[mdlug] Linux Desktops For Sale

[Aaron Kulkis]

Jonathan Billings wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 03:37:25PM -0400, Garry Stahl wrote:
>> Robert, if they are too stupid to understand the concept of hard drive
>> partitions, they are too stupid to own a computer and do no damage.  I
>> seriously recommend the purchase of a leapfrog or better yet one of
>> those boxes office store use to simulate computers in the furniture
>> department.
> 
> I think that's a bit egotistical.  The reasoning behind drive
> partitioning is directly related to several decades of the limitations
> on decades of PC hardware.  Windows and Mac users rarely need to think
> of partitions, and that's because it's completely transparent to the
> user (for the most part).
> 
> I wouldn't tell a reasonable Mac/Windows user to get rid of their
> computer just because they don't understand the complexities of disk
> partitioning.
> 
> On a related note...
> 
> This did get me thinking, perhaps rather than setting a /home
> partition, these systems could just have a /boot, swap and big LVM
> physical partition, and then / and /home could be logical volumes.
> That way you could resize later and not need to worry about
> repartitioning?  This is how I've deployed research systems at a
> previous job, when I knew that I might need to resize things later due
> to space constraints.
> 

That's all great and fine for systems that are backed up
on a regular basis (which home systems generally AREN't)

But what happens when the LVM config data gets hosed for
whatever reason?

Partition tables rarely get hosed.

I have, unfortunately, had to pick up the pieces of more
than one LVM disaster (and these machines were from industry
leaders, like Sequent and HP).  Without backup tapes, the
whole thing would have been unrecoverable.

I would NEVER suggest LVM for *any* user who doesn't do
regular backups (at least once per week).