Shrink windows partition and increase linux partition

[titusdt]

Hi all.

I am new to Linux. My distribution is Maverick Meerkat, my CPU an ASUS EeePC. I installed Kubuntu without any knowledge about partitioning following standard instructions from the main Kubuntu web page.

Here's a snapshot of gparted.


As you can see I shrank the size of my windows partition. Now I have all this unused space before my swap partition and the main linux partition. So let me get this straight: should I boot from Windows or a USB disk and reinstall Linux. or is there a way I can shift the Linux partition "left" ?

Best
gus

[titusdt]

Re: Shrink windows partition and increase linux partition

Here's the snapshot. somehow typing "bracket img image.png /img bracket" in the body of the post did not work

[Snowhog]

Re: Shrink windows partition and increase linux partition

The quick and dirty answer is that you can use GParted to 'move' your partions into space you create. Go to the GParted Homepage and read up on 'moving partitions.' I've done it. Because the 'new' partitions will have higher partition numbering, and their own UUIDs, changes to your fstab and mtab files would have to be made after such a move. If however, you have not invested a lot of time and customization to your Kubuntu, then simply using GParted to resetup your HD the way you want, and then doing a fresh installation of Kubuntu is actually the 'cleaner' way to go about this.

[Snowhog]

Re: Shrink windows partition and increase linux partition

Geez! 15GB for swap!! That is way, way, way overkill. You only need a swap partition that is no more than 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have in your PC.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Shrink windows partition and increase linux partition

The easiest/safest way to do this is boot to a liveCD or USB and run gparted, then:

1. Delete the swap partition and re-create it at the front of the available space. This is waaaay faster than trying to move it. My advice on swap size: If you are using a laptop, make swap the same size as RAM. If you're using a desktop, make the swap 2gb or the size of your RAM whichever is smaller unless you are doing tremendous amounts of heavy multiple processes - like encoding DVD's four at a time.

2. Use gparted to move your linux partition to the left all the way. Then expand it to around 12gb (since I suspect you're going to be using linux more than windows in the near future ).

3. Suggestion only: Create another 12gb partition for another linux install. Useful for a backup or to test a new distro or new version release without possibly damaging your current install.

4. Then add the remaining space to /home.

I can't recall if gparted can fix partition numbering by itself or not - but no matter, if the deletion and re-creation of the swap partition messes up the numbering, you can easily fix it with fdisk.

[titusdt]

Re: Shrink windows partition and increase linux partition

cool thanks guys for the quick replies. Im gonna make a usb stick with damn small linux and run gparted from there