installing ubuntu on a new system - questions

[Liam Proven]

On 19/07/2025 18:00, Tony Arnold wrote:
> As is Liam's way, he's being quite blunt!

Yup.

LVM is in there with systemd and flatpak and Wayland for me: ugly 
overcomplicated bloat invented by people with no real understanding of 
Unix and its inherent simplicity.
> 
> Like any complex software you need to go through the learning curve for
> it. Once you understand the basics, it's not too bad, IMHO

When this stuff was being invented, I tried EVMS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Volume_Management_System

It was, in my professional opinion, *much* better.

>> not integrated with the rest of the
>> kernel or filesystems.
> 
> Not sure what you mean by this. It's a volume manager. It doesn’t know
> anything about file systems in the same way partitions don't know about
> file systems. When you create a logical volume you have to put a file
> systems on it.

That's the old way of thinking of it, and it's not true.

Back around 2020 I build a home NAS and I experimented with ZFS. I wrote 
it up on my blog:

https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71093.html

I was utterly blown away by how fast and simple ZFS is by comparison 
with kernel RAID + a filesystem, or Btrfs, or LVM.

*Anyone* making decisions in this area *needs* to try this stuff to see 
the difference.


>> Ugly kludge.
> 
> That's a matter of opinion!

I am a professional judger and writer of opinions. It's my job. I have 
been advising companies on IT strategies for over 30 years now, and as 
such, I evaluate lots of tech and judge it on its relative merits.

In today's prevailing mores and manners it is often considered rude to 
compare and to find things wanting. This is a mistake. It is the duty of 
tech experts to say "this is good and this is bad".

There are of course valid tech reasons why ZFS is not a great choice for 
some roles but that is why both Overstreet and Red Hat are trying to 
build GPL ZFS replacements.

LVM is weak, poor, overcomplex, and overcomplex tools are the easiest to 
make mistakes with and screw things up.

The context is also a vital part of the consideration and comparison.

Remember: RH and SUSE make money from supporting complexity. Making 
stuff look hard so companies pay for training and support is what makes 
them a living.

They are biased by makeup to complex tools that need professional guidance.

Canonical doesn't and isn't.
Sun wasn't: it sold hardware and gave the software away.

Sun invented ZFS.This is highly relevant.

-- 
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