Resizing Partitions

[Bucky2216]

I have what probably is an elementary question for some. Although I have a Windoze background, I am relatively new to Linux.

After installing PCLinuxOS 2010 and dual booting it with my Windows machine, I installed PCLinux 2010 with KDE desktop on a spare computer as the ONLY OS. This spare computer and has a 500 Gig Hard drive. Just for safety (and Newbie) sake I took all the defaults including letting the Live CD configure my partitions.  When all was said and done I looked at the partitions that were created.  Root was 12 gigs, Swap was 4 gigs and home was 400 Plus gigs.

It seems to me that with that big a drive, more space could have been allocated to the root partition and even slightly more to the swap partition. My research has lead me to Gpart (a program I have never used). Will this Gpart program allow me to resize these partitions? Other than what the Live CD installed, I really have no data that I would be concerned about. OR is there a better way of going about it?

[menotu]

Hi Bucky2216 - yup it will be possible for you to resize your partitions using GParted, but my preference would be to create some new partitions and then re-install PCLinuxOS again.

I would probably remove all the  existing partitions and then create new ones - something long the lines of (on a 500GB disk)

/root = 50GB
/swap = 4GB
/home = 50GB

and then with the remaining create one data partition of 380GB (or whatever is remaining)

Or create 2 data partitions from the 380GB area.

I always prefer setting up my drive/partitions prior to installing PCLinuxOS - I find it much tidier and it hasn't failed me yet.........

When resizing it nearly always goes as it should but on occasion it can mess something up and trying to rectify it can be a pain.

BUT I would wait for some other posts for other suggestions and then choose what is right for you.

You say you haven't got any data on the drive - have you got any themes or any stuff like that you may want to back up before going ahead?

[Bucky2216]

I like your idea. Being the klutz I am............I think I tried something similar at one time and got GRUB 15 error.

Could I be so bold as to ask how to go about deleting the current partitions and starting from scratch without the chance of screwing something else that will bring me back here with still another question?

[menotu]

Could I be so bold as to ask how to go about deleting the current partitions and starting from scratch without the chance of screwing something else that will bring me back here with still another question?

Be as bold as you want my friend  

I would download the latest GParted iso and burn it to CD and then boot from that.

When GParted is up and running it will give you the option of removing/deleting your current partitions. You should start at the "lowest/bottom" partition and delete that and then select the next one up and delete that and so on (If memory serves it doesn't allow you to delete them all in one hit)

You have to press the Apply button for the action(s) to be carried out.

When they are all deleted you can then start adding them one at a time giving the size you want to use and the FileSystem type (Ext4 etc)

The first partition I normally create is the /root one.
Then the swap partition
then the /home partition
lastly the data partition(s)

Again. when you have them as you want you then need to press the apply button

You can also "label" (name) the partitions with your own names BUT if you do that can I suggest that you leave no spaces in the name and use the same type of letter "case"

On one of my Seagate drives I have names such as

SEAROOT
SEAHOME
SEADATAA
SEADATAB

This quickly identifies the drive to myself as the Seagate one.

Now, when that is all done close down GParted and reboot with the PCLinuxOS LiveCD and simply point the installation at your newly created partitions.

VOILA!

Note: If you do create 2 (or more) data partitions you may want to consider formatting one as NTFS which Windows would be able to use as well as Linux.

A big suggestion would be browse the GParted web site and familiarize yourself with the programme .

[Xenaflux]

Hi Bucky2216

I am going to trow in my 2 cents here

It seems to me that with that big a drive, more space could have been allocated to the root partition and even slightly more to the swap partition.

Last year , just for fun, I created :
a 50Gb root partition  (((presently 9.5Gb )))
a 5Gb swap                (((presently 4Gb )))
a 10Gb /home             (((presently 5Gb )))
I loaded ALL kde programs available in the repos , and some gnome programs and libraries too.
This included almost every game as well with their libraries
The size of the root went up to around 17Gb

So, In my humble opinion, having a root of more than 20Gb (( for normal use )) is going to be a waste of disk space (( note that I can afford to waste space, as I have a 1Terra HD, but I don't see the point of it ))

'Swap:
I have 3 Mb of memory sticks.
Swap partition is presently 4Gb
I almost never use swap  ( normal use )

/home
I usually have no more than 5Gb of home , as that is enough for daily use
I have ALL my data in separate partitions ( data 1-data2-data3-data4 )

Of course, if you have a different setup, where /home is included in / and you have the habit of storing your data in /home, then it is a different scheme, but I don't see the wisdom of it.

