Decreasing windows partition's size and increasing kubuntu partition's size

[Snowhog]

Thanks again for your answers!

@Snowhog I entered the command that you indicated me and here is the line for sda8:

/dev/sda8: LABEL="backup" UUID="302f611e-26af-483d-aa59-81f160509a14" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="efb39c31-f908-4f9f-a84e-fe2a479ac158"

But I don't know if it's really worth modifying my fstab file just to have it automatically mounted, because I can mount it in Dolphin just by pressing on the icon corresponding to this partition.

And that isn't an issue. If you want to continue to access that partition in that manner, it's perfectly fine.

[mr_raider]

But I don't know if it's really worth modifying my fstab file just to have it automatically mounted, because I can mount it in Dolphin just by pressing on the icon corresponding to this partition.

You can leave it as is. For now it's just additional storage. MOunt and unmount it in dolphin as needed. Mounting it in a fstab entry will give it a "permanent" address. For example my desktop has an SSD and a rotational drive. I mount the rotational drive ins fstab at /mnt/useless_crap and put all my downloads and torrents there. I don't need it crowding space on the SSD.

Another useage is to mount it at the folder that will have the most files. For example, if you do a lot of video work, you can have it mounted at /home/myuser/Videos/

If you EVER need to re-install or change a distro, you could theoretically inslall your new linux distro to the empty parttion and set it as /. Then re-use your current partition as /home. I personally don't do that for various reasons.

@Qqmike The thing is I'm slightly confused about what these Legacy BIOS and UEFI are, how they are related, and what is the meaning of the output of this command you recommended me to enter in the terminal.
I read this page on quora:

I wont get into a UEFI vs legacy mode discussion. Suffice it to say, if windows is installed in EFI mode, and you want to install Linux to the same disk, you MUST use EFI for linux.

For my personal verification can you run this command and paste the output, I'm curious as to the result:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 | hexdump -C

[Qqmike]

The thing is I'm slightly confused about what these Legacy BIOS and UEFI are ...

Well, I suspect you are not alone! Most people never have to even think about their BIOS/firmware/UEFI. But, as you have seen, it is very useful to know how to access and use the power of your computer's firmware settings.

I wrote these, which you might check; and see the references, too -- especially Wikipedia on these topics:

GPT, UEFI -- Study Guide
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post346604

UEFI Simplified, a quicker version
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post379977

BIOS and UEFI both refer to a way, a method, an approach, a paradigm, to specifying the firmware (the code that controls to "guts" of the computer) that controls a computer. Almost all newer machines, say 2001 or so, now use the UEFI specifications.

[Robert24]

Thanks again for your answers!

@Snowhog I entered the command that you indicated me and here is the line for sda8:

/dev/sda8: LABEL="backup" UUID="302f611e-26af-483d-aa59-81f160509a14" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="efb39c31-f908-4f9f-a84e-fe2a479ac158"

But I don't know if it's really worth modifying my fstab file just to have it automatically mounted, because I can mount it in Dolphin just by pressing on the icon corresponding to this partition.

@Qqmike The thing is I'm slightly confused about what these Legacy BIOS and UEFI are, how they are related, and what is the meaning of the output of this command you recommended me to enter in the terminal.
I read this page on quora:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-di...talling-the-OS

and from what I understood, both the BIOS and UEFI play the same role but the later is more recent. It also looks like UEFI tries to boot a system but can't find it the BIOS is then called (which I suspect to be what happened in my case). But my understanding stops there. So what is this file coming from this efibootmgr, if I may ask?

[Qqmike]

I did it and saved it inside a .txt file. But what is it for?

Ha! Fair question. It is for your own edification. And you can refer to it to see what exactly is on your disk(s), what is where, how your UEFI boot (order) is set up. It is clear in your mind at the moment, but it may not be so clear a few months from now.

[Snowhog]

So the Backup partition isn't being mounted on boot. Not a problem. It is 'available' to you, and if you want to have ready access to it while you are running Kubuntu, you just need to add it to the fstab file.

