2010
05.06

In the Mint (8) installer (but also the Ubuntu Desktop one) there is no support for LVM volumes. So if you want to install it on one, you have to do it by hand. I will show you how:

Boot from the CD, install LVM and make all existing volumes active:

apt-get install lvm2
vgchange -a y
lvdisplay

Should display your volumes

Run the installer. After all packages are installed and the bootloader is configured your system will reboot. Unfortunately it won’t boot! This is because there’s no LVM support build in the initramfs

To install this support we have to boot from the CD again. What we then do is mount the just installed system (in my case a / partition and and /boot partition).

apt-get install lvm2
vgchange -a y

mkdir -p /mnt/lvmroot
mount /dev/lvm/root /mnt/lvmroot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/lvmroot/boot
mount --bind /dev /mnt/lvmroot/dev
mount -t proc proc /mnt/lvmroot/proc
mount -t sysfs sysfs /mnt/lvmroot/sys
mount -t devpts devpts /mnt/lvmroot/dev/pts

After mounting all needed “partitions” we can chroot into it:

chroot /mnt/lvmroot

We are now in the OS that’s on the hard disk. That’s where we want to add LVM support. The initramfs will be updated automatically.

apt-get install lvm2

We can now reboot. The system should be able to boot Mint now. Have fun!

References:

3 comments so far

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  1. an0nemous

    or better yet do this: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=40961

  2. pravin

    Thanks lol…
    Below mentioned link is very easy to understand,
    http://www.redhatlinux.info/2010/11/lvm-logical-volume-manager.html

  3. paul

    Great info. Did this with linux mint 12 and had two problems. I have lots of VMs in my volume group each with a swap. Make sure you disable all the extra swaps or the installer just freezes.

    Secondly mint now installs the boot stuff actually in root rather than a separate partition. So be carefull which boot gets updates with the new initramfs