Hello,

I'd like to reduce the size of my linux partition.
Is that possible?

My partition info is this:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 2099199 1048576 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 2099200 234440703 116170752 8e Linux LVM

After the resize I may have a new /dev/sdb3 partition.

I user Centos 7.

Thank you,
Nikos

Yes, you can resize the partitions. First step is to make sure you files are backed up, because things could go wrong.
The easiest way is with a bootable system like gparted, https://gparted.org/liveusb.php. It is nice graphical system to resize partitions.

It depends. What are you trying to accomplish?

I assume you selected default partitioning which uses xfs filesystems and no free space exists with in the PV. Unfortunately, xfs filesystems can not be resized smaller.

/dev/sdb2 which is a LVM contains the volume group and logical volumes which are your /root, /home and swap filesystems. The only way to "shrink" xfs is to backup your system, delete the LVs, create new LVs/filesystems and restore.

What I initially wanted to do is to clone my linux disk to a new one that had exactly the same size.
I tried from windows first using Acronis Director.
That was not possible because although the size was identical there was an error before the copying that the size is not enough.
And I couldn't select to copy part of the disk neither resize.

So, I thought resizing from Centos.
After your advises, I chose Gparted.
I created a livecd and when it loaded I get disappointed because it could not copy the partition: there was a message that something from lvm2 needs to install.
Nevertheless, I managed to shrink /dev/sdb2 for 4Mb. That was all I was allowed to do from Gparted.
And yes, those 4mb were enough for Acronis (Windows again) to permit me to clone the disk (no error for not enough space now).

I copied both of the partitions (I set active the boot partition). No errors.
Now, when I try to boot from the newly created disk, I have two errors:
MBR Error 3
MBR Error 1

I followed the instructions https://cstan.io/?p=8878&lang=en here to restore the MBR but when I booted, same errors.

Any ideas?

In your last post, you first say "And yes, those 4mb were enough for Acronis (Windows again) to permit me to clone the disk (no error for not enough space now)." Then you say you copied both of the partitions. You need to copy/clone the entire drive to include the MBR. The link below explains those errors and has suggestons on fixing the problem.



https://recoverit.wondershare.com/co...ror-1-2-3.html

I copied the entire disk using Acronis and this time it worked!

Thank you all and especially thanks to yancek for his last advice