Currently, I have the following partition layout:

/dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
/dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
/dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
/dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
/dev/sda7 EXT3 /
/dev/sda8 SWAP
/dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
/dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data

As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.

So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home partition
and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How can I do
that without destroying my existing linux and windows system? Both /home
and / have exactly the same size (6GB).

BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of the
disk?

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:53:32 +0000, Jef Driesen wrote:

> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>
> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
> /dev/sda8 SWAP
> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>
> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
> share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
> to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
> occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
> have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.
>
> So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home partition
> and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How can I do
> that without destroying my existing linux and windows system? Both /home
> and / have exactly the same size (6GB).
>
> BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of the
> disk?

If you move the root partition, I should think it would entail several
changes - grub (or lilo) and /etc/fstab, for starters. You can easily
'manipulate' the space on the disk without relocating the partitions
(that's what I understood you to ask). I'd suggest you try the gparted
Live CD.

ray wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:53:32 +0000, Jef Driesen wrote:
>
>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>>
>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>>
>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
>> share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
>> to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
>> occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
>> have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.
>>
>> So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home partition
>> and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How can I do
>> that without destroying my existing linux and windows system? Both /home
>> and / have exactly the same size (6GB).
>>
>> BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of the
>> disk?
>
> If you move the root partition, I should think it would entail several
> changes - grub (or lilo) and /etc/fstab, for starters. You can easily
> 'manipulate' the space on the disk without relocating the partitions
> (that's what I understood you to ask). I'd suggest you try the gparted
> Live CD.

Are there other things I need to take care of besides grub and /etc/fstab?

I know redistributing the free space is easier. But I want to move the
/home partition closer to my other data partitions, because that will
make it a lot easier if I need to grow the partition again in the feature.

I was already going to use gparted live cd...

Jef Driesen wrote:
> ray wrote:
>> On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:53:32 +0000, Jef Driesen wrote:
>>
>>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>>>
>>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>>>
>>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions
>>> to share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm
>>> starting to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need
>>> Windows only occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home
>>> partition and I have empty space available in the /mnt/documents
>>> partition.
>>>
>>> So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home
>>> partition and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How
>>> can I do that without destroying my existing linux and windows
>>> system? Both /home and / have exactly the same size (6GB).
>>>
>>> BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of
>>> the disk?
>>
>> If you move the root partition, I should think it would entail several
>> changes - grub (or lilo) and /etc/fstab, for starters. You can easily
>> 'manipulate' the space on the disk without relocating the partitions
>> (that's what I understood you to ask). I'd suggest you try the gparted
>> Live CD.
>
> Are there other things I need to take care of besides grub and /etc/fstab?

It's nothing else, in grub you will just have to define the new location of /
and in fstab you modify the location of / and /home and remove /mnt/documents,
if your fstab uses LABEL, then I do suggest you switch over to give the real
device names.


> I know redistributing the free space is easier. But I want to move the
> /home partition closer to my other data partitions, because that will
> make it a lot easier if I need to grow the partition again in the feature.
>
> I was already going to use gparted live cd...

I would suggest you make the new /home into a LVM, this way it's easy to let
it grow without any further need of moving data, it's even possible to make
your new / to an LVM, but not sure how good support for this is in u-bunt-u.

tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO
tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/lvm2faq.html

--

//Aho

J.O. Aho wrote:
> Jef Driesen wrote:
>> ray wrote:
>>> On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:53:32 +0000, Jef Driesen wrote:
>>>
>>>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>>>>
>>>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>>>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>>>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>>>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>>>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>>>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>>>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>>>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>>>>
>>>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions
>>>> to share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm
>>>> starting to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need
>>>> Windows only occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home
>>>> partition and I have empty space available in the /mnt/documents
>>>> partition.
>>>>
>>>> So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home
>>>> partition and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How
>>>> can I do that without destroying my existing linux and windows
>>>> system? Both /home and / have exactly the same size (6GB).
>>>>
>>>> BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of
>>>> the disk?
>>> If you move the root partition, I should think it would entail several
>>> changes - grub (or lilo) and /etc/fstab, for starters. You can easily
>>> 'manipulate' the space on the disk without relocating the partitions
>>> (that's what I understood you to ask). I'd suggest you try the gparted
>>> Live CD.
>> Are there other things I need to take care of besides grub and /etc/fstab?
>
> It's nothing else, in grub you will just have to define the new location of /
> and in fstab you modify the location of / and /home and remove /mnt/documents,
> if your fstab uses LABEL, then I do suggest you switch over to give the real
> device names.

