Lack of LVM support cripples otherwise nice HD tool set

IT SOUNDED like a simple task: shrink my Linux installation on HD without reformatting so I could leave room to install Windows alongside. Surprisingly, one-top notch commercial HD tool lacks LVM support.

When I installed Linux on the new AMD Opteron desktop at INQ LA review labs, the choice was clear: I used blag which is the distro I have been using so far for over a year. It is based on RedHat's Fedora Core project, specifically Fedora Core 6. One small change in the latest version which I didn't notice it that it now - apparently like FC6 - creates LVM (Logical Volume Manager) volumes by default.

The guys at Paragon Software offered us the opportunity to test the firm's "Paragon HD Manager 8.0" software. This seemed like the ideal opportunity, so I booted a copy of Paragon HD MGR 8 and decided to relax and enjoy a session of "point and click" re-partitioning like the ones I enjoyed back in the OS/2-vs.-Windows dual-booting days, at the time using PowerQuest's Partition Manager, or PQMagic as it was known among geeks.

One large LVM volume as seen by Linux system-config-lvm

After Symantec bought Powerquest and what was once a great product was sidestepped and ruined, it left plenty of room for competitors to rise to the challenge and do things better than "big slow Symantec". Today, I see companies like Paragon Software and Acronis as the new leaders in the field of disk partitioning utilities. Yet, in a strange case of half-support, I was going to discover one critical flaw that makes Paragon HD Manager of little use for modern Linux systems: yes, it supports ext3 and other linux file systems, but not the Logical Volume Manager.

Booting Paragon HD Manager 8.0 from CD

What I see from my Linux system as one giant "LVM Volume" using all the hard drive size, is seen by the Paragon boot CD as one small partition at the start of the drive then "other" where the LVM volume should be. I asked the nice folks at Paragon Software and the firm's reply was what I didn't expect: "Sorry to say, but LVM volumes are not supported by Hard Disk Manager. So seemingly it can't do the task you need."

LVM Volume seen as unknown partition type "Other"

I have to ask aloud: Is the company aware that they're cutting themselves out of lots of customers?. If Fedora (and RedHat Enterprise Server too, I guess) has made the switch to LVM, what else are they waiting for to add such support?.

Okay, so you boot Linux and use system-config-lvm to resize it, right?

Thanks to the power of Google I found another user with the same predicament: "If the volume to be reduced is the root partition that you currently have booted, then you won't be able to unmount, and a somewhat more involved procedure is needed. If you already have another bootable hard disk, then perhaps the easiest thing to do is boot that disk with the disk to be modified as a secondary disk, and then just modify the volume using the above mentioned steps". Gee, dealing with LVM on the command line is what I wanted to avoid in the first place when I booted Paragon HD Manager.

BZZT no, because the volume is in use

Yes, I hear the small chorus of nitpicking readers already tapping at their collective keyboards, I do know now that it's possible leaving the partition unmounted -as when booting from a CD- and then running Linux' own LVM, what I'm saying is that having LVM support in friendly GUI tools like Paragon's will make a single boot CD everything the end user needs, and with full NTFS, FAT32 support, etc. all the good things Paragon HD Manager is known for.

For the record, Linux QTPartED also sees LVM volumes as "unknown"
How about some integration and collaboration between QTPartED
and system-config-lvm teams?

In the meantime and until these firms learn how to add LVM support to their otherwise user-friendly partitioning tools, I will have to do what I wanted to avoid at all costs: boot a Linux GUI recovery CD and do all the work with "system-config-LVM" -if available- or deal with the evil LVM from the command line. It's too bad that Paragon doesn't support LVM in its products from HD imaging to partitioning and backup. µ

L'INQs
Reducing a Logical Volume (LVM)