Help with partitioning

[ainsaur]

I currently have two partitions for my Breezy system: root and swap. Before upgrading to Dapper, I would like to have 3 partitions: root, home, and swap. In this way, I can keep my data in "home" and not worry about losing it if I have a problem upgrading. Is there a way of doing this without wiping out my hard drive and starting over? If so, can someone please post step-by-step instructions on how to do it. I consider myself to have moderate computer skills although Linux frequently makes me feel like a beginner.

Thanks, in advance for any advice.

[TheDarkSavant]

Re: Help with partitioning

There are ways to do it, I just can't recall the names of the tools i've used; however, all methods are risky and you should backup all your important data. If you are going to backup your data anyways, you might as well just repartition the drive.

Search sourceforge, freshmeat, and/or google for repartitioning software.

[randcoop]

Re: Help with partitioning

No matter what course you take, back up your data first.

Having said that, there's live cd distro called Gparted that is excellent. It's only about 35MB and when you boot with it, you'll have a great graphical partition program to work with. It will let you resize your existing partition(s) and then create a new one from the unused space for your home directory.

To get Gparted, go here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Again, I want to emphasize: things go wrong on occasion with any partitioning software. Back up your data before using it.

[aysiu]

Re: Help with partitioning

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome.html

[ainsaur]

Re: Help with partitioning

Thanks to all for your advice. I've downloaded the Gparted live CD and will give it a go later on today. If I understand what I read, I should:

1. Back up data
2. Boot the Gparted live CD.
3. Resize my root partition so that it's smaller
4. create a new partition out of the unallocated space called "home".
5. exit the live CD

Is this correct?

I plan on doing a clean install from the Dapper CD so when I am done, will the "home" folder in Konqueror be automatically linked to my home partition? If not, how do I link it?

[sky]

Re: Help with partitioning

Hi,

Yes, it's good solution to do it...
Keep us informed how it was working ?

Cheers

[aysiu]

Re: Help with partitioning

I plan on doing a clean install from the Dapper CD so when I am done, will the "home" folder in Konqueror be automatically linked to my home partition? If not, how do I link it?

Choose to manually edit the partition table and mount the partition at /home but uncheck the reformat button. The second image I link to mounts my document partition at /documents, but it's the same idea.