Setting up host lindon

Lindon is the westernmost kingdom of Middle Earth in the Second, Third and Fourth Ages including the Grey Havens port from which the Ring Bearers, Bilbo and Frodo, along with Gandalf, Galadriel and Celeborn, and Elrond Half-elven, set sail in Third Age 3021. Lindon means roughly land of song. It was founded at the beginning of the Second Age by Gil Galad after the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age and grew concurrently with the raising of Númenor and the kingdom of Men. It survived the Akallabêth.

Instead of a completely new build, we'll outfit a Dell Vostro 3030. It's centered around a 14th generation Intel core i5-14400, 32Gb RAM, 1Tb PCIe SSD, DisplayPort, HDMI. This CPU supposedly beats an i7-13620H. The clock speed is 2.5GHz and it can't be overclocked because the processor is locked.

Upgrading a Dell Vostro 3030...

Troubleshooting the Dell Vostro 3030 when it doesn't turn on

When I connected all the cables, then pressed the power button, nothing happened. Messing around, I later observed that a green LED inside the power supply would light up as soon as I plugged in the power cord. A couple of seconds later, it would turn off. Help everywhere suggested a hard reset.

If the computer boots (lights here and there including the power button remain alit), then shut it off and reconnect needed peripherals one by one until (the bad) one fails.

Likely, however, all will work and you can continue on with installing the computer.

My experience continues...

Recently I had bought a new, Gotega External DVD Drive USB 3.0 Types C and A for $12. I'm using that to install Ubuntu Server.

I put that into my CD/DVD drive and connected it using the USB-C connector to the Dell Vostro 3030. The boot sequence discovered and listed the device. I clicked on it and it spun up and booted therefrom. As this is Ubuntu Server, no experimental desktop came up. It launched directly into installation.

Server name and particulars...

I'm in! However, I don't like the disk space report. 🙁 It's a 2Tb (1.8Tb) drive. What's up with this?

I Googled, "new Ubuntu Server 24.04.2 installation on 2Tb NVMe ssd says only 98Gb total"

Here's the solution...

If a new Ubuntu Server 24.04.2 installation on a 2Tb NVMe SSD reports only 98Gb of total space, the most likely reason is that the installer created a Logical Volume Management (LVM) partition group but only allocated a small logical volume (LV) for the operating system. The remaining 1.9Tb is likely unallocated space within the LVM Volume Group (VG) and simply needs to be extended.

Check the partition layout:

root@lindon:/# lsblk
NAME                      MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0                       7:0    0  50.8M  1 loop /snap/snapd/25202
loop1                       7:1    0  73.9M  1 loop /snap/core22/2133
loop2                       7:2    0 140.6M  1 loop /snap/docker/3265
sr0                        11:0    1  1024M  0 rom
nvme0n1                   259:0    0   1.8T  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1               259:1    0     1G  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2               259:2    0     2G  0 part /boot
└─nvme0n1p3               259:3    0   1.8T  0 part
  └─ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 252:0    0   100G  0 lvm  /

Display the LVM groups:

root@lindon:/# vgdisplay
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               ubuntu-vg
  System ID
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        1
  Metadata Sequence No  2
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                1
  Open LV               1
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                1
  Act PV                1
  VG Size               <1.82 TiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              476150
  Alloc PE / Size       25600 / 100.00 GiB
  Free  PE / Size       450550 / <1.72 TiB
  VG UUID               IdydWf-5OhE-j31M-Zofp-2CYC-vbQW-5mP1l3

Solution: Extend the LVM logical volume:

root@lindon:/# lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv
  Size of logical volume ubuntu-vg/ubuntu-lv changed from 100.00 GiB (25600 extents) to <1.82 TiB (476150 extents).
  Logical volume ubuntu-vg/ubuntu-lv successfully resized.

Resize the filesystem:
This command expands the filesystem to fill the newly available partition space.

root@lindon:/# resize2fs /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv
resize2fs 1.47.0 (5-Feb-2023)
Filesystem at /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 13, new_desc_blocks = 233
The filesystem on /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv is now 487577600 (4k) blocks long.

Now verify the new size:

root@lindon:/# df -h /
Filesystem                         Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv  1.8T   11G  1.8T   1% /

😀

Installing 2 WD Red 8Tb drives

For a Dell Vostro 3030 Tower, there are two available SATA 3.0 ports, which are typically labeled SATA 0 and SATA 1, for two 3.5" hard drives.

The SATA 2.0 port, which may be labeled SATA 3, is only for an optical drive and there is a hardware-mounting slot and front panel knock-out at the top front of the cabinet. The key differences between SATA ports: