[SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

MrCush · 2018-10-28 10:59:20

Alright, so here I was thinking, "Hey! I'm finally going to get rid of this old Ubuntu installation that's taking 100GB of my space and extend my Arch partition. It's going to be simple, I've done it plenty of times on Windows....."
Boy was I wrong. Thankfully I decided to play it safe and do a quick google search and saw that I was really happy I didn't do it from the Windows disk management.

SO. I currently have a triple boot with Windows 10, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux. About 2 hours ago I reinstalled grub and got that working with Arch running it and recognizing Windows.
From what I've read online, it sucks if your Arch root partition is after the partition you are extending it to on its start position however fortunately I had taken space off of my
Windows partition thus my Arch root is before the Ubuntu root and after the EFI and Windows partitions. The issue I see is that my swap file is in between my Arch root and
my Ubuntu root. I'll go ahead and list my partitions.

fdisk:

$ sudo fdisk -l
dev/nvme0n1p3    567296  583290879 582723584 277.9G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 945737728  998166527  52428800    25G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p5 998166528 1000214527   2048000  1000M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p6 685690880  735643647  49952768  23.8G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p7 735643648  945737727 210094080 100.2G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p8 583290880  685690879 102400000  48.8G Linux filesystem

lsblk:

$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1     259:0    0   477G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   260M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0    16M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 277.9G  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4    0    25G  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5    0  1000M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6    0  23.8G  0 part [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p7 259:7    0 100.2G  0 part 
└─nvme0n1p8 259:8    0  48.8G  0 part /

blkid:

/dev/nvme0n1p1: LABEL="SYSTEM_DRV" UUID="CC0A-DE62" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="189efb36-c601-40fc-8f75-584f3b023f71"
/dev/nvme0n1p3: LABEL="Windows" UUID="AAE00B97E00B68C1" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="fe40120d-bdf1-47ec-bca0-4617ccc591bb"
/dev/nvme0n1p4: LABEL="LENOVO" UUID="3EF0EDCAF0ED888B" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="58c78bbc-5c71-411c-8891-191aa412894c"
/dev/nvme0n1p5: LABEL="WINRE_DRV" UUID="C6180D33180D2451" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="9325e9aa-a83d-4b36-bdd1-8fd930af046c"
/dev/nvme0n1p6: UUID="785a988b-edf0-4e72-8a5c-b02dd2a6a0fa" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="384addd7-cc13-4788-806e-b29eb9f9078f"
/dev/nvme0n1p7: UUID="cba07fc8-3789-4311-8abe-5b323a7d6a3f" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="ca0a090c-2c60-478f-9244-0e015badfaf4"
/dev/nvme0n1p8: UUID="140cbf24-08ee-4c5a-87f3-d26f179ef7e4" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="6c824422-92ba-394a-8870-1dd8dbe4e732"
/dev/nvme0n1: PTUUID="4b8b2806-15dc-4f63-8f2e-65a3057160e8" PTTYPE="gpt"
/dev/nvme0n1p2: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="8c0cd7de-012c-4023-8ef7-804a081388ae"

Ubuntu is

/dev/nvme0n1p7

Arch is

/dev/nvme0n1p8

I would REALLY appreciate a step by step what I need to do guide as I really don't want to screw this up as I've spent countless hours setting up my Arch and customizing it and I don't feel like going though that from scratch again if I can help it. I'm just running out of space.
I wish I had read about LVM before installing Arch.

So, what I see is Arch ending, swap beginning and ending, and then Ubuntu begins. Everything prior to Arch is Windows and the EFI. Can I do this all on something like GParted? I've heard GParted rounds instead of using exact space and that can make you lose everything but it's also a simple GUI. Should I use Fdisk? Do I just delete Ubuntu and the Swap, extend Arch, and then remake the Swap? Is my situation pretty simple and I'm overthinking it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated and if you have the time to do a step to step guide on this piece you would be amazing. If not, like I said, any help and advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Mod Edit - Replaced oversized image with link.
CoC - Pasting pictures and code

Last edited by MrCush (2018-10-30 01:53:57)

Slithery · 2018-10-28 11:23:56

Don't post pictures of code, post the actual code...
CoC - Pasting pictures and code

ewaller · 2018-10-28 15:25:45

What is your current partition scheme? It sounds as if your Arch Linux installation is one one large partition. My thoughts are that you should not make that partition even larger, but perhaps should partition the volume that had been Ubuntu with your favorite filesystem (Say ext4 or jfs) and then mount that file volume somewhere in your file system that makes sense.

