[arch-general] Installation: How to get HDD > LUKS > GPT working in a clean way

[Merlin Büge]

Hi,

> > Hm. I can see your points. But I don't need the flexibility LVM provides,
> > I have enough flexibility through Btrfs.
> > And yeah, it's readily automated, and that's indeed practical for many
> > people. Personally, I'd rather modify the start-up process a tiny bit
> > so that GPT inside LUKS gets parsed. I just try to strip off unnecessary
> > 'overhead' / layers of my system.
> Okay, then.
> 
> Here's my opinion on this approach.
> 
> If you have 8 GiB or more and not hibernating, don't bother with swap, 
> it'd be a waste of disk space. In that case you could just put a btrfs 
> volume straight on the LUKS container without the GPT. Problem solved as 
> you don't need any more volume management than opening LUKS containers.
> 
> Otherwise WITH swap: Unfortunately btrfs (still) doesn't support swap 
> files properly, otherwise I'd suggest using them. You can write a custom 
> hook. Unless you plan to share it, I'd make it a dead simple shell 
> script that simply reruns the command to scan for added GPT partitions 
> for your specific setup. Make sure you have a setup hook that gets the 
> dependencies in there.
> 
> Personally, I still think you should just use LVM, for the simple reason 
> you're having trouble with GPT, which is not meant for being used like 
> this, since it can work as a more flexible "partition table" inside the 
> LUKS container and is better supported all around. btrfs really doesn't 
> act as a good replacement for logical volumes, in my experience. Having 
> something with more features than you need is better than trying to 
> coerce something into working ways it's not really intended.

Thanks for your input!

I've reconsidered LVM twice now but still feel better without it.


Cheers,

Merlin


-- 
Merlin Büge <toni at bluenox07.de>