[sclug] RAID-1 on asymmetric disks?

[Will Dickson]

Hi Sebastian,

> G'day Will,
> I think recent Ubuntu has an "Make Live USB (installer)" tool that
> would workaround u needing a CD drive in your new/spare PC.

I saw that! Didn't have a spare thumb drive available to investigate 
further, and then it slipped my mind.

> 
> I too am interested in portable (USB bootable) Linux and i've done
> some mostly successful experiments with two fast 16gb Corsair Voyager
> GT sticks: LVM on encrypted RAID1.

Interesting! Sounds like you've got further than I have. My main problem 
ATM is not so much a lack of CD drive on the target machine (it's got 
one), but that I want to try CentOS on there, and although I've got a 
disk 1 I couldn't get working copies of disks 3 & 6. Not sure whether 
that was due to temporary burner overheating after burning several disks 
on the trot, dodgy blanks or simple bad luck. However, I've since 
learned that as long as you've got a bootable CD (yep), CentOS can load 
the remaining ISOs from a remote HTTP server, so that's probably my next 
move.

The last time I tried this sort of thing was an attempt to install to an 
external USB HDD (as opposed to a flash drive). I couldn't make it work, 
but I'm not sure if that was down to firmware, an older version of 
Ubuntu being less capable in this area or just incompetence, and I 
didn't have time to get to the bottom of it.

> 
> Will: Are you be able to attend this Wed SCLUG meeting to discuss
> further and/or wld i find u on IRC sometime when your next wanting to
> work on your ideas/project?

Sadly probably not. I don't use IRC much but we could certainly take 
this to private email if you like (although I think the group would be 
interested in your experiments as well.)

> 
> Anyone else interested in Portable/Pocket Linux?
> 
> Cheers,
>  --Sebastian.
> 
> 
> On 3/9/09, Will Dickson <wrd at glaurung.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Alex Butcher wrote:
>>
>>> md is the way to go, and you might want to put LVM on top in order to
>>> dynamically reassign space between logical volumes (= partitions,
>>> kinda-sorta).
>> Thanks Alex (and others who replied). I need to RTFM some more, and
>> determine the easiest route around my CD burner, which appears to have
>> discovered a new life as a coaster-making machine. However, it does look
>> as though I have a plan.
>>
>> Will
>>
>>
>