However, you will have to learn for yourself what is best for you, and in my opinion, the only way to do that is try out different schemes and see if you are comfortable with it.
I also advice to do a search on this forum, as I clearly remember some extremely interesting conversations about this

@menotu

You should start at the "lowest/bottom" partition and delete that and then select the next one up and delete that and so on

I would like to disagree with you here
You should start at the right side of the HD picture
My reasoning is as follows
When you delete partitions , the drive letter changes or can mess up something.
In this particular case, it doesn't matter where you start, as you are removing all.
However, if you later in live just want to change something (( for whatever reason you have on that time )) and you have a bad habit, you are going to create problems for yourself
I have learned this the very hard way.......

So, my disagreement with you is only about the good/bad habit. no more!

also

The first partition I normally create is the /root one.

My habit is to create the swap first
Reasoning: create a swap of 4/5Gb at the beginning of the HD, and forget about it.
Any install you do later will find that swap. Nothing to think about!

Question ( and I ask because I really don't know )

If you do create 2 (or more) data partitions you may want to consider formatting one as NTFS which Windows would be able to use as well as Linux.

Is windows really going to see this partition, as there are other non-windows partitions between Winxp  and NTFS partition
I always thought that windows was not capable of seeing anything that was not attached straight to it ?


Note: Gparted is not a dangerous or complicated program
Things to remember are:
Better to do one task at the time, than batch style (like: mark all tasks and execute once only )
Start from the right side and move your way up to the left side

OK, I am of to my second cup of coffee for this morning

See ya

Xena

[T6]

whatever you do, do some backups first, if something fails you won't loose anything

most people creates 3 partitions, one root or /, one /home and one swap

the swap partition is virtual ram on disk, the same thing as pagefile.sys on windows, and it also should be 1.5 times bigger than your available ram, if you have 1 gb of ram, 2 gbs of swap sounds perfect

swap under normal circumstances is a total waste of space but since you have 500gbs you can do it, there is a post explaining more deeply the swap usage on this forum because you need swap for certain tasks, not like on windows that is used constantly for no reason making system slow

the / partition will store binaries and many other files that makes your system work

the /home partition, it is the same as your documents and settings/thenameofyouruser in windows and stores your personal files and personal config options for many apps

the thing is that /home is useful if you reinstall the os but in pclinux this doesn't happen commonly, you can have a installation for 2 years or more without needing to reinstall so have a /home partition to divide / from your personal files in case of a required re-installation is not that useful

in your case /home is big because you are giving the whole hard disk to linux but most users usually have a fat32 or a ntfs partition using 200 or 300gbs for compatibility and backup purposes mostly

i personally never created a /home partition so i leave all space for /

system will create a home folder in / and will put your personal files there and this is not a problem

this situation will let you avoid the run out of space situation if / needs more room, this is a common problem in the forum and by doing what i mentioned, you won't suffer this annoyance

if you install many games like openarena, wolfenstein et, urban terror and others you will fill your / partition very quickly, i haven't played alot wolfenstein and this game folder is 3 gbs now, system uses around 3gbs with the basic apps, this can give you a picture why i don't use the /home partition

of course that under normal circumstances 10 to 20 gbs are more than enough and that is why system decided to use only 12 gbs but if you leave more room to grow, things will be more simple for you in the future

[wayne128]

@xena, hope you still remember me, I followed your advice on multi boot and now still survive well, added multi-boot USB drive
So my partition scheme is as simple so troubleshoot is easier, adding new partition is easier, unmount is easier also.
One swap shared by all Linux , One partition for one Linux OS ( no separate /home).. one NTFS shared by all OSes (Win+Linux)
At times, some distros with 'an old bootloader' can wipe up all boot codes on all partitions except its own. fortunately using OP's instruction of three lines of code under grub prompt will recover all partition boot record.

on your question, for just a few of my experience, window OS will see NTFS partition. Below are those I had experienced with.
1. USB drive formated with ntfs. multiple partitions formated with some partition manager ( not gparted or Linux)
2. USB drive multi partitions, putting NTFS as primary, or NTFS in a Linux's extended partition.
3. Same as 2 but internal hard disk, Win can see and share NTFS at primary or in Linux Extended partition.
So I have been using NTFS partitions within both USB drive and internal drive to backup important files and share among all Windows OSes and all Linux OSes and so far so good.

Question  ( and I ask because I really don't know )
Quote
If you do create 2 (or more) data partitions you may want to consider formatting one as NTFS which Windows would be able to use as well as Linux.