How do I now if my fstab is using LABEL (I have no idea what that is
about). I have entries that look like

/dev/hda1 /mnt/backup ntfs
defaults,users,ro,nls=utf8,fmask=111,dma

and

UUID=5101b231-404c-4fb8-a17a-b9d867dffbd9 / ext3
defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

>> I know redistributing the free space is easier. But I want to move the
>> /home partition closer to my other data partitions, because that will
>> make it a lot easier if I need to grow the partition again in the feature.
>>
>> I was already going to use gparted live cd...
>
> I would suggest you make the new /home into a LVM, this way it's easy to let
> it grow without any further need of moving data, it's even possible to make
> your new / to an LVM, but not sure how good support for this is in u-bunt-u.
>
> tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO
> tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/lvm2faq.html

This is something completely new for me. It looks interesting, but I
think I'll need some more experience with it, before I'm going to use it
for my data. For instance, what happens if I join my two harddisks and
one of them fails?

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 18:13:14 GMT, Jef Driesen wrote:
>
> How do I now if my fstab is using LABEL

man fstab :)

> (I have no idea what that is
> about). I have entries that look like
>
> /dev/hda1 /mnt/backup ntfs

The above uses partition number (/dev/hda1)
>
> UUID=5101b231-404c-4fb8-a17a-b9d867dffbd9 / ext3
> defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

Yeah, I got rid of that UUID format and hardocoded partition numbers
/dev/hdb11 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdb15 /2007 ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb6 /200oe ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb7 /accounts ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb9 /bk_up ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb13 /fc5 ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2


You would use your /dev/sdaX values for your partition values.

Remember when you dink with grub the (x,y) values start at 0 and
partition numbers in fstab start a 1

Bit Twister wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 18:13:14 GMT, Jef Driesen wrote:
>> How do I now if my fstab is using LABEL
>
> man fstab :)
>
>> (I have no idea what that is
>> about). I have entries that look like
>>
>> /dev/hda1 /mnt/backup ntfs
>
> The above uses partition number (/dev/hda1)
>> UUID=5101b231-404c-4fb8-a17a-b9d867dffbd9 / ext3
>> defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
>
> Yeah, I got rid of that UUID format and hardocoded partition numbers
> /dev/hdb11 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
> /dev/hdb15 /2007 ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
> /dev/hdb6 /200oe ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
> /dev/hdb7 /accounts ext3 defaults 0 2
> /dev/hdb9 /bk_up ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
> /dev/hdb13 /fc5 ext3 user,noauto,defaults 0 2
>
>
> You would use your /dev/sdaX values for your partition values.
>
> Remember when you dink with grub the (x,y) values start at 0 and
> partition numbers in fstab start a 1

As he won't be moving /boot, he don't have to mess with the grub numberings at
all, but the "root" option for the kernel, which uses the default numbering
from fstab.

--

//Aho

Jef Driesen <jefdriesen********.com.invalid> writes:

>Currently, I have the following partition layout:

>/dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>/dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>/dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>/dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>/dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>/dev/sda8 SWAP
>/dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>/dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data

>As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
>share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
>to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
>occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
>have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.

This is the danger of making too many partitions. One ALWAYS discovers that
some partitions get all full while others languish empty.

Why you have a /boot I have no idea for example.

And why your have both /mnt/data and /mnt/documents I do not know either.
Anyway what would probably be better is to simply make /mnt/documents be
and ext3 partition and then mount it on some convenient place on /home

>So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home partition
>and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How can I do
>that without destroying my existing linux and windows system? Both /home
>and / have exactly the same size (6GB).

>BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of the
>disk?o
The best place is in the middle where the heads have to on average move the
least.

Unruh wrote:
> Jef Driesen <jefdriesen********.com.invalid> writes:
>
>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>
>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>
>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
>> share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
>> to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
>> occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
>> have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.
>
> This is the danger of making too many partitions. One ALWAYS discovers that
> some partitions get all full while others languish empty.
>
> Why you have a /boot I have no idea for example.

You most likely won't loose the kernel if you manage to damage the root slice,
of course you wouldn't be able to load all modules, but you still have a
working kernel. A boot don't have to be large, usually 40-100MB is used, even
if 10MB would be more than okey in most cases.

I do always select to have parts of the file system with the most write
operations done as their own slices, then the rest of the system won't be
affected if something bad happens.

