Booting - Enterprise Volume Management System

[Thiers Botelho]

On 8/16/06, Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
> · Thiers Botelho <thiersb at gmail.com>:
>
> > On 8/15/06, Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
> >> · Thiers Botelho <thiersb at gmail.com>:
> >> > On 8/14/06, Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
> >> >> · Thiers Botelho <thiersb at gmail.com>:
> >>
> >> >> What do you mean with this? Do you plan on doing suspend-to-disk
> >> >> and store that in a file?
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > Yep. Those files would be for use with suspend2, supposing it works as
> >> > advertised.
> >>
> >> Ok. Why do you plan to suspend to a file? Why waste space for such
> >> a file, if there's a swap partition? Is there any advantage in
> >> doing suspend to file compared to suspend to swap?
> >>
> >> Alexander Skwar
> >
> > If I have a file specifically for performing suspend, I can :
> >
> > - have a 300 Mb swap partition, instead of a 2 Gb one for suspending
> > (assuming 2 Gb of RAM) ;
>
> Hm, why is that, by itself, an advantage? What's bad in having
> 2Gb swap? Granted, it might not be needed, but if the space needs
> to be reserved for the file, then why not make it so, that it
> can be used for other things as well?
>
> > - have one single swap partition serving multiple Linux systems,
> > instead of one for each of them ;
>
> Yep.
>
> > - more flexibility when moving / deleting / resizing the suspend area .
>
> Hm. Why should the suspend area be resized? How often do
> you add RAM to a system, so that the suspend area needs
> to be resized?
>
> With LVM, on the other hand, you can also easily resize
> a swap "partition", if swap is on LVM. It can also be
> deleted. But it cannot be moved.
>
> > Of course if I end up with one suspend file for each system I'll have
> > no space savings.
>
> Yep. And you make the setup more complicated. Using a suspend
> file for suspend2 isn't as easy as using a swap partition; and
> with swsusp, suspending to file isn't supported at all.
>
> > I just think that files provide more flexibility
> > than partitions
>
> Are you using swap partitions at all then? If you're so much into
> "flexibility" (although I don't see the flexibility *G*), then why
> don't you use swap files? As far as I know, in 2.6 kernels, there's
> no performance penalty in using swap files, compared with swap
> "partitions".
>
> You're of course right, that files provide more flexibility than
> partitions. I don't understand, why that flexibility is needed
> with the suspend "destination" or with swap.
>
> But in the end, it's your system and you've got to decide, what
> you do with your system.
>
> > (call me a flexibility freak if you wish).  :))
>
> ;)
>
> Alexander Skwar

Alex, many thanks for the insights.

As for your questions / suggestions, I don't have much to add right
now. But I'm keeping all these discussions for future reference when I
get to delve more deeply in LVM.

[OT - personal rant]

Remember that my linux system(s) exist only in my mind (yet) -  :(  -
I'm thoroughly involved in a personal transition moment (job +
profession + city) and the interactions over this list help me keep in
touch with the Linux world. But right now I have no chance to put
anything discussed here into practice - windoze-only boxes surround
me. Real-soon-now I'll start materializing all these ideas, but for
the moment, regarding Linux, nothing more than ideas I have.

You may wish to mail me personally for exchanging a bit more ideas about this.

[/personal rant]

Cheers

Thiers