In anticipation that that is what you might want, in a Konsole type: sudo blkid and copy and paste the line for /dev/sda8 in your reply. I'll follow that with the fstab entry you would need to add.

[Robert24]

Thank you to all of you.

Since it doesn't seem to be necessary I will not do anything with this backup partition yet.

@Snowhog
Here is the output of the command:

~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=4a54f916-961d-4c8e-97c5-7b319442e029 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /home was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=fc753961-5c59-4f78-a656-dfcf6b4d2c83 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=00072d64-416d-4566-8c59-0a3b469c6524 none            swap    sw              0       0

@Qqmike

Now that you got things working, the next time you are booted into Kubuntu, I would run a command to see and record what your firmware boot setup is, then copy that output to a file to be saved, or even printed!
The command to run, in Kubuntu, is:
Code:
sudo efibootmgr -v

I did it and saved it inside a .txt file. But what is it for?

[Snowhog]

No. Leave it as is for now.

There is no need to re-install kubuntu. That partition is there is you ever want install another version of linux, or need to move stuff over to the backup to do manioopulations. Personally, I don't create backup partitions.

Agreed. You spent a lot of time getting to this point. Leave well enough alone for now and get used to Kubuntu Linux. As to the Backup partition. It's already there and formatted. In fact, it should be mounted when you boot into Kubuntu. Show us your fstab file.

Open a Konsole and type: cat /etc/fstab

Copy and paste the output in your reply.

[mr_raider]

The only thing I have left to do is to create this backup partition now.

Am I right to believe that I should use the usb live key and run the installer and specify the remaining 20 GB as the space for this new install?

But is it really worth it? And will it not confuse the bios if there are two versions of kubuntu?

No. Leave it as is for now.

There is no need to re-install kubuntu. That partition is there is you ever want install another version of linux, or need to move stuff over to the backup to do manioopulations. Personally, I don't create backup partitions.

[Qqmike]

Now that you got things working, the next time you are booted into Kubuntu, I would run a command to see and record what your firmware boot setup is, then copy that output to a file to be saved, or even printed!
The command to run, in Kubuntu, is:

sudo efibootmgr -v

As for your backup partition (Post #125), I'll leave that continuing issue to the other guys (I wouldn't do it; and there is nothing wrong with having multiple installations of the same Kubuntu on your disk(s) -- just a bit of confusion remembering what is what and what-not).

[Robert24]

The only thing I have left to do is to create this backup partition now.

Am I right to believe that I should use the usb live key and run the installer and specify the remaining 20 GB as the space for this new install?

But is it really worth it? And will it not confuse the bios if there are two versions of kubuntu?

[oshunluvr]

2) I didn't have to do anything to have the home folder ``mounted". It seems to be done automatically. Is there anything I should be careful about? Something which would be different from my previous set-up?

When you installed and selected the partition for the /home mount point, the installer did the mounting for you.

"Fixed" or permanent mounts go into a file named "fstab" under the directory "/etc". So if you open Dolphin (the file manager), click on "Root" in the left column (in this case, root refers to root folder or "/"), then click on folder named "etc" in there you will find the fstab file. Open it and you will see all your drives and/or partitions that are mounted at boot up.

[Robert24]

Fine. You should now get a boot menu with windows as a choice.

I do!

[mr_raider]

Fine. You should now get a boot menu with windows as a choice.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

[Robert24]

Thanks again to all of you for your answers. I feel incredibly relieved and look forward to using my computer again! Even if this situation was somehow tedious for me, I feel much more ``intimate" with my computer now because I know it a bit better.

@mr_raider I entered the command you suggested concerning grup and I received this answer:

~$ sudo update-grub
Generating grub configuration file ...
Warning: Setting GRUB_TIMEOUT to a non-zero value when GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is set is no longer supported.
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.13.0-32-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.13.0-32-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.10.0-28-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.10.0-28-generic
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/sda1@/efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration                           
done

1) Does it look ok?

I have one more question:

2) I didn't have to do anything to have the home folder ``mounted". It seems to be done automatically. Is there anything I should be careful about? Something which would be different from my previous set-up?

Best