mac resize partition
 

I have a mac with only one partition ive been using for years. I would like to put linux on it but, I have no way to back up my hard drive, is there a free and safe way to resize the partition?

This is more of a Mac question then a Linux one, as far as I know the only tool that should be used to attempt this with is Disc Ultility within Mac OS itself, also you should have the Mac OS installation disc to hand incase to process fails as to fix any issues that may occur will require booting into a live version of Mac OS off of the installation Disc and running the same program from within the live version (something I became aware of when using bootcamp previously and suffering such an issue from resizing the partition).

From memory I believe installing Linux on a Mac invalidates the warrenty, I could be wrong but if you have had it for years I am guessing the warrenty has long since expired anyway.

to back up the drive of an image would knoppix live run on a mac ?
then you can run 'dd if=/dev/hda of=mac-harddrive-bak.iso'

people seem to like gparted for non-destructive resizing.