What tools to use for repartitioning before migrating FC5->FC6?
 

After some play with FC6 on a laptop and another PC, I thought it's time to update my main work machine to FC6. This machine is currently running FC5. With my initially negative experience on the laptop and anther PC during the installation of FC6, I don't trust the software enough to try an update from FC5 to FC6. Also, on other occasions, people in this forum have recommended not to try an update from FC5 to FC6 unless the start system is really clean (without other, sometimes proprietary softwares). Instead a fresh installation is recommended.

In order to migrate to FC6, I should back up everything and then put it back on the machine after the install, but I don't even know where to put all the stuff. I thought, there ught to be a way to avoid this. So I'm looking into overwriting the possibilities for re-partitioning. I want to generate one large partition that contains only the home directory, and isn't erased during installation of What tools to use for repartitioning before migrating FC5->FC6?

After some play with FC6 on a laptop and another PC, I thought it's time to update my main work machine to FC6. This machine is currently running FC5. With my initially negative experience on the laptop and anther PC during the installation of FC6, I don't trust the software enough to try an update from FC5 to FC6. Also, on other occasions,
people in this forum have recommended not to try an update from FC5 to FC6 unless the start system is really clean (without other, sometimes proprietary softwares). Instead a fresh installation is recommended.

In order to migrate to FC6, I should back up everything and then put it back on the machine after the install, but I don't even know where to put all the stuff. I thought, there ought to be a way to avoid this. So I'm looking into overwriting the possibilities for
re-partitioning. I want to generate one large partition that contains only the home directory, and isn't erased during installation of a new OS.

However, I don't understand the LVM system and the discrepancy between different tools showing the partitions. There are two disks on this PC, of 30 MB and 93MB. The smaller one, hda, contains a windows 98b partition (hd1) and a Linux Fedora 5 partition (hd3) for the remaining 20 GB. The bigger disk, hdb, which I added later, has 90 GB, and contains the boot sector for FC5, while the rest of it is all part of the logical volume system with LVM.

I didn't really plan it that way: When I installed FC5 about a year ago, a question came up along the lines "Do you want to combine the remaining empty space on hda and hdb into one large logical volume?" And I said yes, not knowing what exactly would happen if I say no (like probably most installers of linux OS I was mystified and still am, at least about LVM).

Now there is a discrepancy between FC5's view of the hard disks and how some other program sees it. If I use in the menu: System->Administration->Logical Volume Management, there is a large section of more than 93 GB which is all the storage that I have for
linux. On the other hand, if I use qtparted or GParted, it recognizes the partitions hda1, hda2, and hda3, but in the column Fileysystem it writes 'unknown'. So I don't trust it to change the size of partitions.

On the other hand, the logical volume management doesn't really allow me to make any changes to the size of the partitions, it allows only adding and removing an entire hard disk to or from the LVM system. So the central question is: What tools can I use and how to make the repartitioning before I start installing FC6? a new OS.

However, I don't understand the LVM system and the discrepancy between different tools showing the partitions. There are two disks on this PC, of 30 MB and 93MB. The smaller one, hda, contains a windows 98 partition (hd1) and a Linux Fedora 5 partition (hd3) for the remaining 20 GB. The bigger disk, hdb, which I added later, has 90 GB, and contains the boot sector for FC5, while the rest of it is all part of the logical volume system with VM.

I didn't really plan it that way: When I installed FC5 about a year ago, a question came up along the lines "Do you want to combine the remaining empty space on hda and hdb into one large logical volume?" And I said yes, not knowing what exactly would happen if I say no
(like probably most installers of linux OS I was mystified and still am, at least about LVM).
Now there is a discrepancy between FC5's view of the hard disks and how some other program sees it. If I use in the menu: System->Administration->Logical Volume Management, there is a large section of more than 93 GB which is all the storage that I have for linux. On the other hand, if I use qtparted or GParted, it recognizes the partitions hda1, hda2, and hda3, but in the column Fileysystem it writes 'unknown'. So I don't trust it to change the size of partitions.

On the other hand, the logical volume management doesn't really allow me to make any changes to the size of the partitions, it allows only adding and removing an entire hard disk to or from the LVM system.

So the central question is: What tools can I use and how to make the repartitioning before I start installing FC6?