[Mageia-dev] time to switch from raw partitions to lvm?

[Wolfgang Bornath]

Ok, seems I will have to learn a new way of working after getting
along for many years with many Linux flavors very well.

Say, with a new laptop which has a 360 Go harddisk with Windows
preinstalled - which is one of the top most user cases:

1. I start windows, move everything from D:\ to C:\ (if there is a
D:\), then check/defrag C.\.

2. I restart the laptop with the Mageia install medium and start installation.
Normally (with diskdrake during installation) I'd resize the Windows
partition to 20 Go, then create swap on sda5, a large Data partition
(150Go or more) on sda6 and the root partition of Mageia (10 Go) on
sda7. The rest remains untouched.
(A dynamic extended partition sda2 (or 3 or 4) is created
automatically by diskdrake).

3. If I feel like install another Linux or another instance of Mageia
I just create sda8 in the free space, etc.

Now with LVM, what do I do?When installing Mageia I don't create those
partitions but just one large LVM which holds DATA, swap and root
partition of mageia? But I want to use swap and DATA with all other
Linux installations as well, how do I mount them into another LVM? Is
it possible to have another LVM for Mandriva, another one for Fedora,
etc. all inside the extended partition sda4?

Now, I am totally aware that this thread is not for answering such
questions and I will read up on LVM ASAP. What I want to show with
this common example is: many users will ask these questions because
(AFAIK from my forum experience) most users do not use LVM yet.

-- 
wobo