Re: Extended Linux partition

Werner Almesberger (almesber@lrc.epfl.ch)
Wed, 4 Oct 1995 20:11:00 +0100 (MET)

Albert Cahalan <albert@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
[ Quoting somebody else ]
>> maybe it should be possible to add (or remove) partitions dynamically
>> at run time?
[...]
> This is a very good idea, /dev/vbd?, the virtual block device.
> Any contiguous group of sectors can become a block device.

Or go a little step further and implement logical volumes. This can also
be easily extended to support some RAID concepts. There's some food for
thought in lrcftp.epfl.ch:/pub/people/almesber/lv/lv.{tex,ps}.gz

I've also been writing on a revision of that document, mainly adding a
few words about recovery. If there's interest, I could pick this up
again and complete it.

> This lets an unfragmented file (say, the Windows swap file)
> become a swap _partition_ with full speed advantages or an [...]

Turning contiguous areas of a file into slices would certainly be an
interesting option. The file wouldn't even have to be totally
unfragmented.

- Werner

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