Suggested places might be /home or /var. Or, If you have a large media collection in a subdirectory of your $HOME, you could use that as a mount point instead and mount the volume there. Note that in any of these cases, you are going need to move the files to your new partition before mounting it in its final location by mounting it somewhere else while you set it up.

MrCush · 2018-10-28 19:07:44

ewaller wrote:

What is your current partition scheme? It sounds as if your Arch Linux installation is one one large partition. My thoughts are that you should not make that partition even larger, but perhaps should partition the volume that had been Ubuntu with your favorite filesystem (Say ext4 or jfs) and then mount that file volume somewhere in your file system that makes sense.
Suggested places might be /home or /var. Or, If you have a large media collection in a subdirectory of your $HOME, you could use that as a mount point instead and mount the volume there. Note that in any of these cases, you are going need to move the files to your new partition before mounting it in its final location by mounting it somewhere else while you set it up.

I had originally posted an image in OP but I edited it with some code tags. So I have my partition scheme posted up in the OP now.

As far as my Arch Linux installation, I never made a seperate /home partition. I just put it all into one. Is there a method I can use to change this? My root Arch Linux partition is 50GB while my Ubuntu is 100GB. I guess I'm not exactly sure how to go about what you are saying but it sounds more simple and safe. I'm assuming I would somehow move my /home folder onto the Ubuntu partition after I delete it and format it as ext4? Not sure how I would go about linking them together I guess. I appreciate the advice and hope you come back to give more xD.

EDIT: I reread your post a bit more clearly. So in order to do this I must:

1. Shrink Windows partition another 30-50GB
2. Format that temp partition as ext4
3. Copy /home over
3. Delete Ubuntu
4. Reformat that partition as ext4
5. Mount that partition
6. Move or Copy /home from the temp partition
7. Delete temp partition and extend it back onto the Windows partition?
8. Everything works?
9. Delete /home from the root partition since I don't need it anymore

Or am I misunderstanding you and I can just copy /home straight from the root arch partition onto the new mounted partition that i deleted Ubuntu from?

Again, I appreciate your help

Last edited by MrCush (2018-10-28 19:59:15)

duaner · 2018-10-28 22:17:04

MrCush wrote:

Or am I misunderstanding you and I can just copy /home straight from the root arch partition onto the new mounted partition that i deleted Ubuntu from?

You can copy directly from one to the other:

$ su -    (or sudo -i bash)
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p7      (this will destroy everything on the partition)
# mkdir /mnt/newpart
# mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt/newpart
# cp -aiv /home/* /mnt/newpart/
# umount /mnt/newpart

Double check that partition number. I might have made a mistake.

Then edit your /etc/fstab file to mount the partition as home:

/dev/nvme0n1p7     /home      ext4      defaults         0 2

Edit: Note that this will leave a copy of your home on the original partition, which will be over-mounted with the new home. Get everything working, then you can worry about removing that.

Now, having said that, if you do anything complicated with your data, or if you feel at all uncertain, back it up. If you aren't in a position to make a full backup, work on that before you do anything gamey with your drives. I bought a 2Tb removable drive at walmart years ago (for $50) that makes experimenting a lot safer. Don't get impatient and learn through great loss.

Last edited by duaner (2018-10-28 22:24:18)

MrCush · 2018-10-28 23:59:13

duaner wrote:

MrCush wrote:
Or am I misunderstanding you and I can just copy /home straight from the root arch partition onto the new mounted partition that i deleted Ubuntu from?
You can copy directly from one to the other:
$ su -    (or sudo -i bash)
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p7      (this will destroy everything on the partition)
# mkdir /mnt/newpart
# mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt/newpart
# cp -aiv /home/* /mnt/newpart/
# umount /mnt/newpart
Double check that partition number. I might have made a mistake.
Then edit your /etc/fstab file to mount the partition as home:
/dev/nvme0n1p7     /home      ext4      defaults         0 2
Edit: Note that this will leave a copy of your home on the original partition, which will be over-mounted with the new home. Get everything working, then you can worry about removing that.
Now, having said that, if you do anything complicated with your data, or if you feel at all uncertain, back it up. If you aren't in a position to make a full backup, work on that before you do anything gamey with your drives. I bought a 2Tb removable drive at walmart years ago (for $50) that makes experimenting a lot safer. Don't get impatient and learn through great loss.