Is windows really going to see this partition, as there are other non-windows partitions between Winxp  and NTFS partition
I always thought that windows was not capable of seeing anything that was not attached straight to it ?

[Xenaflux]

Hi wayne128

Glad to see you are well .

Thanks for the info.
I know winxp fairly well, but when it comes to networking or sharing between both systems, I am a not very knowledgeable at all (( or it seems that I have a memory leak ))
 


Xena

[menotu]

would like to disagree with you here
You should start at the right side of the HD picture

Why would that matter when the OP is completely removing everything - every partition on it, so it's going to be a "bare" drive so no drives are going to be renamed/renumbered.

Is windows really going to see this partition, as there are other non-windows partitions between Winxp  and NTFS partition
I always thought that windows was not capable of seeing anything that was not attached straight to it ?

If Windows is made aware of the drive/partition it can see and use it, yes.

[dvhenry]

Keeping in mind, there can only be 4 primary partitions but, if one of these is an extended primary, it is a container for many logical partitions.
I always ensure I create that extended, I usually put all my linux on logical inside that extended. Gparted offers an option to delete the partition table, the exact wording of that option alludes me at the moment, but if you really want to nuke the partition table, and start again, then this is the tool for you.

[dvhenry]

Posts: 15



View Profile Personal Message (Offline)
   
   
Resizing Partitions
« on: December 05, 2010, 03:52:13 PM »
   Reply with quoteQuote
I have what probably is an elementary question for some. Although I have a Windoze background, I am relatively new to Linux.

After installing PCLinuxOS 2010 and dual booting it with my Windows machine, I installed PCLinux 2010 with KDE desktop on a spare computer as the ONLY OS. This spare computer and has a 500 Gig Hard drive. Just for safety (and Newbie) sake I took all the defaults including letting the Live CD configure my partitions.  When all was said and done I looked at the partitions that were created.  Root was 12 gigs, Swap was 4 gigs and home was 400 Plus gigs.

It seems to me that with that big a drive, more space could have been allocated to the root partition and even slightly more to the swap partition. My research has lead me to Gpart (a program I have never used). Will this Gpart program allow me to resize these partitions? Other than what the Live CD installed, I really have no data that I would be concerned about. OR is there a better way of going about it?
   

Actually, just using gparted from a liveCD honestly is the way to go here, there is no need to delete anything, just resize and move, it only means right clicking on the partitions (one at a time)choosing the resize-move option, and moving the sliders around, It is as simple as that, there is no need to complicate it!!  (it can take some time however, DO allow it to take this time!)

I have lost track of the number of times I have moved, resized. deleted and created partitions, you will only find this difficult if you choose to believe so.

Also note if an error occurs that results in the loss of data it is almost never the fault of parted, instead it is almost always the fault of the user.
It seems the most common user errors are, working on the wrong hard disk, or the wrong partition.
Obviously, take care!!

[Xenaflux]

when using Gparted , you have to be a " little " careful with the version you use.
I noticed that on distrowatch it appears as liveCD, and a few times it was actually a beta.

However, I don't know if this is still the case

Other than that, I have nothing but good to say about it

[otispodmore]

I have run out of space on both \ and \home.

I have followed the steps of installing gparted and trying to understand how to allocate more space to \ and \home but i have failed...

my current structure is
system
C 40gb
D 240gb
\ 10gb
swap 1gb
\home 8gb

i wanted to break a chunk of 20 gb of the D .
I managed to do that but i cant add the chunk to \ and \home.

it will not let me...

i heard somewhere that you can split a larger partition in two and add the unalocated spcace to another partition...

i have tried all day to understand the logic of it but to no avail....

any solutions...

Basically the question is how can i increase the size of \ and \home?

thank you...

[Xenaflux]

I managed to do that but i cant add the chunk to \ and \home.

it will not let me...

No, it goes something like this
You free up space from and after your D partition.
Now you move / to the left
Then you re-size / to what you want
Then you move your swap to the left
Then you move your /home to the left
then you decide how big you want /home
If you decide to make it smaller than the available space, you can create another partition ( for data )

One thing at the time
use 'apply' after every move above
Don't do them all at once. There is a possibility of trouble if you do
Take note, that moving can take a long time , regardless if the partitions are full or empty.
Be patient.    / can take an hour

[otispodmore]

now ....

it doesnt work....

no matter what i do....

i freed space on the right of D and thats unalocated now and i tried to move / to the left.

but that is what i tried to do before...

its not posible because in the little window of resize/move the slider ocupies the whole length from left to right and there is nowhere to move it or expand it....

i am not getting it..