Which Volume Manager?
I am running a 2.4.19 debianized kernel, built from source, and would
like to use a volume manager. I would appreciate any advice or
clarification of the level of debian support for the different
managers. I am trying to run basically a testing system.
There seem to be 3 configurations:
LVM10 from Sistina (the 1.0 version of LVM)
LVM2 from Sistina, beta (2.0 version of LVM)
EVMS from IBM
I think each additionally requires a separate set of kernel patches to
compile, and LVM2 also depends on a "device mapper" (libdevmapper0),
which may have a kernel component also.
Since LVM2 is beta, missing many features, and seems to have a
showstopper bug
(http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=163020)--though
severity is marked as normal--I'd say it's out.
Some comments on one of the debian installer list described EVMS as
intriguing but untested; my search of the net seems to show it's well
thought of by its few users, but the kernel team doesn't like the
internals. The kernel team didn't like LVM version 1 either, and I
believe its presence in the development kernels has been terminated
with extreme prejudice.
EVMS and LVM both seem to be out of the planned 2.6 kernel, while
LVM2, or at least some elements, are in
(http://www.kernelnewbies.org/status/latest.html). The EVMS team
responded to this and the kernel team's comments by deciding on a major
rearchitecting of that package
(announced 11/5. See
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=103653726515692&w=2).
Both EVMS and LVM2 should be able to read LVM volumes.
EVMS currently appears to have a richer set of client tools (even a
gui interface), and to be a more ambitious project than LVM. This has
its good and bad points. I like the positive things its users say
about the system and the developers, as well as the apparent maturity
and seriousness of the developers in their posts, but am concerned by
the relative newness to Linux and the fact that it appears to be
another one of these doomed but noble IBM attempts to build software
that pluggably adapts to any operating system or requirement.
In view of all this, can anyone suggest which, if any, of the volume
managers to use right now, and tell me what I need to do to get it
working? Info on which way the wind is blowing on debian's choice of
volume managers would be highly relevant.
On the latter, my suspicion is that for evms I apply kernel-patch-evms
and rebuild my kernel, using the available tools packages. I suspect
that for LVM I may only need to enable the relevant options in the
kernel and rebuild, again using the tools packages. Any confirmation
or denial of these theories would be great.
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