Bug#290993: [powerpc] LVM installation is not directly supported on pmac
Package: debian-installer-manual
Version: 20050117
Tags: patch
Currently there is no standard way to identify partitions on Apple
PowerMac hardware (i.e. a method accepted by all Linux distributions).
There was a discussion on debian-boot about this, see the thread at
http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/01/msg00277.html
As a result it is not possible to create and mount logical volumes on
PowerMac hardware from d-i. Unfortunately the lvmcfg menus give the
idea that this should actually work and thus may cause some grief
since the installation manual does not warn about the limitation.
The patch below could be considered a fix until partman and lvm/md
tools are fixed upstream. It notes the restriction and also describes
a common workaround (I tested the instructions on my G5 PowerMac7,3
system).
Feel free to leave out the workaround if that breaks some policy, but
I think some people would've probably appreciated it (like me ;-).
Cheers!
Shyamal
Index: installer/doc/manual/en/using-d-i/modules/lvmcfg.xml
===================================================================
--- installer/doc/manual/en/using-d-i/modules/lvmcfg.xml (revision 25010)
+++ installer/doc/manual/en/using-d-i/modules/lvmcfg.xml (working copy)
@@ -47,8 +47,46 @@
logical volumes on the top of volume groups from the menu
<guimenuitem>Modify logical volumes (LV)</guimenuitem>.
+</para>
+
+<note arch="powerpc"><para>
+
+There is no widely accepted standard on Apple Power Macintosh hardware
+to identify partitions containing LVM data. On this particular
+hardware, the above procedure for creating physical volumes and volume
+groups will not work. There is a good workaround to this limitation if
+you are very familiar with the underlying LVM tools.
+
</para><para>
+To install with logical volumes on Power Macintosh hardware you go
+ahead and create all the disk partitions for your logical volumes as
+usual. In the <guimenu>Partition settings</guimenu> menu you should
+choose <menuchoice><guimenu>Use as:</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Do Not
+Use</guimenuitem></menuchoice> for these partitions (you will not be
+offered the choice to use the partition as a physical volume). When
+you are done with creating all your partitions you should start the
+logical volume manager as usual. However since no physical volumes
+have been created you must now access the command shell available on
+the second virtual terminal (see <xref linkend="shell"/>) and create
+them manually.
+
+</para><para>
+
+Use the <command>pvcreate</command> command at the shell command to
+create a physical volume on each of your chosen partitions. Then use
+the <command>vgcreate</command> command to create each volume group
+you want. You can safely ignore any errors about incorrect metadata
+area header checksums and fsync failures while doing this. When you
+are done with creating all your volume groups you should go back to
+the first virtual terminal and skip directly the the
+<command>lvmcfg</command> menu items for logical volume
+management. You will see your volume groups and you can create the
+logical volumes you need as usual.
+
+</para></note>
+<para>
+
After returning from <command>lvmcfg</command> back to
<command>partman</command>, you will see any created logical volumes
in the same way as ordinary partitions (and you should treat them like
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