too far into
Linux. I use Backup and Restore and/or File History, depending upon
Windows version/ edition.


Your Linux software/ use-case shopping list is very ambitious. I
suggest starting simple and building up as you gain experience.
Installing Linux is one thing. Configuring, operating, maintaining,
adding software, backing up, restoring, updating, and upgrading Linux
within a local network and Internet environment correctly and
confidently requires a lot of learning.


Again, what is the make and model of your computer? If custom, what is
the make and model of the chassis and motherboard? This information is
required to make sensible recommendations.


Linux provides many useful tools for obtaining information about
computers. Please boot live Linux, connect your USB device, run the
following commands as root, and post the console session (prompt,
command, and output):

# lscpu

# dmidecode --type 17

# fdisk -l

# dmesg | tail -n 20


David

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Ma, 23 feb 21, 00:37:52, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> I am currently pre-planning. If it could be done, then I am going to go
> about searching and purchasing necessary devices in order to do the task.
> That's why I am asking in the first place. I have a usb device that I can
> attach for testing now.
>
> Currently I am just running from a live usb. Here is the output of df -h

It seems to me like you are making some assumptions about Debian (and
possibly Linux distributions in general) that lead to wrong conclusions.

While it is technically possible to install Debian packages to different
locations this is most likely the wrong solution to your problem.

For a start it may help to understand the Filesystem Hierarchy
Standard[1][2].

Additionally, a major difference between Debian (as well as most other
Linux systems) and Windows is that library packages are installed to be
available for all other packages on the system. This means that a
library package forcibly installed to a different location is suddenly
unavailable for packages that might need it. And this is just the
beginning of potential problems if you go this route.

As you seem to want to experiment the best solution for you is to do
just that: experiment ;)

I would recommend to start with a blank drive[3] and keep your
partitioning as simple as possible (e.g. all in one partition).

As you start filling the drive you can look into what data (preferable,
if your application supports it) or parts of the system you need to move
to different drives. Common candidates are /home (user data) and /var
(variable application data) and even /usr (system packages, rather
unlikely though).

As has already been suggested, LVM can be used to make your storage more
flexible, while adding significant complexity.

[1] https://manpages.debian.org/hier
[2] Live systems in particular might deviate significantly from it.

Have fun,
Andrei
--
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

[martin f krafft]

Semih,

Maybe I can provide a quick and easy solution, depending on what happens when you type

$ sudo lvs  

into a terminal. Could you let us know what that spits out?

Thanks,

--

.''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft

:' : proud Debian developer

.'http://people.debian.org/~madduck- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems

the security, stability and reliability of a computer system

is reciprocally proportional to

the amount of vacuity between the ears of the admin.

[Nicholas Geovanis]

You can always add more filesystem space later. It's easier if you're using LVM but that isn't required. You just build another filesystem on the new drive after it's installed and mount it into your filesystems, at the appropriate mount point.

Where is that? Depends on your needs. What if it's a critical filesystem that you can't unmount while the OS is up? Or what if you need to copy a critical fs to the new drive and reboot using the new, bigger copy? If either is the case, write back and we'll pick it up from there.

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 2/23/21 8:13 AM, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> You can always add more filesystem space later. It's easier if you're using
> LVM but that isn't required. You just build another filesystem on the new
> drive after it's installed and mount it into your filesystems, at the
> appropriate mount point.

Indeed, and on my DOS/Linux dual-boot at home, I have the Linux side set
up to mount all five DOS volumes.

--
JHHL

[rhkr...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 23, 2021 11:13:12 AM Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> You can always add more filesystem space later. It's easier if you're using
> LVM but that isn't required. You just build another filesystem on the new
> drive after it's installed and mount it into your filesystems, at the
> appropriate mount point.

Don't you have to do things like copy the old filesystem content to the new
filesystem (possibly using a temporary mount point for one of those), then move
the new filesystem to the old mount point? (Maybe that is only if they are
"system" filesystems (e.g., /var, /etc, /home ...?)

[Nicholas Geovanis]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 10:37 AM <rhkr...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, February 23, 2021 11:13:12 AM Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> You can always add more filesystem space later. It's easier if you're using
> LVM but that isn't required. You just build another filesystem on the new
> drive after it's installed and mount it into your filesystems, at the
> appropriate mount point.

Don't you have to do things like copy the old filesystem content to the new
filesystem (possibly using a temporary mount point for one of those), then move
the new filesystem to the old mount point?  (Maybe that is only if they are
"system" filesystems (e.g., /var, /etc, /home ...?)

I answered that in my 2nd paragraph, which you see right below this text. One step at a time for a newer sysadmin.

