[Discuss] Multiple HDD setup in Linux

[Brian Burger]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone. I'm going to do a pile of
reading tonight, and tackle the actual installation tomorrow or
Thursday.

It looks like it's possible to mix-and-match - some non-LVM regular
partitions and LVM partitions on the same HDDs. Assuming that's true,
here's the plan:

1. Unplug the 120GB completely.
2. Plug the 500GB in, do a clean install with the Ubuntu 8.04
Alternate install CD to set it up as follows:
- /boot - 500MB, likely less
- / - 30GB, not LVM'd
- /swap - 2GB; there's 2GB of real RAM in this box, so 2 of swap is enough
- /home - LVM'd across the remaining 475+GB of the new drive

3. After the new system & drive is up and running, mount the 120GB's
old /home and transfer my files across with dd.
4. Reformat the entire 120GB; then use LVM to add that whole volume to
the existing new /home.

This keeps my old install & personal data intact on the old drive for
as long as possible, gives me minimum likelyhood of a partitioner
glitch eating everything, and (thanks to LVM) lets me use the old
drive as seamlessly as possible.

Sanity check, anyone? This makes sense in my own head and from my
reading of the docs, won't be that difficult... I hope.

It'll also give me a totally new install of Ubuntu 8.04 - I've been
upgrading for several years now, since 5.10, so a LOT of my defaults
aren't the newest & shiniest Ubuntu goodness...

Brian