I decided I needed some more room on my home Linux box, so I bought a couple of 2TB disks. I also decided it was time to do a wipe and re-install because the box has been upgraded many times and there are several things that just don’t work right any more. So I burned a bunch of different distros onto CDs and experimented with them, and decided that Kubuntu is the best combination of beauty and power. None of the other distros except Debian allows you to set up lvm on RAID-1 while installing, and Debian looks like a bit of a dogs breakfast compared to Kubuntu, even in KDE.
The two new disks are so big that as it is, I’m only using them for the new installation, so the I can mount the old system under /old_system and I can compare everything to make sure I haven’t lost any important configuration. But eventually I’ll be able to delete those partitions and add them back to the free pool in the LV and use them to expand any of the actual in-use partitions. I love lvm.
Installation has gone ok, I’ve got about 3/4s of the things I need to get working again working again, but I’ve hit the usual string of snags. The biggest is that one of the two new disks keeps dropping out of the RAID1, so I have to keep adding it back in. I’ve rejiggered all the cables as best as I can, and hopefully it will rebuild overnight and it will be ok. Fingers crossed, I’m off to bed.