[Joe]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:37:12 -0500
rhkr...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, February 23, 2021 11:13:12 AM Nicholas Geovanis wrote:
> > You can always add more filesystem space later. It's easier if
> > you're using LVM but that isn't required. You just build another
> > filesystem on the new drive after it's installed and mount it into
> > your filesystems, at the appropriate mount point.
>
> Don't you have to do things like copy the old filesystem content to
> the new filesystem (possibly using a temporary mount point for one of
> those), then move the new filesystem to the old mount point? (Maybe
> that is only if they are "system" filesystems (e.g., /var, /etc,
> /home ...?)
>

Yes, and you also need to delete the content in the original directory
tree, or else you don't recover the space. Most of this is most easily
done from a live/rescue OS with the host OS offline, though it can be
done online with a bit more work.

If you're moving /usr it is wise to rebuild grub from chroot, making a
new initramfs. Systemd requires /usr during boot and gets quite upset
if it can't find it. I'm aware there is controversy about putting
essential system software in a tree named '/usr' and I'm not going to
add to it.

There are many web articles on how to add and mount a new drive, but
hardly any (mostly one for Ubuntu repeated widely) for actually moving
an existing directory tree, especially a system one like /usr. I
hesitate to offer details as it is a long time, pre-systemd, since I
last did it.


--
Joe

[Celejar]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:21:49 +0200
Andrei POPESCU <andreim...@gmail.com> wrote:

...

> Additionally, a major difference between Debian (as well as most other
> Linux systems) and Windows is that library packages are installed to be
> available for all other packages on the system. This means that a
> library package forcibly installed to a different location is suddenly
> unavailable for packages that might need it. And this is just the
> beginning of potential problems if you go this route.

Aren't Windows DLLs roughly analogous to Linux library packages?

Celejar

[to...@tuxteam.de]

Not really "library packages", but rather "libraries" or "shared objects".

Technically yes, but traditionally DLLs tend to come "with the app",
so under Windows it's more frequent for each app to bring along their
own version of a DLL.

This is now changing a bit with flatpaks and similar things.

Cheers
- t

[IL Ka]

Aren't Windows DLLs roughly analogous to Linux library packages?

In most cases yes. On Windows you can install the library to the "System32" and access it from anywhere.

But since most software in Windows is installed not from "repository" but from some random places instead, "DLL hell" may come.

Modern Windows uses "side-by-side" (WinSxS) technology to fix that.

But some apps just bundle dlls not to pollute OS with their dependencies.

In **nix world people install software from the repository, so all apps share the same versions of their libraries.

[Celejar]

Thanks for the explanation. But I guess that the Windows style is
becoming increasingly common in the Linux world as well, with the rise
of Docker, Flatpak, Snap, etc. (as another poster in this thread
mentioned). And these are not just for those who don't understand the
value of using the repositories: lately I've been encountering quite a
few popular and useful applications (e.g., Nextcloud (server), Jitsi,
Caddy, Traefik) that for whatever reason (upstream doesn't maintain a
sufficiently stable version, etc.) are not packaged for Debian, and
going the Docker / Flatpak / Snap route is quite tempting.

Celejar

[IL Ka]

Thanks for the explanation. But I guess that the Windows style is
becoming increasingly common in the Linux world as well,

You mean  "side by side", right?

I agree. Some developers took another approach and compiled all their code statically.

AFAIK "Go" language does it by default, so all libraries are simply "packed" to the one big binary file

that depends on kernel ABI only.

with the rise
of Docker, Flatpak, Snap, etc. (as another poster in this thread
mentioned). And these are not just for those who don't understand the
value of using the repositories: lately I've been encountering quite a
few popular and useful applications (e.g., Nextcloud (server), Jitsi,
Caddy, Traefik) that for whatever reason (upstream doesn't maintain a
sufficiently stable version, etc.) are not packaged for Debian, and
going the Docker / Flatpak / Snap route is quite tempting.

 

Yes, this reason is very common: I need "Python 3.9", but stable Debian doesn't have it.

So, I have to use Docker.

There is even a Linux distro that doesn't have anything except bare core OS: "Core OS"

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-02-25 at 10:26, IL Ka wrote:

>> Thanks for the explanation. But I guess that the Windows style is
>> becoming increasingly common in the Linux world as well,

>> with the rise
>> of Docker, Flatpak, Snap, etc. (as another poster in this thread
>> mentioned). And these are not just for those who don't understand the
>> value of using the repositories: lately I've been encountering quite a
>> few popular and useful applications (e.g., Nextcloud (server), Jitsi,
>> Caddy, Traefik) that for whatever reason (upstream doesn't maintain a
>> sufficiently stable version, etc.) are not packaged for Debian, and
>> going the Docker / Flatpak / Snap route is quite tempting.
>
> Yes, this reason is very common: I need "Python 3.9", but stable Debian
> doesn't have it.

