OOTB standard mdadm support?

Feedback Feature Request
1

Manjaro’s installer provides no/little RAID support and has for many years now. It’s straightforward to just setup manually from the Live/Installer system and then have Calamares install to those manually setup md devices, but somewhat less straightforward as to needing to post-install regenerate the initramfs before rebooting into the installed system.

Specifically you need to create the installed system’s /etc/mdadm.conf with e.g.

mdadm --detail --scan >>/mnt/etc/mdadm.conf

and add mdadm_udev to the installed system’s /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:HOOKS=(…), then regenerate its initramfs (mkinitcpio -P) while (arch-)chrooting into the installed system.

A distribution such as Linux Mint doesn’t currently do RAID directly from its installer either but does do that latter bit OOTB. If I remember correctly maybe minus the /etc/mdadm.conf bit but although it didn’t use to pre-install mdadm back in 21, it does specifically do so in 22. Maybe as per itself or as per its Ubuntu 24.04 base; not sure.

That mdadm pre-install (and initramfs availability) OOTB is quite convenient without the installer as such having support. Can it be a thing that Manjaro adds this level of support as well?

2

Manjaro seems to prefer a different approach.

BTRFS is now used as the default file system.

BTRFS offers good RAID functionality and is very easy to use. You can convert the standard installation to a RAID installation with just a few BTRFS commands (forth and back).

I’m aware that md / MDADM is a well-functioning and established system. And it rightfully has its fans. However, it’s more difficult to administer and maintain than the RAID functionality in BTRFS.
:footprints:
You find good Information about Btrfs in the wiki, and in About software Raid with btrfs

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3

Adding support for LVM or RAID is not as simple as it is laid out.

There is not enough hands to maintain such options in the long run.

So it is very unlikely this will happen.

Judging from the iso-profiles repo the inclusion of mdadm goes back a very long time - from the looks of it April 2019.

4

Adding “support” up to the mentioned level alone, i.e., the same level as e.g. Ubuntu/Mint, in fact completely is.

But I’ll not otherwise belabor the point. Do with it as you please.

5

If you think so - please clone the repo at Applications / calamares · GitLab and add the simple configuration.

When you have the feature working - please link me to your feature branch then - you have my promise - I will look at it - no other promises than just that.

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