Having /home as it's own slice you win the possibility to use the same /home
without having to move files when switching to another distribution or if
having more than one distribution to boot from. Myself I have a big /home
which is shared over NFS, this gives a good advantage that regardless which
computer a user logs in at, they will have access to all their files.

IMHO it's smart to use LVM for slices, this makes it so much easier to resize
and the freed space don't have to be anywhere near the original space used for
the slice and you just add a new hard drive and you can add all the free space
to lvm and you don't have to think of how to slice it up and you keep the file
system build as it was.

But of course, no one will prevent you from dong the microsoft way.


> And why your have both /mnt/data and /mnt/documents I do not know either.
> Anyway what would probably be better is to simply make /mnt/documents be
> and ext3 partition and then mount it on some convenient place on /home

As the OP said, he had those to share data between his installations, of
course he could have been okey with one slice instead of two, but now he gets
it a bit easier as he don't have to do as much work.


>> So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home partition
>> and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How can I do
>> that without destroying my existing linux and windows system? Both /home
>> and / have exactly the same size (6GB).
>
>> BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of the
>> disk?o
> The best place is in the middle where the heads have to on average move the
> least.

I would say the beginning, as you have smallest moves and as swap is always
slow compared to memory, then you want the swap be as fast as possible if you
know you will have to use it, if you know you more or less never will use it,
then you can put it last.

--

//Aho

Unruh enlightened us with:
> Why you have a /boot I have no idea for example.

I once had a separate /boot partition for a very simple reason. My
motherboard refused to boot from SATA, so my /boot was on an old PATA
drive, while the rest of the system was on my new, large SATA disk.

I've also used a separate /boot as a security measure - I kept it
unmounted, and only temporarily mounted it when I needed to alter it.

Sybren
--
Sybren Stüvel
Stüvel IT - http://www.stuvel.eu/

Unruh wrote:
> Jef Driesen <jefdriesen********.com.invalid> writes:
>
>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>
>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>
>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
>> share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
>> to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
>> occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
>> have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.
>
> This is the danger of making too many partitions. One ALWAYS discovers that
> some partitions get all full while others languish empty.
>
> Why you have a /boot I have no idea for example.

The large number of partitions were created during my transition from
windows to linux. I started with only two ntfs partitions on windows
(one for the OS and applications and one for my data). I like to keep my
data separated from the rest of the system. In case the OS gets messed
up completely, I can format the partition and start from scratch again,
without losing my personal data.

Later on, I tried several Linux distributions, which of course needed
there own partitions (/boot and swap were shared). When I finally
decided to go for Ubuntu (which happened to be on the last linux
partition), I merged all the other linux partitions, resulting in the
/home partition.

> And why your have both /mnt/data and /mnt/documents I do not know either.
> Anyway what would probably be better is to simply make /mnt/documents be
> and ext3 partition and then mount it on some convenient place on /home

Also a leftover from the conversion process. For for sharing data
between windows and linux I created a small fat32 partition (/mnt/data),
because my large data partition was still ntfs. Later I also converted
that one to fat32. But I didn't merge them (yet), because /mnt/data is
used to share my firefox and thunderbird profiles. Changing that
requires too much work.

If I would start from scratch, I would do it different, but that is not
the case for now...

Jef Driesen enlightened us with:
> The large number of partitions were created during my transition
> from windows to linux. I started with only two ntfs partitions on
> windows (one for the OS and applications and one for my data). I
> like to keep my data separated from the rest of the system. In case
> the OS gets messed up completely, I can format the partition and
> start from scratch again, without losing my personal data.

In that case it suffices to place /home on a separate partition.

Sybren
--
Sybren Stüvel
Stüvel IT - http://www.stuvel.eu/

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:36:15 GMT, Jef Driesen wrote:
>
> If I would start from scratch, I would do it different, but that is not
> the case for now...

Sounds like someone with out backups. :(

I have tried shrinking parttions, adding new ones in the new space
several years ago. Partition numbers wound up being numbered in the order of
creation, not the order displayed. Making it a pain to figure out what
my fstab should look like. Have had better luck for the one or two
attempts in the past year, but I crated/formated the partitiions,
tar'ed the partition and deleted the old, created new partition in the
free space. I did not try to leave the old partition.

Now with tools like
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...kage_id=173828
the problem may no longer exists. I would make **** sure I can read my
backup media and that it contains what I wanted backed up before I
would do what you are planning to do.