Eh?

$ apt-cache policy python3

python3:
Installed: 3.9.1-1
Candidate: 3.9.1-1
Version table:
*** 3.9.1-1 900
900 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
3.7.3-1 800
800 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable/main amd64 Packages

This is tracking stable+testing, so usually running the version from
testing.

Unless you need *exactly* 3.9.0, and 3.9.1 won't do - in which case I
question your use case; anything with that tight of a version dependency
on its runtime seems risky to me at best.

--
The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

[Celejar]

On Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:26:04 +0300
IL Ka <kazakev...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Thanks for the explanation. But I guess that the Windows style is
> > becoming increasingly common in the Linux world as well,
>
> You mean "side by side", right?

I meant the habit of including all an application's dependencies in its
installation packaging, as with Docker / Flatpak / Snap.

> I agree. Some developers took another approach and compiled all their code
> statically.
> AFAIK "Go" language does it by default, so all libraries are simply
> "packed" to the one big binary file
> that depends on kernel ABI only.

Yes, I recently read a rant about this from the Gentoo people:

https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2021/02/19/the-modern-packagers-security-nightmare/

h/t:

https://www.osnews.com/story/133066/the-modern-packagers-security-nightmare/

> with the rise
> > of Docker, Flatpak, Snap, etc. (as another poster in this thread
> > mentioned). And these are not just for those who don't understand the
> > value of using the repositories: lately I've been encountering quite a
> > few popular and useful applications (e.g., Nextcloud (server), Jitsi,
> > Caddy, Traefik) that for whatever reason (upstream doesn't maintain a
> > sufficiently stable version, etc.) are not packaged for Debian, and
> > going the Docker / Flatpak / Snap route is quite tempting.
> >
>
> Yes, this reason is very common: I need "Python 3.9", but stable Debian
> doesn't have it.
> So, I have to use Docker.
>
> There is even a Linux distro that doesn't have anything except bare core
> OS: "Core OS"

And Ubuntu is apparently going in that direction, although I don't know
how far they plan to go:

https://www.howtogeek.com/670084/what-you-need-to-know-about-snaps-on-ubuntu-20.04/

Celejar

[Greg Wooledge]

IL Ka (kazakev...@gmail.com) wrote:
> testing has [python] 3.9 and stable has 3.7.
> What if I need 3.9 but do not want to touch testing on my production server?
> Or how can I migrate to 3.10 (which will be released soon) if even bullseye
> will have only 3.9?

If your production software is intimately bound to a specific Python
version -- or any other language, really -- just forego the Debian
packages and build upstream's release of the exact version you need.

Leave the Debian python and python3 packages installed if they're
needed by other Debian packages. Just ignore them for your production
stuff.

Build Python for your production stuff in /opt or /usr/local or with
Python virtual environments, or whatever it is that Python people do
nowadays. Use that for your local development and deployments.

(/me looks at the Subject: header ... how on earth did we get from there
to here?)

[IL Ka]

Eh?

$ apt-cache policy python3

python3:
  Installed: 3.9.1-1
  Candidate: 3.9.1-1
  Version table:
 *** 3.9.1-1 900
        900 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.7.3-1 800
        800 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable/main amd64 Packages

This is tracking stable+testing, so usually running the version from
testing.

testing has 3.9 and stable has 3.7. 

What if I need 3.9 but do not want to touch testing on my production server?

Or how can I migrate to 3.10 (which will be released soon) if even bullseye will have only 3.9?

Docker is the answer)

 

Unless you need *exactly* 3.9.0, and 3.9.1 won't do - in which case I
question your use case; anything with that tight of a version dependency
on its runtime seems risky to me at best.

I agree that code shouldn't depend on the minor version, but some people think that

developer machines, staging and production should have the same version to make bugs 100% reproducible, and this is one more reason to use Docker.

 

[The Wanderer]

On 2021-02-25 at 10:58, Greg Wooledge wrote:

> (/me looks at the Subject: header ... how on earth did we get from there
> to here?)

Topic drift is inexplicable and inexorable.

Just be glad this hasn't developed into a vs. thread yet.

