Arch Linux

vivekkadre

Member

Registered: 2022-09-22

Posts: 1

Increase size of root partition

Hi,

I have a root partition of size ~20GB, and it is almost full. How do I enlarge this partition to around 40GB without having to reinstall? I tried reducing the size of /dev/sda3 and got 20GB of unallocated space, but I was unable to use the 20GB to extend the root partition.

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 223.6G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   511M  0 part /boot
├─sda2   8:2    0  19.5G  0 part /
└─sda3   8:3    0 203.6G  0 part /home

Thanks

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,263

Re: Increase size of root partition

In order to use the free unallocated space from lowering /dev/sda3 you need to move the entire partition "up" so that the free space is adjacent to the root partition again. Most partitioning tools can do that, in any case this is a case where I'd reccommend something that allows you to visualize this well, like a GParted Live Disk that allows you to simply do this via a graphical interface. General disclaimer, disk operations are hairy and can go wrong easily, make sure you have backups of the important stuff.

As for reclaiming some space on your root, something that often gets forgotten and can accumulate unchecked is the pacman cache, make sure you periodically cler/handle that: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … kage_cache