can I use gparted to resize after installation
 

Hi All,

To make a long story short, I deleted all my partitions on a second HHD, and installed Ubuntu 7.04. I choose to let the installer set up partitions. Now I have a swap, and 147 GB ext3 partition. What I had hoped I could do was go in with gparted and resize these partitions. I installed gparted and opened it, but it will not let me do anything to these partitions.

What I would like to end up with is two 10 gig partitions, one for Ubuntu, and one for a later install of a different distro, and the rest of the drive as a separate partition to store data. Can I accomplish that now, or will I need to partition before hand and then install Ubuntu again?

The problem I had last time when I partitioned before the install, was figuring out how to use the installer to set the partitions correctly for "/" and all else that is necessary.

As you can tell, I am a newbie.

Thanks for all help.

I have resized reformatted and created partitions from ubuntu after install what i do is download gparted or use the live cd, I prefer the live cd, as it does not seem to create so many issues, but that may not have any essence to it. One problem i have faced is when a partition is locked, but i have had more success doing this kind of formatting from a live cd. Just boot you live cd, open terminal and type sudo gparted, you can select the drive, resize reformat or whatever. If your willing to tho, you might prefer to start over, so that you have your partitions in a preferable order, during ubuntu install go to manual setup or whatever, just create a base partition for ubuntu a swap probably a gig, a data, and whatever else, you probably have to create logial partitions after the first one or two... to set a partition as home or whatever during the install on the partition management step you select a partition and click edit or something like that, a think will pop up with partition size and mount point, you can set the size of the partition, and mount point there, if you want to mount it on home or install directory just put a slash "/" in this field. You can also mount a partition as /media/-whatever you want- for data partitions or /home if you want to have your data partition be your home partition. I currently have my partitions in a tangle from not planning it out perfect at the beginning, i have changed after install, but am not completely satisfied, i plan on going in and re doing everything as i want soon, and i think that is what you should do, tho you can be satisfied otherwise. Good luck, any questions or doubts, just keep posting, i'm a relative noob but i will help you where i can.
BTW - when i refer to live cd i am refering to the Ubuntu live cd.

Thanks,

I think I am following you from what I have been experimenting with.

So I need a swap partition, a "/" partition which will be where the OS is installed, and a "/home" partition for data? How can a set aside another 10gig for a future install? Will it allow me to create two "/" partitions?

Thanks for the help.

no you cannot create two / partititions, what your probably want to do is just leave the space for future installations as unpartitioned, seeing as when you install other operating systems you will have similar install options, you can create the partition then (upon installing the other OS) and set the new partition (the one you make during the future install) as "/" no need to do it now, and you cant do it now, it will be set up with the other OS. So in summary, you will go into installation, delete all the partitions, make a partition for the os, mount it as "/" make a partition for data mount it as "/home" (both without quotations of course) and a swap which does not need to be mounted, the rest of the space for later on can be left un partitioned... and you will nto have a problem partitioning it for other installs later on.

Furthermore, you probably want to make your first partition "primary" and the rest of the partitions are "logical"... get back to me if you have more questions or doubts.

I will try to be clear.. good luck...

EDIT - your probably want to stick with ext3 for the partitions (with exception of the SWAP)

This is what I am considering. I have 160 gig drive to work with.

swap = 1024mb
"/" = 10 gig ext3 (This one would then be primary?) To install Ubuntu.
"/home" = 130 gig ext3 (make this one extended or logical?) For storage.

That would leave me approx 20 gig unpartitioned for future use should I want to add a distro.

I am a little sketchy on the primary/logical/extened, other than I know the number of primary are limited. I also do not remember seeing the options for selecting what type of partition, but it must have been there.

I am considering trying gparted first, then booting off the install disk, though unsure what Ubuntu installer will give me for options if the partitions are already there. Hopefully I will use the manual install option and figure it out from there.

I have lost a post where someone gave a good explanation of how Linux used the different mounts, if that is the proper term. Seems like the post was saying that with a "/home" partition, anything that was saved to my "home" folder would automatically be put on this "/home" partition. Am I completely full of it? I am so used to Windows, where I browse to where I want to save a file.

My point is to be able to save my data on a different partition than the OS.

Thanks for all the help.

primary/logical/extened,- Yes i would suggest making one primary for the OS, then make an extended with all the rest of the space, and however many logicals you would need, being the logical for data, and the logical with the extra space if you decide to partition the extra space now.
I would like to explain the extended/ logical... in a simple way. Extended is a sort of partition that makes logical partitions possible, that is a logical partition comes after an extended partition and is actually a division of the extended partition. So if you go to gparted you would first make a primary partition, then an extended partition with all of the rest of the space, and then however many logical partitions you wanted, swap can be "logical" also.
-If you use the ubuntu installer you will not even see the term "extended" as it will automatically set this up when you tell it to make a "logical" partition.

I hope that was clear enough, if you have doubts on that go ahead and ask me.

As for the /home thing, when you select the mount point of a partition to be /home it is infact the home on linux, so yes, when you go to home in linux and save something it is infact going to another partition, in this case your "data" partition.

Good luck, feel free to ask anything... sorry for the delay in response, my internet was slow with this site during a storm we were having here.

For some reason I can not get gparted live cd to boot. I used the manual mode in the Ubuntu installer, and with what you described it went very well. I left some of the HHD unused, and most as /home.

The newer version of Ubuntu solved some problems I was having, so happy about that.

If this "home" works as I am understanding, it sounds very slick.

Thanks for all the help.