[Semih Ozlem]

lvs is in which package?

closest I can find are:

 from apt search

(i) netgen-lvs/stable 1.5.118-1 amd64
  Netlist comparison - Layout vs Schematic (LVS)

from google or yandex search

(ii) https://github.com/alibaba/LVS

martin f krafft <mad...@debian.org>, 23 Şub 2021 Sal, 13:30 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[Charles Curley]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2021 08:54:16 +0300
Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:

> lvs is in which package?
> closest I can find are:
> from apt search
> (i) netgen-lvs/stable 1.5.118-1 amd64
> Netlist comparison - Layout vs Schematic (LVS)
> from google or yandex search
> (ii) https://github.com/alibaba/LVS

charles@hawk:~$ apt-file search /lvs | grep lvs$
bash-completion: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/lvs
lvm2: /sbin/lvs
charles@hawk:~$

P.s. please don't top post. That is, put your reply after what you are
replying to. It's much easier to read. Thanks

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

[Semih Ozlem]

Is lvs linux virtual server?

I am not able to find a command or a file with the name lvs...

Charles Curley <charle...@charlescurley.com>, 26 Şub 2021 Cum, 09:53 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[David]

[I re-arranged this to correct the top-posting]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2021 at 16:54, Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> martin f krafft <mad...@debian.org>, 23 Şub 2021 Sal, 13:30 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

>> Maybe I can provide a quick and easy solution, depending on what happens when you type
>> $ sudo lvs
>> into a terminal. Could you let us know what that spits out?

> lvs is in which package?

My guess is that the 'lvs' mentioned is intended to be the
'lvs' in the 'lvm2' package, as shown below.

root@kablamm:~# type lvs
lvs is /sbin/lvs
root@kablamm:~# dpkg -S /sbin/lvs
lvm2: /sbin/lvs

However I am unsure why this was asked for.
If you are not already using LVM [1] on your system
then I would expect the 'lvs' command output to be blank.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Volume_Manager_(Linux)

[Greg Wooledge]

Semih Ozlem (semihozle...@gmail.com) wrote:
> Is lvs linux virtual server?
>
> I am not able to find a command or a file with the name lvs...

Here, I found it for you:

> Charles Curley <charle...@charlescurley.com>, 26 Şub 2021 Cum, 09:53
> tarihinde şunu yazdı:

> > charles@hawk:~$ apt-file search /lvs | grep lvs$
> > bash-completion: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/lvs
> > lvm2: /sbin/lvs
> > charles@hawk:~$

It was right there in the email to which you replied.

Maybe if you tried reading from top to bottom instead of writing from
bottom to top and ignoring the part you replied to...?

As you can see from Charles's email, the command is in the /sbin/
directory and is part of the lvm2 package. If you don't have that
package installed, then you won't have that command.

If you want to know what the command does, without installing it, you
can look up the man page online, at <http://manpages.debian.org/>.

[Charles Curley]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2021 20:56:34 +1100
David <bounci...@gmail.com> wrote:

> However I am unsure why this was asked for.
> If you are not already using LVM [1] on your system
> then I would expect the 'lvs' command output to be blank.

M. Ozlem's original questions was, could one add another disk to a
debian system. Someone suggested using LVM. Someone else asked for the
output of the command

sudo lvs

M. Ozlem has had problems finding lvs in order to run it.

My guess is that M. Ozlem is fairly new at Linux/Unix, and missed
several cues most of us would have picked up on. One of them is that if
the lvm2 package isn't installed, M. Ozlem would get a complaint that
his OS couldn't find it. That complaint would tell most of us that he
didn't have LVM installed, and therefore using LVM to expand his system
would be problematic, probably requiring re-installation.

M. Ozlem didn't report this complaint, but instead asked which package
it was in, which started this side-line of emails. I replied with the
output of apt-file indicating the package M. Ozlem would have to
install in order to get the program lvs. I made the mistake of figuring
that M. Ozlem would read closely the output I provided.

I also made the mistake of figuring that getting lvs installed would
help solve the problem. I later realized that getting lvs installed
would be irrelevant: the fact that it is not installed tells us what
we needed to know: M. Ozlem isn't running LVM, so the solution to the
problem is not simply to expand the current volume group (VG) onto the
new hard drive. There is no current VG to expand.

So where do we go from here?

[Greg Wooledge]

Charles Curley (charle...@charlescurley.com) wrote:
> I also made the mistake of figuring that getting lvs installed would
> help solve the problem. I later realized that getting lvs installed
> would be irrelevant: the fact that it is not installed tells us what
> we needed to know: M. Ozlem isn't running LVM, so the solution to the
> problem is not simply to expand the current volume group (VG) onto the
> new hard drive. There is no current VG to expand.
>
> So where do we go from here?

Yes, all of that is true and useful.

The real problem, though, is that the OP apparently *does not have* a
Debian installation at all. They're just sticking a Live USB thingy
into a computer and running Debian from that. Debian is not installed
on their computer, and they've stated that they have no intention of
installing it on their computer -- at least not on the current hard
drive which is dedicated to Microsoft Windows.

