Hi

I've just installed Debian Etch but I'm not happy with how the Debian installer has partitioned the disk. I opted to have a separate partition for /home but this is far too large. Debian has created an extended partition broken up as follows:

dev/mapper/home 64.18 GiB (of which 1.21 GiB is used)
dev/mapper/root 6.67 GiB (of which 1.95 GiB is used)
dev/mapper/SWAP1 2.22 GiB
dev/sdb 988.37 MiB

Apart from this extended partition, it has also created a boot partition of 243.14 MiB

The problem is that root is far too small (and 2.2 Gib is perhaps a bit exaggerated for a SWAP partition?) but I can't change it in GPARTED. I can shrink the home partition, but I cannot then grow the root partition. The other problem I have is that I want to avoid re-installing Debian as I had quite a few problems putting it on in the first place.

So my question is: is it necessary to change all of this or can I keep it that way? Most stuff you download using apt ends up in /usr somewhere, which is a root partition, so 6.67 GiB looks a bit small to me. If it is necessary, how can I change this?

Thanks a lot


James

From the looks of it, Debian installed itself in an LVM - and Gparted doesn't understand that kind of thing.

The size of / may be just right unless you intend to install tons of software - and even then it may still be large enough. Mine is currently exactly 7GB with GNOME, KDE, XFCE etc etc etc.

And what is the problem with installing manually? I do prefer to do it that way, it gives you a lot more control. Just prepare the partitions using Gparted - all you have to do then during install is assign each partition a mount point. Of course, you have to choose custom partitioning or it takes all of the disk.

Yes, I installed Debian in an LVM. But what about all the system updates? Some of these can be quite meaty. Is 6.67 GiG enough to hold all the updates I'm likely to have to install over the years, as well as the extra programmes I'll want to add.

Can you make a full backup to DVD using a liveCD, repartition manually and then do a restore?

It's a good idea, but I can't do it. I don't have a DVD writer.

crazy idea:

create another partition out of your extra home space, make it as big as you think you will need for your applications, then mount it as /usr

then you would have all the space you ever wanted for your updates, etc.

Isn't it supposed to be really easy to resize/move LVM partitions, even when they're in use? I haven't used LVM, due to general intertia and fear of change, but it's supposed to make all sorts of disk management a breeze.

jay73, try out the command "apt-get clean". I'll bet it frees up a huge chunk of disk space. (It removes .deb files from apt's cache.)

I opted for LDM because I had indeed heard that it makes disk management easier.
Well, I think I'll leave it as it is for the moment. I'm concentrating on just trying to get Debian going, and I might well make a huge mistake and decide to re-install (actually, the way things are going that's very likely! ) If and when that happens, I think I'll go for a single partition to keep things simple until I feel confident enough to try again. Debian's (sort of) up and running right now, and after what jay73 said about his 7 GiG partition, it looks like I've got more than enough space to play with for the moment.