

When Windows was better than Linux - AndrewDucker
http://theweaselking.livejournal.com/3829401.html

======
tzs
That should be "When Windows _was_ better than Linux". The author is saying
that 3.5 years ago it was harder to set up RAID on Linux than on Windows. In a
comment he clarifies that he is comparing 3.5 year old Linux to 3.5 year old
Windows.

That makes it hard to see what the point of the post was. There would have
been a point in such a post 3.5 years ago. Today, it seems to be a waste of
time.

~~~
jules
What are the steps required today on Linux?

~~~
viraptor
mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/first /dev/second

Strangely, I think it was exactly the same 3 years ago. At least I don't
remember doing anything complicated then. Although I did go via /etc/raidtab
and mkraid.

(I'm skipping over all the required apt-get / yum installs and creating the
partitions with fdisk - this are of course standard simple dependencies)

Edit: just noticed that there was a link to the previous post... where the guy
did exactly this. The rest of the post is formatting the partitions,
installing needed software, configuring grub, etc. I see his point, but I'm
not sure I agree with it. Part of the original title "... To Run RAID-1 When
You Didn't Plan For That Originally" sums it up. If you know how to handle
partitions and how to configure your system in general, raid is just a one
line difference. If someone gave me a windows box, I'd probably spend just as
much time clicking around trying to figure out how to manage disks :)

~~~
skorgu
He has the running / on /dev/first, he's migrating that to a degraded array of
just /dev/second then bringing /dev/first in to complete the array.

------
bradleyland
If you're accustomed to "right-clicking" to accomplish tasks, I'd imagine that
much of Linux system administration is opaque to you. That, however, does not
make it "better".

I don't mean that to sound snarky. I just think it's important to recognize
that though the mouse may be one man's treasure, but it is another man's ball
and chain.

~~~
AndrewDucker
If you look at the link to the original post about doing it on Linux, you can
see the steps that were necessary to go through. If the Linux method had been
as simple, but required the command line, it wouldn't have been noteworthy...

------
rbranson
How common is this, really, though? It's pretty rare that someone actually
converts an existing single disk setup into a RAID. It's far more common to
add/remove/replace devices in an existing array. These tasks have always been
fairly trivial with the mdadm tool. The most sane way to accomplish this under
Linux is to create a broken mirror with the new device (device B), synchronize
device A's contents to the array with dd, and then add device A to the array.

~~~
skorgu
The argument could be made that it's rare precisely because it's distinctly
not trivial to do.

He does what you describe except using cp instead of dd.

------
nwmcsween
There is still the need for digging in man pages and searching for the right
switches in Linux/whatever this is just an echo to how you can't simply throw
more switches at a problem without a hierarchy of some sort. An ideal
structure would be function based and inter-operable between differing
programs via standardized boxes (as in boxed values in programming to json,
whatever), a stream of text is not structured data contrary to popular belief.
This would require a new operating system which is beyond this already
lengthly comment.

------
TamDenholm
Personally i think its all about familiarity. Things are easier in the OS
you're familiar with.

For me i only use windows for games, everything else is a chore, because i
love linux and to me linux is much easier to deal with. Equally however, a
friend of mine is a die hard windows guy, even uses IE as his browser and hes
a pretty competent computer guy, and while to me thats utter preposterousness
to me, it works for him.

------
DjDarkman
> It took several hours of research, several hours of work, four reboots, a
> near heart attack, and inspired heavy drinking.

Just because he didn't know how to do it, doesn't mean that Linux is worse
than Window. Just because you speak English doesn't make <insert other
language here> worse.

------
JeanPierre
The Linux-way, for comparison:

<http://linuxconfig.org/Linux_Software_Raid_1_Setup>

Disclaimer: I've not read through it all and not set up Raid-1 on Linux, but
it seems to be a way of setting up Raid-1.

------
Mithrandir
A comment on the page:

"...I'm annoyed at Windows software raid because they restrict it to the more
expensive versions, so I can't use it on my gaming PC."