Once we learned that, I pretty much stopped paying attention to anything
else they said.

I'm guessing that their goal is to keep booting from their Live USB
thingy, but to use a second hard drive (which does not exist yet) as
some sort of auxiliary storage that will magically hold whatever they
want to install.

I might suggest that a *better* goal would be to install Debian on the
new hard drive (once it exists), and stop booting the Live system.

[martin f krafft]

Regarding the following, written by "Semih Ozlem" on 2021-02-26 at 08:54 Uhr +0300:

lvs is in which package?

If it's not installed on your system (the package being lvm2), then my suggested fix won't work for you anyway, since your system isn't set up to use Logical Volume Management.

--

.''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft

:' : proud Debian developer

.'http://people.debian.org/~madduck- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems

"cs class at 8:30am. ugly. if you can wake up early enough to get

good grades here, you need to develop hacker habits..."

-- jeff bailey on #debian-devel

[Semih Ozlem]

Sorry I can not read emails very often. No I am not new to linux I have been using it for the past 6 or 7 years starting mostly with ubuntu. I had CENTOS and Ubuntu and debian installed on some machines before.  Most of them stopped functioning. Some of them in less than six months.

I am new to the debian users group, because I found out that a user group existed much later. During this time I had a lot of issues with computers. The new computer that I got, originally the store claimed that the insurance on my machine would be invalidated if I installed another operation system on the machine.

The reason for hesitating to install debian right now is simply that the machines may become unusable again, and the invested time and machinepower to installing a machine may end up being wasted. The other reason was the claim that insurance may become invalid which later turned out not to be so, but only after asking the company that sells the computer several times. The third reason is I simply do not at the moment have the time to backup the existing hard drive before installing a new operating system on it, and also that should it become unusable or stop functioning (I had debian installed on a usb 64 gb of size that stopped booting)..

Yes I did figure out that it was lvm2 package that was needed, and lvs is actually one of the internal commands for lvm2 as well so it could be run from the console lvm2 prodives. I am looking into the option of using lvm.

Greg Wooledge <gr...@wooledge.org>, 26 Şub 2021 Cum, 20:42 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[Semih Ozlem]

Also even though I have been using linux for a while, that still does not mean that I would know everything about linux or that there would be no details that I miss...

Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com>, 27 Şub 2021 Cmt, 11:30 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[Joe]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 11:30:08 +0300
Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry I can not read emails very often. No I am not new to linux I
> have been using it for the past 6 or 7 years starting mostly with
> ubuntu. I had CENTOS and Ubuntu and debian installed on some machines
> before. Most of them stopped functioning. Some of them in less than
> six months.

OK, that simply should not happen. I don't know if either Centos or
Ubuntu can do in-place version upgrades, but if not, they should
certainly run from release to unsupported status. My current server
installation is a new one, but previously it ran through several
Debian stable version upgrades and many years, and a couple of changes
of hardware. There is such a thing as software rot, and it certainly
affects applications, but the OS of Debian stable should run pretty much
forever.

>
> I am new to the debian users group, because I found out that a user
> group existed much later. During this time I had a lot of issues with
> computers. The new computer that I got, originally the store claimed
> that the insurance on my machine would be invalidated if I installed
> another operation system on the machine.
>
> The reason for hesitating to install debian right now is simply that
> the machines may become unusable again, and the invested time and
> machinepower to installing a machine may end up being wasted. The
> other reason was the claim that insurance may become invalid which
> later turned out not to be so, but only after asking the company that
> sells the computer several times.

No software carries any kind of warranty, not even the famous Windows,
but the warranty should certainly cover the hardware if it isn't
physically abused. Software warranty service is pretty much limited to
reinstalling Windows with loss of all data and applications, which any
user can do themselves.

> The third reason is I simply do not
> at the moment have the time to backup the existing hard drive before
> installing a new operating system on it, and also that should it
> become unusable or stop functioning (I had debian installed on a usb
> 64 gb of size that stopped booting)..

Ah, USB sticks *do* stop working or lose bits without warning. Well, so
do spinning hard drives, but not usually in less than about five years,
often much longer.

>
> Yes I did figure out that it was lvm2 package that was needed, and
> lvs is actually one of the internal commands for lvm2 as well so it
> could be run from the console lvm2 prodives. I am looking into the
> option of using lvm.

That's fairly painless to use, as Debian will set it up during the OS
installation. To be honest, I've had it installed for many years, and
only occasionally used it. Drives are now large enough that I don't
outgrow them in the lifetime of the hardware. In addition to adding
and removing drives, LVM does allow online backups, if you've left
enough unused space. Read about snapshots.

