How do i re size my Slackware partition without deleting it and starting over, I'm new to Slackware and the work i have done i don't feel like doing again.

I have set my swap and my actual HDD partition for Slackware to +8048M, I am correct in saying that fdisk can only delete and start fresh, I was a Ubuntu/Fedora user if i could get something like Gparted up that would be great but i don't mind some reading and learning some more terminal based stuff.

Planning on working out the kinks and dealing with the learning curve, Love to learn.

Could you not boot from a live ubuntu cd and use gparted from there? The bonus of that is none of your partition on your machine will be mounted if you're on a live cd.

Why use Ubuntu? There are LiveCD/USB images from the GParted official website.

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That will boot and run much quicker than Ubuntu. As they are geared towards system rescue and maintance. Personally I like Slitaz, CDlinux, and RIPLinuX (short review) if I need a GUI based rescue CD.

There are plenty of command line tools to resize as well. If you boot with the Slackware installation medium, you can use resize2fs if your partitions are formatted to ext3/4, reiser fs and xfs have their own resize tools. I believe you might be SOL if you chose JFS and need to shrink the partition. JFS can be enlarged, but not shrunk.

man resize2fs

Gparted is definitely the answer if you're unfamiliar with the command-line tools. Personally, I swear by the SystemRescueCD distribution which includes gparted. I just this past week used it to resize and move a 2TB partition without incident.

This is what fdisk says my lay out is now, Can anyone give me any pointers on what exactly i should change?, I just want to be able to use my whole HDD in slackware, I've already run out of space so i can't download anything else to poke around and learn, I know besides the Swap there should be one for "/" One for "/Home" And another for "/usr/local" or something, I followed the tutorial but now i think of it when i set the partitions i did not specify what was for what at anytime in the install, Besides the "Swap" of course.



Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1027 8249346 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda2 1028 2054 8249377+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2055 3081 8249377+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 3082 19457 131540220 83 Linux

EDIT:

I have the systemrescuecd now too so any tools on that i can work with.

/etc/fstab will tell you what's mounted where at boot.

/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext4 defaults 1 1
#/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

My Fstab.

Without fancy software, you can resize any one partition without loosing data as long as it starts in exactly the same place as it was. -EXACTLY- the same place.

That being said, if you want to shrink the partition, you first shrink the filesystem to just under the final size. Then use fdisk to delete and recreate the partition. Then expand the filesystem to fill the extra space on the partition.

If you want to go larger, you have to move any data that would be on the partition you're expanding into. Fdisk to delete the partition in the way, then resize the first partition over the empty space. Then expand the filesystem to fill the void.

However, because none of this is low level data manipulation, you can not move partitions only linearly expand and contract from the same starting point. It's also extremely risky.

Given that you "just want to be able to use my whole HDD in slackware" and also given that per /etc/fstab your /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda4 are not being used at all (despite your thinking 'there should be one for "/" One for "/Home" And another for "/usr/local" or something'), I would consider doing this:
1. Get a good backup of your system (/dev/sda2)
2. Using gparted:
a. Delete partitions 3 and 4
b. Grow /dev/sda2 to take up the resulting empty space

Before doing this you might want to mount partitions 3 and 4 just to see what's there before you wipe them.

You can only expand into an adjacent partition... !

I have used WINPM(partition magic) to resize two non-linux partitions, and all work fine. hope you can use it to adjust your linux patition without data lost.

Looking at your "fdisk -l" out put and your fstab I am wondering about /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda4. They not being mounted in fstab.

Perhaps that is where all of your disk space is?

What is the output of "df -hT"? Of "mount"?

Edit: OK, reread the thread, I guess you have other Linux systems running on those.