Thanks! I really appreciate it. I’ll give it a go when I get back to my place. Definitely going to just shrink Windows again and back up whole root to new partition just in case. Rather be safe than sorry. I’m glad it’s this simple though. I’ll shoot back an update when done and mark this as solved.

Thanks again!

YCH · 2018-10-29 02:01:24

Do you want remove 100G ubuntu partition and grow arch partion?

- deactivate and remove swap - because it is in between arch <-> ubuntu
- remove ubuntu partition
- make new swap at before this partition
/dev/nvme0n1p4 945737728 998166527 52428800 25G Microsoft basic data
- reboot to livecd
- grow arch partition.

I think this is your physical part order, check what GParted showing.

/dev/nvme0n1p3 567296 583290879 582723584 277.9G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p8 583290880 685690879 102400000 48.8G Linux filesystem -> Arch
/dev/nvme0n1p6 685690880 735643647 49952768 23.8G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p7 735643648 945737727 210094080 100.2G Linux filesystem -> ubuntu
/dev/nvme0n1p4 945737728 998166527 52428800 25G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p5 998166528 1000214527 2048000 1000M Windows recovery environment

MrCush · 2018-10-29 18:20:22

YCH wrote:

Do you want remove 100G ubuntu partition and grow arch partion?
- deactivate and remove swap - because it is in between arch <-> ubuntu
- remove ubuntu partition
- make new swap at before this partition
/dev/nvme0n1p4 945737728 998166527 52428800 25G Microsoft basic data
- reboot to livecd
- grow arch partition.
I think this is your physical part order, check what GParted showing.
/dev/nvme0n1p3 567296 583290879 582723584 277.9G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p8 583290880 685690879 102400000 48.8G Linux filesystem -> Arch
/dev/nvme0n1p6 685690880 735643647 49952768 23.8G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p7 735643648 945737727 210094080 100.2G Linux filesystem -> ubuntu
/dev/nvme0n1p4 945737728 998166527 52428800 25G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p5 998166528 1000214527 2048000 1000M Windows recovery environment

This is my GParted:

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with what ewaller and dwainer said when it comes to seperating my home folder into a new partition and essentially extending it that way however I never would have thought of deactivating swap prior to deleting it >.<
Good to know for future reference.
How large should the root partition generally be? I currently have the root partition + home folder all together with 50GB. I'm wondering if I should maybe move the swap partition anyways so that I have contiguous memory there and can possibly shrink the root partition and throw it in on the home partition I'm making if 50GB for a root partition is outrageously large. I also don't want to run out of space on the root partition when i might need it and get royally screwed that way after I make home a separate partition in front of it giving it no leeway to grab any more space unless there's a possibility to move some free space behind it in front of it. How does Windows do all of this? lol. Seems way more complicated than I ever thought it was after using Windows disk management.

Anyways, wasn't able to work on this last night as I got home really late but will do once I get off work today.

YCH · 2018-10-29 18:51:12

MrCush wrote:

How large should the root partition generally be?

It depends.

And you don't need to worry about this problem if you don't split partition. Just don't do it. No benefit to single user machine.

Also you don't need big swap partition. It would be good enough with same size of your RAM in case of doing hibernation.

Don't do partitioning when u r drunk.

MrCush · 2018-10-30 01:53:36

YCH wrote:

MrCush wrote:
How large should the root partition generally be?
It depends.
And you don't need to worry about this problem if you don't split partition. Just don't do it. No benefit to single user machine.
Also you don't need big swap partition. It would be good enough with same size of your RAM in case of doing hibernation.
Don't do partitioning when u r drunk.

Ya, well I ended up just using gparted to delete ubuntu partition, turn swap off, move swap past unallocated space, extend root partition, and turned swap back on. Took like 15 seconds. Hitting the apply button was scary but no issues. Rebooted to make sure. I'll mark thread as solved. Ended up not making a separate home partition.

Thanks again everyone.

Arch Linux

#1 2018-10-28 10:59:20

[SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#2 2018-10-28 11:23:56

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#3 2018-10-28 15:25:45

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#4 2018-10-28 19:07:44

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#5 2018-10-28 22:17:04

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#6 2018-10-28 23:59:13

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#7 2018-10-29 02:01:24

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#8 2018-10-29 18:20:22

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#9 2018-10-29 18:51:12

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

#10 2018-10-30 01:53:36

Re: [SOLVED] Extending root partition with swap partition in the way

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