--
Joe

[to...@tuxteam.de]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 11:34:10AM +0300, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> Also even though I have been using linux for a while, that still does not
> mean that I would know everything about linux or that there would be no
> details that I miss...

Nobody does. The Linux kernel alone receives roughly 6000-8000 patches
*a month* [1] [2]. That amounts to a steady stream of one patch every
five minutes, if I didn't miscalculate.

A tad less than 2000 developers are contributing at any given time.

And a (GNU)/Linux distro is a bit more than that. No way to keep up
on each and every corner of that. Much less as a single person.

That said, I'm around that stuff since... something between 1993
and 1994. My main workstation (and a couple of other installations,
often at customer's) have been purely GNU/Linux things, most of
the time Debian.

I haven't experienced that kind of catastrophic failure since...
well, let's say 1996 or so. Most of the time, I've had fairly clean
upgrades, with few pains (and I /do/ customize my systems. I'm
sometimes picky. I don't like systemd, for example, thus I do
increase my risk by departing from the beaten path here and there).

What may be elements contributing towards keeping an installation
happy? This surely depends on many things. Here are a couple of
advices from an old jeezer:

- community
Find people "around" you (geographically is the best, but
sometimes you don't have that luxury). A mailing list like
this is an option. People you trust, and you learn to understand.

- OS usage model
think about how you are treating you OS: is it a pet, you
know by name (upgrade frequently, install this-or-that
utility from source, let it develop a "personality" over
time, you're kind of sad when it dies) or is it "cattle"
(you invest a lot into automating install and deployment,
which happens nearly instantly. When the system coughs,
you dump it and deploy a new one).

Those are very different approaches, and have different
properties.

It pays off to think about what you want to do. I'm
(pretty firmly) in the "pet" camp, although I see what the
"cattle" model is good for. For a perspective from the "cattle"
camp, see [3].

I have the feeling that you dither between both positions
(you deploy as "cattle", i.e. don't dare to install to
disk) and expect "pet" behaviour (i.e. long-time stability).

Sorry for this philosophical interruption :-)

Cheers

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/839772/
[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/845831/
[3] https://joachim8675309.medium.com/devops-concepts-pets-vs-cattle-2380b5aab313

- t

[Semih Ozlem]

Should I then be suspicious of a possible attack on the system in case the system fails, if both debian and ubuntu are fairly stable? The usb flash drives themselves are still functional in the sense that I can view the files in them after plugging them in. I backed up the data on them. But when I try to boot from 64 gb usb flash disks (one with ubuntu 18 04 the other debian 10 point something installed on them) the boot process does not complete and the login screen does not appear. The two recovery modes (I guess those are the snapshots no?) do not finish booting either.

Joe <j...@jretrading.com>, 27 Şub 2021 Cmt, 12:02 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[Semih Ozlem]

One potential extra information that could be relevant is that I did use the flash drives in a university network, and using shared wifi in a hostel and before in a public library. 

Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com>, 27 Şub 2021 Cmt, 15:19 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 03:22:08PM +0300, Semih Ozlem wrote:
> One potential extra information that could be relevant is that I did use
> the flash drives in a university network, and using shared wifi in a hostel
> and before in a public library.
>

That's probably irrelevant: flash drives can and do fail with the occasional
missing write under heavy load. Are these USB3?

Essentially, installing a Linux system to them is more intense than just
copying files, even large files. There's an amount of indexing, finding files
and so on that isn't there in copying say, a DVD sized image across.

There's a subtle difference between a cheap 16G USB stick and one of the large
high capacity USB sticks from a major manufacturer that might cost ten times
as much. Also, USB connected devices are different: I'd feel happier, for
example, installing Debian to an SSD in a good caddy connected via a short
USB3 cable I trust :)

> Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com>, 27 Şub 2021 Cmt, 15:19
> tarihinde şunu yazdı:
>
> > Should I then be suspicious of a possible attack on the system in case the
> > system fails, if both debian and ubuntu are fairly stable? The usb flash
> > drives themselves are still functional in the sense that I can view the
> > files in them after plugging them in. I backed up the data on them. But
> > when I try to boot from 64 gb usb flash disks (one with ubuntu 18 04 the
> > other debian 10 point something installed on them) the boot process does
> > not complete and the login screen does not appear. The two recovery modes
> > (I guess those are the snapshots no?) do not finish booting either.
> >

18.04 is now old: try 20.04 :) Similarly, use the latest Debian image you
can find on cdimage.debian.org or mirrors. The latest is 10.8 - 10.9 will be
along eventually.

