suse 9.3 and root on lvm2
 

Hi,

I am running Slackware 10.1 at the moment, I've been using linux for quite some time now. However I tried out Suse 9.3 (using Eval-DVD) out of curiosity and as a first remark I was surprised to see how easy the installation has become and how nice everything looks.

Now, the installation allowed me to install using some advanced features, so this is what I did:

- created a new mirror /dev/md100 (to keep things clear for myself, md0 etc are used by the slackware instance)
- created lvm2 vg "suse" on /dev/md100
- created root lv /dev/suse/root to hold the new installation

(Note: /boot is another partition, not using lvm.)

Everything went fine, it installed well, but after reboot the root FS could not be found or mounted so my machine stopped. I had a look at the initrd image that comes with suse, and to my surprise there was no lvm binary on the initrd to scan for the devices. I copied the lvm binary to the initrd image and added vgscan and vgchange in the linuxrc script to activate the volumes prior to mounting the root fs and now this works fine.

I have a few possible explanations:

- you need to have LVM partitions "8e" to detect lvm without vgscan or vgchange (never tried this since I use /dev/md* devices which are "fd" to put lvm on)
- the stock initrd that comes with suse does not provide this functionality and is not intended to do so


I would just like to know so I don't have to edit these files manually everytime I upgrade the kernel should I go to suse :)


Rgds
Sam