Bug#355662: Installation report
On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 12:08:39AM -0500, Adrian Irving-Beer wrote:
> Very well done overall. I like how aptitude is installed by
> default. I also like how it skipped many of the (usually
> redundant) steps in the old install, like loading modules
> (assuming autodetect works).
>
> It was interesting how it refrained from bugging me, since
> things were moving along fine without my input. The number of
> prompts was kept to a minimum, which is probably ideal for a
> non-expert install.
>
> Only two real issues, neither particularly problematic, and both
> possibly intentional behaviour.
>
> One, as I recall, the partitioner seemed to number partitions
> "backwards" if I placed them at the end of the partitioned space,
> i.e. numbering them by the order they were created rather than
> their position on the disk. I don't know how it would have
> actually written this to disk, or if writing logical partitions
> out of order is even possible, but it was the opposite behaviour
> from the old Debian install partitioning tool (cfdisk) and hence
> confused me.
It is correct behaviour. If cfdisk doesn't do the same thing if you use
it to add a partition to an existing partition table, then cfdisk is
broken. I suspect it only rearanged partitions made within one session,
which is reasonable I suppose, and not unheard of in other fdisk
implementations. Touching the existing partition entries however would
not be reasonable since other things might already expect them in a
certain partition table slot. Remember the partition table is a table
of 4 entries, hda1 is the first row, hda2 the second, hda3 the third and
hda4 the fourth. Logical partitions are created inside one of the first
4 partitions, and contain their own partition tables and are allocated
hda5 and up. So since hda1 - 4 are based on the entry position in the
partition table, you want those to stay put when they are created.
> Two, I noticed mention of LVM in the install process. I chose not
> to use those options because I didn't want my root on LVM. I was
> pleased to note that the partitioner offered LVM physical volume
> allocation. However, I couldn't seem to locate the ability to
> allocate LVM logical volumes. Furthermore, unlike my previous
> Debian installs, there was no big gap between the last mounting of
> a filesystem and the installing of the base system -- a gap where
> I could use a terminal to perhaps set up the appropriate mounts.
You allocate a partition as LVM physical volume, then you go pick LVM
setup at the top of the partition menu, and it will let you creat a
volume group, and then logical volumes within it. When done, those
logical volumes will appear in the partition list where you can select
filesystems and mount points for them.
You should not need to manually setup mounts. That should all be doable
from the partitioning menu.
I have had no problem setting up multiple software raid1's with LVM on
top and swap and /usr and such on LVM (You don't want root on LVM at
this time. Too messy.) and I did it all from the partition tool and it
worked great.
> So I'm left building my LVM setup after the initial install,
> and moving parts of the existing system (/usr, etc.) into it.
> Not a big deal.
>
> Overall, an excellent system. Having seen how much the basic
> install has been trimmed down, I'll be sure to use the expert
> install next time and see how it fares by comparison.
Len Sorensen
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