> > Joe <j...@jretrading.com>, 27 Şub 2021 Cmt, 12:02 tarihinde şunu yazdı:
> >
> >> On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 11:30:08 +0300
> >> Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Sorry I can not read emails very often. No I am not new to linux I
> >> > have been using it for the past 6 or 7 years starting mostly with
> >> > ubuntu. I had CENTOS and Ubuntu and debian installed on some machines
> >> > before. Most of them stopped functioning. Some of them in less than
> >> > six months.
> >>

What are you _doing_ to them? That's unusual in any event. Are you in an area
subject to power cuts? Were you using significantly old hardware / hardware
built from discarded PCs?

> >> OK, that simply should not happen. I don't know if either Centos or
> >> Ubuntu can do in-place version upgrades, but if not, they should
> >> certainly run from release to unsupported status. My current server
> >> installation is a new one, but previously it ran through several
> >> Debian stable version upgrades and many years, and a couple of changes
> >> of hardware. There is such a thing as software rot, and it certainly
> >> affects applications, but the OS of Debian stable should run pretty much
> >> forever.
> >> >
> >> > I am new to the debian users group, because I found out that a user
> >> > group existed much later. During this time I had a lot of issues with
> >> > computers. The new computer that I got, originally the store claimed
> >> > that the insurance on my machine would be invalidated if I installed
> >> > another operation system on the machine.
> >> >
> >> > The reason for hesitating to install debian right now is simply that
> >> > the machines may become unusable again, and the invested time and
> >> > machinepower to installing a machine may end up being wasted. The
> >> > other reason was the claim that insurance may become invalid which
> >> > later turned out not to be so, but only after asking the company that
> >> > sells the computer several times.
> >>
> >> No software carries any kind of warranty, not even the famous Windows,
> >> but the warranty should certainly cover the hardware if it isn't
> >> physically abused. Software warranty service is pretty much limited to
> >> reinstalling Windows with loss of all data and applications, which any
> >> user can do themselves.
> >>

In your position, if the machine does not carry all your vital data - I might
consider making the machine dual boot Debian and Windows.

Before I did that: I'd use Windows tools to list everything possible about
the system and write it down on a piece of paper - including whether it's
booting from UEFI, what the video information is, disk size and so on.

I'd also boot the machine from a piece of Debian live media - check lsusb,
lspci, any dmesg messages about missing firmware - again, write it down.

Use the tools from Microsoft to get hold of a copy of the latest Windows
install media and use those tools to write it to a USB stick. Keep that
somewhere in case you _ever_ need to reinstall Windows :) Then check back
into the list and I'll talk you through installation if you wish.

One thing that is important: always resize disks first with Windows tools
before installing any other OS.

> >> > The third reason is I simply do not
> >> > at the moment have the time to backup the existing hard drive before
> >> > installing a new operating system on it, and also that should it
> >> > become unusable or stop functioning (I had debian installed on a usb
> >> > 64 gb of size that stopped booting)..
> >>
> >> Ah, USB sticks *do* stop working or lose bits without warning. Well, so
> >> do spinning hard drives, but not usually in less than about five years,
> >> often much longer.
> >> >
> >> > Yes I did figure out that it was lvm2 package that was needed, and
> >> > lvs is actually one of the internal commands for lvm2 as well so it
> >> > could be run from the console lvm2 prodives. I am looking into the
> >> > option of using lvm.
> >>
> >> That's fairly painless to use, as Debian will set it up during the OS
> >> installation. To be honest, I've had it installed for many years, and
> >> only occasionally used it. Drives are now large enough that I don't
> >> outgrow them in the lifetime of the hardware. In addition to adding
> >> and removing drives, LVM does allow online backups, if you've left
> >> enough unused space. Read about snapshots.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Joe
> >>
> >>

Write yourself a list of things you want to do with the machine. Accept that
it might be ten items long - then accept that it might take a while to do the
first thing on the list which is to install Debian :)

If you've installed Ubuntu a few times, the Debian install is not unfamiliar.
If you've only ever used the graphical installer, I would suggest that you
choose the expert option (under Advanced options) because this will ask _all_
the questions.

If your Windows machine functionality is business critical/vital to your life,
I'd suggest practising the install a couple of times on a spare machine if you
can get one rather than destroying everything accidentally and blaming the
list for telling you to do it :)

All the very best, as ever,

Andy C.

[Joe]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 15:19:39 +0300
Semih Ozlem <semihozle...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Should I then be suspicious of a possible attack on the system in
> case the system fails, if both debian and ubuntu are fairly stable?
> The usb flash drives themselves are still functional in the sense
> that I can view the files in them after plugging them in. I backed up
> the data on them. But when I try to boot from 64 gb usb flash disks
> (one with ubuntu 18 04 the other debian 10 point something installed
> on them) the boot process does not complete and the login screen does
> not appear. The two recovery modes (I guess those are the snapshots
> no?) do not finish booting either.
>

There are parts of the system that aren't files, that you're not
checking. Grub writes a bootloader to the MBR of a normal drive, but a
USB stick may not have a partition structure, in which case the
bootloader will be written to the start of the drive. If this gets
damaged, you can use a low-level disc utility to copy it out and check
it, but the easier way is to boot from a rescue USB stick, then try to
chroot into the faulty OS and update grub from there, which will
rewrite the bootloader.