"J.O. Aho" <user@example.net> writes:

>Unruh wrote:
>> Jef Driesen <jefdriesen********.com.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>>
>>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>>
>>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
>>> share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
>>> to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
>>> occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
>>> have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.
>>
>> This is the danger of making too many partitions. One ALWAYS discovers that
>> some partitions get all full while others languish empty.
>>
>> Why you have a /boot I have no idea for example.

>You most likely won't loose the kernel if you manage to damage the root slice,
>of course you wouldn't be able to load all modules, but you still have a
>working kernel. A boot don't have to be large, usually 40-100MB is used, even
>if 10MB would be more than okey in most cases.

uh, a kernel with no modules, no shells, no nothing is pretty **** useless.
And if you have too small a boot, you will update your kenrel and suddenly
have run out of room.
If your root partition goes you will have to go to backup anyway ( You do
know aout those).
Note that the typical way "something happens" is that the hard disk dies at
which point you are out of luck an any partition.



>I do always select to have parts of the file system with the most write
>operations done as their own slices, then the rest of the system won't be
>affected if something bad happens.

o
I certainly will buy keeping system stuff separate from user stuff .
>Having /home as it's own slice you win the possibility to use the same /home
>without having to move files when switching to another distribution or if
>having more than one distribution to boot from. Myself I have a big /home
>which is shared over NFS, this gives a good advantage that regardless which
>computer a user logs in at, they will have access to all their files.

>IMHO it's smart to use LVM for slices, this makes it so much easier to resize
>and the freed space don't have to be anywhere near the original space used for
>the slice and you just add a new hard drive and you can add all the free space
>to lvm and you don't have to think of how to slice it up and you keep the file
>system build as it was.

>But of course, no one will prevent you from dong the microsoft way.


>> And why your have both /mnt/data and /mnt/documents I do not know either.
>> Anyway what would probably be better is to simply make /mnt/documents be
>> and ext3 partition and then mount it on some convenient place on /home

>As the OP said, he had those to share data between his installations, of
>course he could have been okey with one slice instead of two, but now he gets
>it a bit easier as he don't have to do as much work.


>>> So what I want to do is move the root partition before my home partition
>>> and move some empty space from /mnt/documents to /home. How can I do
>>> that without destroying my existing linux and windows system? Both /home
>>> and / have exactly the same size (6GB).
>>
>>> BTW, where is the best location of the swap partition? At the end of the
>>> disk?o
>> The best place is in the middle where the heads have to on average move the
>> least.

>I would say the beginning, as you have smallest moves and as swap is always
>slow compared to memory, then you want the swap be as fast as possible if you
>know you will have to use it, if you know you more or less never will use it,
>then you can put it last.

>--

> //Aho

Unruh wrote:
> "J.O. Aho" <user@example.net> writes:
>
>> Unruh wrote:
>>> Jef Driesen <jefdriesen********.com.invalid> writes:
>>>
>>>> Currently, I have the following partition layout:
>>>> /dev/sda1 NTFS /mnt/windows
>>>> /dev/sda2 (Extended Partition)
>>>> /dev/sda5 EXT3 /boot
>>>> /dev/sda6 EXT3 /home
>>>> /dev/sda7 EXT3 /
>>>> /dev/sda8 SWAP
>>>> /dev/sda9 FAT32 /mnt/documents
>>>> /dev/sda10 FAT32 /mnt/data
>>>> As you can see, I have a dualboot with Windows and FAT32 partitions to
>>>> share my data between Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). But I'm starting
>>>> to feel really comfortable with Linux now, and I need Windows only
>>>> occasionally. That means I want more space for my /home partition and I
>>>> have empty space available in the /mnt/documents partition.
>>> This is the danger of making too many partitions. One ALWAYS discovers that
>>> some partitions get all full while others languish empty.
>>>
>>> Why you have a /boot I have no idea for example.
>
>> You most likely won't loose the kernel if you manage to damage the root slice,
>> of course you wouldn't be able to load all modules, but you still have a
>> working kernel. A boot don't have to be large, usually 40-100MB is used, even
>> if 10MB would be more than okey in most cases.
>
> uh, a kernel with no modules, no shells, no nothing is pretty **** useless.

Everything depends on how toasted / would be, if you get a minor corruption
due some reason, you lessen the risk that the kernel will be damage and
specially if you have /boot unmounted, the risk for a trojan damage your
kernel file is slim.


> And if you have too small a boot, you will update your kenrel and suddenly
> have run out of room.

10M usually can hold 4-5 kernels (depends on the size of course), if you need
more than that for one distribution, then there is something wrong, you only
need the latest one and the previous one and that only until you have seen
that the current works as it should for you.

--

//Aho