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On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, Lord Sauron wrote: |
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> This isn't exactly Gentoo-related, however, you guys tend to be the |
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> most command-line savvy group, and this is all about the command line |
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> at the moment... |
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> |
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> I have three partitions on my workstation's hard drive. |
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> |
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> /dev/sda1 = ntfs (windows) |
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> /dev/sda3 = linux-swap |
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> /dev/sda4 = ext3 (SuSE 10.1) |
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> |
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> Where sda2 should be used to be and XFS partition for Kubuntu. |
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> |
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> My question is thus: how would I tack that free space onto sda4? I |
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> don't want to reinstall SuSE if I don't have to. |
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You can't really do this in any straightforward way. The easiest thing is |
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probably to back up the filesystem on sda4 with something like tar, wipe |
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out sda3 and sda4, create a new sda2 (ext3) and sda3 (swap), and untar the |
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backed up filesystem onto sda2. |
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The main issue is that ext3 doesn't support resizing. You need to create a |
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new filesystem in order to get a different size. Furthermore, partitions |
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are addressed from the beginning, which means that moving the beginning |
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will completely change everything. |
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What I'd do is create a new /dev/sda2 and put home directories there. This |
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has a number of minor benefits (and minor drawbacks), but the main thing |
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is that you'll have more accessible storage for linux without changing |
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your existing filesystem. (And you can move a lot of stuff to the new |
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space, leaving more space free on the existing partition) |
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|
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E.g.: |
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Back up everything, in case you screw up or my instructions are wrong. |
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Create a new partition 2 on sda with all of the free storage. |
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Mount the existing sda4 on /mnt/sda4 |
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mke2fs -j /dev/sda2 |
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Mount the new sda2 on /mnt/sda2 |
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cp -a /mnt/sda4/home /mnt/sda2 |
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mv /mnt/sda4/home /mnt/sda4/home-old |
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mkdir /mnt/sda4/home |
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Edit /mnt/sda4/etc/fstab to add an entry for /dev/sda2 on /home as ext3. |
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Make sure the it all boots correctly, and comes up with your user(s) home |
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directories correctly, and that you have /home listed in the result of |
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"mount". |
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When you're really sure, "rm -rf /home-old" to reclaim the space. |
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Drawbacks: /home and / will fill up independantly, so you can run out of |
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space on one when there's still space on the other, and balancing these |
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is a pain. |
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Benefits: if you fill up /home, things that are trying to write to / won't |
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have problems while you clear out more space. Also, if you decide to |
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ditch SuSE in favor of (for example) Gentoo, your home directory is |
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separate from your system files, so most of the stuff you'll want to keep |
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is separate from the stuff you're ditching with SuSE. |
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|
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-Daniel |
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*This .sig left intentionally blank* |
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-- |
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