If you install lilo in your root partition which itself is inside the LVM, I'm not sure what will make your system boot.

I'm no expert but installing lilo in the MBR when using LVM makes sense to me because then at boot you can run some code to make your LVM available. Technical information about that were given in a previous post from trhodes in this thread.

If you do not want to put lilo in MBR, I guess the alternative is to put it in another place outside the LVM. But then you reach the end of my limited knowledge on this topic

1. Unless you use another main boot manager (in the MBR) and indend to chain-load, install lilo in the MBR.
2. Make sure to follow the instructions in the README_LVM.TXT step by step, especially concerning the creation of initrd (with the "-L" parameter to mkinitrd) and adding the generic-smp-2.6.29.6-smp kernel to the lilo.conf.

No, you are not right. There is currently no problem having the root partition on LVM, provided that one uses initrd image.

I just did a 13.0 install using LVM and initrd. I created 2 partitions and left /boot outside the LVM. My setup:

sda1 - /boot
sda2 - LVM - containing logical volumes for /root, /home and swap

My /boot *had* to remain outside the LVM because the system is encrypted... Something to consider if you decide to check out encrypted filesystems later on.

You are completely correct... My answer was based on outdated experiences with Logical Volumes on other Unices, not recent Slackware versions.

My current setup continues to work this way, with non-LVM / & /boot partitions.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem, you need to be able to access the LVM software before you can access the logical volumes, so if the LVM software is on the logical volumes you can't load it to enable access to the logical volumes; therefore, it has to be located somewhere that you have access to before loading LVM, such as an initrd image on a non-LVM /boot partition, for example.

OK, forget it: I ended up creating only two primary partitions, one for swap (4G) and one for / (remaining space). So:
- I didn't have to set up an extended partition
- I won't have to re size anything, so no need for LVM
- I could install lilo on the root partition

Only remaining question: why am I not able to find simple ways to do things at first

Thanks for your answers anyway.

Less interesting?

I like LVM, but I always have ext2/3/4 `/boot` and `swap` partitions first (or at the very least `/boot`) and then the rest of the disk is LVM. This lets me make small partitions as needed and expand them if ever comes to that (which so far has only happened once).

Reading all posts I agree with tramni1980 that README_LVM.TXT is a well written manual for installing Slack on LVM, as I have tried it on a Sun virtual box and installation was successful. My problem is when trying to migrate from existing installation to LVM. I have tryed http://www.unixwerk.eu/linux/slack/lvm2root.html a couple of times but in this case after editing lilo.conf and run lilo, there is a

Lilo fatal Linux experimental device 0x04x needs to be defined
Check man lilo.conf under disk= and max_partitions=

message. Is there anyone who has a successful migration to LVM?

Did you create an initrd with the "-L" option?

Hello!

I would like to ask the lvm users with /root on an lvm partition, what boot parameters they pass to the kernel, when in a pinch? That is, what kernel parameters they pass to the hugesmp kernel when using the rescue cd to boot?

Regards,

Martin

I've not tested it personally, but I think that you just need to use the default parameters. LVM will be taken care of automatically.

Change /dev/hda1 if your LVM partition is somewhere else.

I see, but so long as I have read so far, even if a kernel has lvm support built-in, as hugesmp does, it still needs an initrd to activate the lvm volumes beforehand. That is why I suppose in the case of lvm on root, some boot parameter has to be passed to hugesmp to do the job.

AFAIK, hugesmp kernel has everything built-in (including LVM).

I think the easiest thing to do is to just give it a try. If the default parameters do not work, just post the error message.

Always but no result