Going 100% PCLOS from dual boot

[progix]

Hi, first ever post, please be gentle. I've been running a dual boot system with Windows XP (73 GB) and PCLOS (143 GB) and there are also two small partitions of 12 GB and 3.8 GB which seem to be part of the Grub bootloader. No problems, it's been fine, but I like PCLOS so much that I've decided to erase the XP partition completely. So I want the whole hard drive just for Linux. This is where I am stuck.

I've been in to PCLinuxOS Control Center > Manage local disks > Disk partitions and seem to have managed to "empty" the XP partition. I've also gone PCLinuxOS Control Center > Boot > Set up boot system and removed the mention of the XP partition.

What now? How can I make the whole drive dedicated to PCLOS (preferably just one big partition rather than two or more)? If I'm only running PCLOS do I need the two small "Grub" partitions at all?

I don't know what a "mount point" is or anything so please keep any explanations simple. Thank you.

[jimwilk]

progix,
Welcome to your new home.

Now I am not a hardware expert but I might be able to give you some advice.

I keep a spare partition away from dangers of later installation and updates. That partition contains such goodies as photographs for Digikam; emails; bookmarks and address books; accounts for home budgets etc.

The first part of my disk (sda1)(I am formatting in Ext3) has the mount point /. Another partition (I think it is sda5) has the mount point /home. My data partition (mount point /disk) is at sda7.
Last time I looked, there was a /swap partition at sda3.

The reason for this set up becomes important when I do a fresh install (for example PCLinuxOS 2010.12 to PCLinuxOS 2011.06). At that point, I can reformat sda1 as mount point / and reformat sda5 as mount point /home. Then the new installation takes place into these two partitions. Meanwhile, all my data over at sda7 is safe. After reinstallation, the bookmarks for Firefox and the address book for Thunderbird could be brought back from sda7 and added to their respective applications.

Someone else will be able to make things clearer for you. In the meantime, enjoy your new freedom.

Jim

[dvhenry]

To best advise on what to do, we need to see what your disk looks like now, to show us that
go to the PC menu > More Applications > Terminals > Konsole - Terminal, enter su - then the root password in the terminal, type fdisk -l (lower case letters) and copy all the output. In your reply post, paste that output between code tags (use the # button).

[Just17]

What now? How can I make the whole drive dedicated to PCLOS (preferably just one big partition rather than two or more)? If I'm only running PCLOS do I need the two small "Grub" partitions at all?

None of the partitions are for grub.
One will be for the Operating System (the root partition with mount point / )
Another will be for the user settings and such things as changes to the Desktop look and will have the mount point /home )
The third partition will be Swap  ....  space your system can use if it ever runs low on memory, and also the place that the system details are stored when the system is suspended to disk.

It is advised to continue to keep those partitions separate to everything else.

Now for the space released by deleting the Windows files from that partition .....  I suggest it is best to keep that also on a separate partition .....  lets refer to it as your Data partition.

So if you reformat that partition for use by Linux only -- say as ext4 type format -- it can be used by you to store all the files of every type you wish to keep safe.

I suspect that most of us have four or more partitions just as described above.
In fact I have several 'data' partitions, used to store different types of files .....  such as Music on one, Videos, ISO of CDs etc on another and VBox disks on another.

Through it all, regardless how many 'data' partitions I have, I continue to retain the three main partitions .....

/  ....  for the Operating System
/home ...  for all the user files for as many users as are created
swap .....  for suspending ....  its size is approx 2 x the size of my RAM


regards.

[melodie]

Hi,

All which is said so far contains the important informations you need to know. I would only add to this : first, do a full backup of the datas that are precious to you. Use another media to copy them. External hard drive, large usb stick, whatever seems appropriate to you, but don't play with the partitions as long as you don't have a copy somewhere else.

Through it all, regardless how many 'data' partitions I have, I continue to retain the three main partitions .....

/  ....  for the Operating System
/home ...  for all the user files for as many users as are created
swap .....  for suspending ....  its size is approx 2 x the size of my RAM

This is the simple and imo a very good partitioning scheme. For the system, which we represent by the "/" sign, 5 GB is a minimum, 15 is honest, and 25 should be way enough.

I suggest you watch this doc showing the use of Gparted at the Gparted doc http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/move/move.htm. It's a fantastic tool, you can even do copy / paste of partitions from one side to the other... in one hard drive or from one to another.

The main page for all the docs is here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

If you do not use the tool which is in PCC, you will still be able to install after preparing your hard drive. Let us know how it goes... if you want to take a look at what your partitions look like and prefer using the tool from PCC, you can still start Gparted to look what the partitions look like from there. It's another way to get the idea. This little video too could help... though it's not in English. First, think of a backup for your datas to another support...

Regards,
Mélodie

[progix]

Thanks for all the replies! It sounds like a second Linux partition is a good idea then.

Dvhenry, I think this is what you want:
#
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           0           0           0    0  Empty
/dev/sda2       153597465   488392064   167397300    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       153597528   178787384    12594928+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       178787448   186964469     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7       186964533   488392064   150713766   83  Linux
#

Melodie, I am looking at the sites you suggest. The video has no sound? By the way I have KDE desktop not Gnome, that makes no difference if I install GParted?
Just19, when I click on the empty partition and then click Ext4 it asks for a mount point and I don't know what to put there.

[Just17]

Thanks for all the replies! It sounds like a second Linux partition is a good idea then.

Dvhenry, I think this is what you want:
#
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           0           0           0    0  Empty
/dev/sda2       153597465   488392064   167397300    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       153597528   178787384    12594928+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       178787448   186964469     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7       186964533   488392064   150713766   83  Linux
#

Melodie, I will look at the things you suggest.
Just19, when I click on the empty partition and then click Ext4 it asks for a mount point and I don't know what to put there.

The mount point is where the filesystem of the partition is attached to the operating system.
In use it is simply the 'path' to see what is stored there.
I mostly use   /media/Data   or something like that, changing 'Data' to some meaningful name as appropriate ....  such as   /media/Music  and so on.

In fact you do not have to make that decision when formatting the partition ... you can leave it blank, and arrange how you wish to view the contents later.

You can also give the partition a name when in PCC, which can be useful when looking through your partition list ....  makes it easy to identify.

HTH

regards.

[melodie]

that makes no difference if I install GParted?

That makes a few depends, that you can also remove later if you don't need Gparted anymore, but if you install them in the KDE Live CD, that should not make a difference, if you reboot the Live CD before installing to hard drive.