How can I install manjaro with lvm?

Support
1

Hello,

I messed up my system. I have decided to make a clean install. I would like to use lvm since I often have problems with my partition sizes.

I tried manjaro architect. I invoked setup but it tried to update itself and failed.

I have boot to latest livecd from manjaro and created manually lvm partitions (physcial, volume group and logical volumes).

Now how can I persuade manjaro installer make installations to those logical volumes. I have kept /boot and /boot/efi out of lvm and kept them as fat32.

The manjaro installer is stuck at partitions and next button does not become available. It does not let me create volume group in the interface as well. new volume group button is active but when I click it, list of physical volumes list box is empty and even if I fill the form the okay button of the dialog does not become active.

2

/boot/efi should indeed be a vfat (FAT32) filesystem, but /boot should be a POSIX-compatible filesystem ─ preferably ext4 if you’re using GRUB as the boot loader.

That’s because lvm2 is not supported by the installer. It would therefore probably be easier for you ─ and I personally recommend this ─ to use btrfs as the filesystem.

  • It is copy-on-write.
  • It supports subvolumes, and the free space is shared between all subvolumes.
  • It supports transparent inline compression and decompression.
  • It supports snapshots.
  • It supports RAID-0 and RAID-1 ─ RAID-5 and RAID-6 are still unstable and dangerous.
  • It is very fast and has performance optimizations for SSDs.
  • On HDDs, it supports automatic inline defragmentation.
3

Manjaro Architect will do the job. But, I create all partitions, physical volumes, volume groups, and logical volumes with gparted and terminal commands before starting the installation. Below, both Manjaro MATE and Manjaro Gnome are on LVM logical volumes.

[dmn@Sydney ~]$ lsblk -o name,label
NAME                       LABEL
nvme0n1                    
├─nvme0n1p1                
├─nvme0n1p2                
│ ├─sn500_vg-manjaro_mate  Manjaro-Mate
│ ├─sn500_vg-vm_disks      VM-Disks2
│ ├─sn500_vg-ubuntu_1804   Ubuntu-1804
│ └─sn500_vg-manjaro_gnome Manjaro-Gnome
└─nvme0n1p3
4

Thanks for the reply. About two years ago, I used it, one day without any reason, I could not boot the system. lucky I recoverd the data with btrfs recovery utitily but I would like to stick to ext4.

5

Manjaro architect does not work in my system. I have dowloaded latest version. It tries to update itself but fails. How can I trick the normal manjaro installer to install lvm partitions?

6

@bearcat, @aragorn, thank you all for responding. Even though manjaro architecth gave me problems initially, after many trials and errors, I have installed manjaro with lvm. Manjaro architect is very fragile and peculiar ways of doing things. Its setup program tries to update the system and fails, and I had to manually correct package dependency errors to pursuade the setup program to run.

I have to repeat installation several times. Even after, the computer did not boot. I had to install grub manually via manjaro-chroot. Anyhow thank you for all support.

After spending so much time with installation, I asked myself why not use Arch. I use manjaro for ease and more stability.

Anyhow, thank you for the responses.

7