The recovery mode is grub itself plus a number of utilities and
drivers. From here, you can generally find drives and partitions, mount
partitions and edit files if you can see what's wrong. It sounds like
the early booting part of grub is itself damaged in your case.

And no, LVM snapshots are nothing to do with boot or recovery
processes, they are a means of freezing the files of an installed
operating system so that a proper backup can be made while still
allowing the system to run. Changes to files are stored in a buffer
area, and read from there, then when the backup is finished the
snapshot can be closed and the file changes will be merged back to the
real file locations. The system will obviously run more slowly while
the snapshot is open, but that may be far better than shutting it down
for an offline backup.

If you try to make an online backup without using this method, some
files will change during the backup, meaning that the set of files that
are written to the backup may not be consistent enough to run properly
as a complete system. Certainly database daemons must be stopped, as
well as anything else outside the core OS that makes persistent changes
to files (e.g. a mail server). Most changing files are temporary, so it
is often possible to get away with an online backup without a snapshot,
particularly if you only ever need to restore single files or
directories. Cloning a full working OS is generally best done offline,
unless you have LVM plus space for the buffer.

--
Joe

[David Wright]

On Sat 27 Feb 2021 at 15:19:39 (+0300), Semih Ozlem wrote:
> Joe, 27 Şub 2021 Cmt, 12:02 tarihinde şunu yazdı:

> > On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 11:30:08 +0300 Semih Ozlem wrote:
> >
> > > Sorry I can not read emails very often. No I am not new to linux I
> > > have been using it for the past 6 or 7 years starting mostly with
> > > ubuntu. I had CENTOS and Ubuntu and debian installed on some machines
> > > before. Most of them stopped functioning. Some of them in less than
> > > six months.

I think you need to elaborate on "stopped functioning". Were they
dead, like the system I turned on this evening? The only thing that
worked was the power pass-through to the monitor. No fans, no lights.
But as the PSU is 21 years old, it's no surprise really.

Or did your POST work, but then they did nothing after that?
Or perhaps they said there was no operation system?

All these faults, so far, have nothing to do with CENTOS or Ubuntu,
which haven't even started to be loaded yet.

> Should I then be suspicious of a possible attack on the system in case the
> system fails, if both debian and ubuntu are fairly stable? The usb flash
> drives themselves are still functional in the sense that I can view the
> files in them after plugging them in. I backed up the data on them.

Hmm, I would treat anything copied off those sticks as suspect, not
because of any sort of attack, but just corruption by the stick.

> But
> when I try to boot from 64 gb usb flash disks (one with ubuntu 18 04 the
> other debian 10 point something installed on them) the boot process does
> not complete and the login screen does not appear.

I wouldn't have the patience to wait for a graphical login. A console
login and startx might be preferable, so that you get faster feedback
on whether booting is working. Add "systemd.show_status=true" to the
kernel line is grub.cfg too.

> The two recovery modes
> (I guess those are the snapshots no?) do not finish booting either.

I'm not sure why *two* recovery modes, but a freshly installed
system typically has one kernel: recovery mode is just the
kernel parameter "single". (You might have two if you installed
from out-of-date media, leading to an immediate upgrade during
installation.)

Anyway, USB sticks. Last week I installed buster onto an 8GB stick
to evaluate a laptop with windows on it. The installation went fine,
and the next day I booted it up to install a load more packages
onto it. Apt-get kept complaining about files with no newline at
the end, so I closed down, and mounted the stick on my desktop.
Several of the meant-to-be-text files in /var/lib/dpkg/info/ were
just binary garbage. Later, I thought I'd look for any errors reported
during installation in the installer's syslog, but the stick now
wouldn't even mount: the partition table was corrupt, so I had to
copy the GPT backup table onto the main table with gdisk.

This evening I tried to boot an old laptop with the official buster
installer on a stick. I couldn't get the BIOS to see the stick
(in order to promote it above the hard drive in boot order). I tried
booting using another stick for doing the promotion, and then
swapping to the real one, but that just complained of "no operating
system". So then I had the bright idea of plugging in a 10-year old
Trust hub (£8 at Asda), and putting the stick in that, and, sure
enough, it booted up. So persistence pays.

Cheers,
David.