Bonehead Move, LVM

[Andy Green]

Michael A Peters wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 15:50 +0000, Andy Green wrote:
>> Michael A Peters wrote:
>>
>>> LVM allows easy resizing of partitions, something you can not safely do
>>> with ext2 partitions without LVM. LVM avoids the need to completely back
>>> up and restore a drive because the average user was not psychic enough
>>> to know how things should be laid out to be space efficient 2 years post
>>> install.
>>>
>>> LVM allows you to leave lots of unused space so that you can use it
>>> where you need it when you need it without having to fuss with mount
>>> points and figuring out how to make the mount points integrate most
>>> effectively into your file system.
>> This is true, but it's a curious thing: these cures are for diseases 
>> caused by fragmenting the storage space into fixed closed 
>> partition-subworlds in the first place.  You can get the same joy in 
>> your life by just having a single fully sized / partition and none of 
>> this complex stuff piled upon constricting stuff delivering nothing 
>> going on.
> 
> Unfortunately there is no way to do a clean install while preserving
> some data if it is all one partition.

"No way?"  I didn't try it, but booting to runlevel 1 and rm -rf /usr 
/boot before booting into the installation media for the "clean" install 
of FC(n+1) should get you to the same place.  Without having to chafe on 
pointless restrictions and a huge workaround software stack between you 
and your storage during the 9 months between needing to do that.

Are there any other reasons to have partitions and LVM on boxes with one 
storage device and no possibility for internal expansion?

-Andy