How do I install linux on a raid0?

[Michael Vasiliev]

On 08/18/2011 04:23 PM, Micha Feigin wrote:
> I just got a new w520 with two 500GB hard drives configured in raid0
> (seems to be a bios based software raid0). Windows is already
> installed and running on it (and I need it to stay there
> unfortunately) and I'm trying to install linux along side it (debian
> unstable).
I have a W700, which also has a similar controller. I'm happily running
Gentoo Linux and Windows 7 "backup OS" there, on a striped raid setup.
This is, indeed, fakeraid, so you have to have an initrd/initramfs and
pass a few parameters to the kernel (which also has to have the support
for this particular controller and the dmraid magic either as modules or
built-in). Essentially, there is not much hardware support here, other
than the metadata in the last sectors of both harddrives, everything is
done at the main CPU. So you can use software RAID0/RAID1 with md
instead of using the controller with dmraid and it might even be more
robust. But I don't, for hysterical reasons (Windows). I use a separate
"/boot" partition, but it's not required, I just play with a lot of
kernels. The disklabel is the default msdos one, hasn't moved this one
to GPT yet. Here is the unedited entry from my grub configuration file
(Just in case, this is NOT grub2).

title Gentoo Linux (3.0.0-git19)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86_64-3.0.0-git19 root=/dev/ram0
real_root=/dev/mapper/isw_deficgecde_OEMRAID05 dodmraid ht=on
resume=/dev/mapper/isw_deficgecde_OEMRAID02 nouveau.perflvl_wr=7777
nouveau.perflvl=0
initrd /initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-3.0.0-git19

The important parts are, of course, the "dodmraid", "root" and
"real_root" paramethers. Try to get the partition numbering right
otherwise funny things will occur.

I rely on the Gentoo genkernel tool to make my initramfs, but it's
really not a huge task to do it manually. If you need further help, mail
me off-list.

--
MichaelV