Create LVM after a new linux install.
 

I have a new Linux, Suse 10.2, with no LVMs yet. There are three drives, each used completely. One is mounted as /, the second as /usr and the third as /usr/lib. /usr is near being full. I plan to add another drive to my system. Can I create an LVM with /usr as one of the physical drives and the new drive as the second? Will I have to backup /usr and then restore after creating the LVM?

Thanks any help will be appreciated.
Joe

Drives or partitions ???. How could /usr fill a drive ...
Short answer, no. Creating the pv/vg/lv will require formatting the drive/partition. Seems messy - want to post the output of "df -hT" ?.

I agree with syg, but if it is drive (set up with one partition I assume), and easier and perhaps better solution would be to install a larger drive and simply move /usr to it.

Thanks, I did fail to mention that my SuSE zLinux 10.2 is running on an IBM Mainframe under zVM with 3390 Mod 3 DASD, disk drives. Each drive is a whopping 2.3G. So that is why /usr is near full. LVM is the only way to add additional space to the file system. I have three drives currently configured as I mentioned earlier.

Could I add another drive as a one volume LVM, copy /usr to it, then format the original drive then add it to the newly created LVM?

I am fairly new to zLinux. If I can do it that way, will I need to make changes to /etc/fstab?

Again, thanks
Joe

Sorry I didn't answer syg's question.

here's my df -hT

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dasdb1 ext3 2.3G 1.5G 752M 66% /
udev tmpfs 247M 80K 247M 1% /dev
/dev/dasdc1 ext3 2.3G 1.9G 279M 88% /usr
/dev/dasdd1 ext3 2.3G 481M 1.7G 22% /usr/lib

My drives are each formatted as one partition.

Thanks

I'm surprised it wasn't LVM to start with - was this installed using the "Cookbook" redbook ??. Doesn't look like it. Even so, a mod-3 should be plenty for /usr normally I would think.
But yes, if you only have mod-3's, you're going to have to do something like you suggested. See if you can steal a mod-9 or two. Yes the fstab will need to be modified to agree.