Installed Karmic ok, but need to merge disk space.HOW?

[rovernaut]

I was running 9.04 and did an upgrade to 9.10,but sound was an issue.
So I ran live 9.10 Cd and founs that sound worked ok. So I did a fresh install of 9.10 on the unused portion of the hard drive.
I'm happy with it so I deleted the exiting 9.04 and now have empty space on the Hard drive.
Question. How can I resize the new 9.10 to use the extra hard drive space I have before it. I also have Xp on another section of the Hard Drive, that's ok.

I'm a newb still, but this is what I want to achieve.
Merge these 2 into one - ( Free space is on) /dev/sda2 has 90.68 gb
and
karmic is installed on /dev/sda5 has 43.42gb.

The goal is to make Karmic drive 134.1 gb total.
Can it be done? I tried the live Cd and found the drive was locked.

[Fintan]

Re: Installed Karmic ok, but need to merge disk space.HOW?

Welcome to the party

The best way to partition is using one of these live cd's:
gparted live:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

with plenty of partitioning info & how to's

or partedmagic:
http://partedmagic.com/download.html

also with documentation:
http://partedmagic.com/documentation...g-gparted.html

You may have a problem with grub (boot manager) after resizing, so you may want to get the supergrub live cd just in case:
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

Of course, if you have not done too much with kubuntu yet you may decide to give /home a separate partition and install kubuntu again.
This will give you several advantages, one being data security and more flexibility.

Hope this helps

[oshunluvr]

Re: Installed Karmic ok, but need to merge disk space.HOW?

If you're digging into your partition setup, you may consider a different target rather than the old windows way of having everything on drive "C:".

It's actually better for several reasons (backup, performance, file security, saving your personal settings, prevent lockups, multiple or backup installs...many more) to have a partitioned install.

In case you're unfamiliar with the linux partition numbering scheme:

Partition numbers 1-4 are reserved for Primary partitions because that is the limit of Primary partitions allowed. One or more of the Primary partitions may be an Extended partition that can contain any number of (I've never reached a limit) Logical partitions. Logical partitions begin numbering at 5. Drives are lettered in order of bios access so your first drive is "A" and second is "B" and so on.

Each drive and partition is then assigned a device letter/number for unique reference. So drive A (the entire drive) is /dev/sda and partition 1 on drive A (just this partition) is /dev/sda1 and so on.

That may seem like a lot of information - but it follows a very logical sequence and it's not hard to understand.

This is just my opinion; but the best setup for a hard drive size like yours is:

Primary Partition 1: swap space > 2 to 4 gigabytes

• Swap space should be at least as large as your RAM.

Primary Partition 2: extended space > all remaining space
Logical Partition 5: install space, mount point "/" > 12gb

• 12gb is plenty for a fully loaded linux install (mine is less than 9gb).

Logical Partition 6: personal files, mount point "/home" > all remaining space (about 88gb)

• Your personal settings a data should be kept separate from the install partitions so you can more easily backup your data and protects your settings if you have to re-install your operating system.

Logical Partition 7: temporary file space, mount point "/tmp" > 20gb

• Keeping /tmp space separate prevents accidental overfilling of your operating system space thus leaving your system unusable.

Logical Partition 8: extra install space, unmounted > 12gb

• A spare 12gb set aside gives you a free space to install another version of linux or a second copy of the one you're using.

Again - I know it seems like a lot of data, but you'll end up with a more solid, safer, and likely a bit faster system than if you lump it all together.

Regarding your initial question: the drive wasn't actually "locked", you just hadn't given yourself permission to access it. Fintan's links and advice are correct if you want to proceed the way you desired.

If you want to try it my way - It will likely be less work for you to start over than try and rearrange what you have now. Let me know if you want to try it and I'll give you the steps to follow.

[rovernaut]

Re: Installed Karmic ok, but need to merge disk space.HOW?

If you're digging into your partition setup, you may consider a different target rather than the old windows way of having everything on drive "C:".

It's actually better for several reasons (backup, performance, file security, saving your personal settings, prevent lockups, multiple or backup installs...many more) to have a partitioned install.

In case you're unfamiliar with the linux partition numbering scheme:

Partition numbers 1-4 are reserved for Primary partitions because that is the limit of Primary partitions allowed. One or more of the Primary partitions may be an Extended partition that can contain any number of (I've never reached a limit) Logical partitions. Logical partitions begin numbering at 5. Drives are lettered in order of bios access so your first drive is "A" and second is "B" and so on.

Each drive and partition is then assigned a device letter/number for unique reference. So drive A (the entire drive) is /dev/sda and partition 1 on drive A (just this partition) is /dev/sda1 and so on.

That may seem like a lot of information - but it follows a very logical sequence and it's not hard to understand.

This is just my opinion; but the best setup for a hard drive size like yours is:

Primary Partition 1: swap space > 2 to 4 gigabytes

• Swap space should be at least as large as your RAM.

Primary Partition 2: extended space > all remaining space
Logical Partition 5: install space, mount point "/" > 12gb

• 12gb is plenty for a fully loaded linux install (mine is less than 9gb).

Logical Partition 6: personal files, mount point "/home" > all remaining space (about 88gb)

• Your personal settings a data should be kept separate from the install partitions so you can more easily backup your data and protects your settings if you have to re-install your operating system.

Logical Partition 7: temporary file space, mount point "/tmp" > 20gb

• Keeping /tmp space separate prevents accidental overfilling of your operating system space thus leaving your system unusable.

Logical Partition 8: extra install space, unmounted > 12gb

• A spare 12gb set aside gives you a free space to install another version of linux or a second copy of the one you're using.

Again - I know it seems like a lot of data, but you'll end up with a more solid, safer, and likely a bit faster system than if you lump it all together.

Regarding your initial question: the drive wasn't actually "locked", you just hadn't given yourself permission to access it. Fintan's links and advice are correct if you want to proceed the way you desired.

If you want to try it my way - It will likely be less work for you to start over than try and rearrange what you have now. Let me know if you want to try it and I'll give you the steps to follow.

Thanks that a great bit of info...... I was contemplating giving Lucis a go when it's released, and might set it up as you prescribe.
Many thanks.!!!!!

[rovernaut]

Re: Installed Karmic ok, but need to merge disk space.HOW?

Welcome to the party

The best way to partition is using one of these live cd's:
gparted live:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

with plenty of partitioning info & how to's

or partedmagic:
http://partedmagic.com/download.html

also with documentation:
http://partedmagic.com/documentation...g-gparted.html

You may have a problem with grub (boot manager) after resizing, so you may want to get the supergrub live cd just in case:
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

Of course, if you have not done too much with kubuntu yet you may decide to give /home a separate partition and install kubuntu again.
This will give you several advantages, one being data security and more flexibility.

Hope this helps

Thankyou for your advice.