How to make more room for Kubuntu?

[ScottyK]

On my main computer I'm currently dual booting Win7 and Kubuntu 11.04. On one of the hard drives Win7 and Kubuntu both share the drive.

When I first set up this drive, I gave Win7 a majority of the space, and Kubuntu only 40GB because I was just testing it out.

However I love using Linux, and want to make the Kubuntu side bigger, so I don't have to store all of my /home files somewhere else.

Here's the current setup of the drive.

100MB - Win7 System
207GB - Windows 7
4GB - Linux Swap
43GB - Kubuntu 11.04
341 GB - Multimedia (NTFS)

My thought was to move everything from the Multimedia partition to one of the two 1TB drive's I also have in the computer. Then I would like to somehow let Kubuntu have all of that 341 GB.

Is this possible? Is this something that Gparted can do, just delete that partition and expand the Kubuntu partition?

Would it be easier to just reinstall 11.04 on one of the TB drives?

[Snowhog]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

From within Kubuntu, open a console and type:

sudo fdisk -l

Copy and paste the output in your reply. This will enable us to provide you with a qualified answer to your question.

[Teunis]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

Yes you can use Gparted/KDE partition manager to remove a partion and increase the size of another into the now free space.

Remember you can only run such an operation on not mounted partitions so doing it from a Live CD or USB is the way.

Even though I've done it successfully multiple times I would still warn you to have back ups of everything of value before starting such an operation.

[ScottyK]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc1b24c24

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 27095 217532271 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 27095 33207 49094657 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 33207 77826 358397952 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 27095 27581 3906560 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 27581 33207 45187072 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf5e5f5e5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 121602 976759808 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 42 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 10710 * 512 = 5483520 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000000aa

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 182402 976759808 7 HPFS/NTFS

[rfakhrai]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

I've done this with KDE Partition Manager many times and never had any problems. It can be a lengthy process but it's worth it to give your Kubu some room to breathe.

[oshunluvr]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

Here's what I would do to get done what you've requested:

1) Boot to a liveCD or USB device and run the partition manager.
2) Move your media (stuff on /dev/sda4) to one of the other drives.
3) Backup anything you have on your Kubuntu install to one of the other drives.
4) With the partition manager:
a) Delete /dev/sda4 and /dev/sda5.
b) Create a new swap partition at the beginning of the available free space.
c) Move and expand the linux install partition to fill all the space remaining.
5) Edit the /etc/fstab file in your install to reflect the new swap partition's UUID.

NOTE: Sometimes for whatever reasons, parted (the tool that does most of step 4) will not re-order the partitions during a delete-create session correctly. If your partitions are not in order when you exit the partition manager; open a terminal and run sudo fdisk /dev/sda and enter the commands x f w before you quit the livecd session and reboot.

The reason for deleting the swap and re-making it is it's much faster than trying to move what is essentially an empty partition.

MY SUGGESTIONS:

Rather than do the above, I would take this opportunity to create a separate /home partition for your install. There are a dozen good reasons to do this - one of which is why you're going through all this now.

If this were my system, I would:

Steps 1 and 2 as above.
3) Move everything you have on your Kubuntu install under /home to one of the other drives.
4) With the partition manager:
a) Delete /dev/sda4 and /dev/sda5.
b) Create a new swap partition at the beginning of the available free space.
c) Move the linux install partition to the beginning of the free space and shrink it to 20GB.
d) Create a new partition for /home to fill all the space remaining.
5) Edit the /etc/fstab file in your install to reflect:
a) The new swap partition's UUID.
b) Add an entry to mount your new /home partition at boot.
6) Move the /home files into your new /home partition.

NOTE: When you move the files to and from /home, be sure you preserve ownership and permissions. The note from above regarding partition numbering still applies.

[Detonate]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

I keep Gparted on a live USB, just for operations such as this. In fact, I just used it this morning to make a new partition to install Linux Mint. To me this is the easiest way to go.

[ScottyK]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

oshunluvr - Thanks for the how to! Step #2 in progress, got an hour to go until it's copied.

[oshunluvr]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

Good Luck! - I'll check back in an hour or so if you have any issues...

[ScottyK]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

OK, Got most of it completed.

Couldn't shrink the linux partition to 20GB because there was already 25GB of stuff. So I left it and created the new partition with the rest of the space and gave it the /home label.

Rebooted, got the grub rescue prompt, and realized that I forgot to edit the /etc/fstab file.

Going to go back in and do that.

Need to dig out the kubuntu cd so I can access the system as a live CD. Can't remember all the commands to do it from the command line in Gparted.

[oshunluvr]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

25gb without /home? Wow - you've got a lot of stuff installed!

[ScottyK]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

When I first installed it, I had a lot of fun raiding the repos. I figured with my fast internet connection, just grab it all and see what happens.

Since I've got everything backed up anyway, would this be a good time to just frag it and install the 64 bit instead?

[Teunis]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

A good job so far!

It's only about a month ago I changed what is now my main install to 64bit and I must say it has its advantages.
I noticed for example Firefox takes less memory(!) and I was able to upgrade my RAM from 2 to 4GB.
When working on large photo's in the Gimp and VueScan I can feel the difference.

[ScottyK]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

Teunis - Thanks for the info, it's settled, I'll upgrade to 64-bit. I'm running a dual core with 4GB RAM anyway, might as well take advantage of all 4 GB of ram.

OS- thanks again for going step by step on how to move the partitions around. Again the things you can do in the linux world that you can't do in windows is amazing!

Update - Now running 64-bit, and it seems that this computer is more responsive than when it was running 32-bit.

[oshunluvr]

Re: How to make more room for Kubuntu?

I made the switch to Kubuntu from PCLinuxOS because they had no plans to go 64 bit.

I have a Quad-core and do a bit of video encoding and it's at least 4 times faster than 32 bit - I highly recommend it! 8)