thanks for all the welcomes everyone! i know of gpt from slackware.... i haven't set that up, id have to virtualize tests, and setup procedures, and document them for funtoo. so my answer is yes it will fly, just expect a few crashes/snags in the process. i know lvm works ok, im not the greatest at hard drive tech stuff at the moment, i just know enough to get by.... i worked a little bit on drbd. i don't suggest xfs as the main install does, i run jfs, though im sure this isn't the correct file system for dealing with tons of small git config files.
id just setup as the default install, then migrate your way towards what ever particular ends you seek. i kind of just wander around linux documenting things, sometimes i do things by request, other times i do it because someone says something about something like gpt. its nice having a very tightly wound community. i would write tutorials for ubuntu but i found the scene to be problematic and difficult to sift through, then topping it all off the binary distros generally had to be reinstalled.
i reinstall the rolling funtoo though i never would have to. i do it to blank slate the machine to find new problems building things zero to working/documenting, and have a separate $HOME partition. i think of the $HOME partition as my windows machines d: storage drive, then just wipe / and treat that as c: so i can save some settings and configs in $HOME's hidden files.
fstab: in terminal run "man fstab" ask and ye shall receive. ;-) (i hate how hard it is to read man pages)
actually.... drobbins already wrote a gpt install guide... google "funtoo GUID_Booting_Guide"
Also, we try to generally help others here, in regards to learning about Linux..... 
