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#1 2009-05-02 10:52:53

lumbar
Member
Registered: 2009-04-17
Posts: 8

Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

Hi

(Hint, I reported this as bug 14556: http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/14556)

My / partition is running out of space:

carsten ~ $ LANG=C df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 7.3G 7.0G 0 100% /
none 506M 0 506M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 38M 9.1M 27M 26% /boot
/dev/sda4 139G 38G 95G 29% /home

I cannot even run firefox without issues. The obvious solution is to resize / but I don't know how (GParted and QParted don't offer the resize option for /).

Any tips? A reinstall would seriosly suck.

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#2 2009-05-02 11:17:20

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

uhmm... you chose your partitions sizes at install, so you're responsilbe for how they are used. This is NOT a bug.

Reboot with any live cd - the Arch install cd will do, if you're ok with command line tools - and run the required commands.

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#3 2009-05-02 14:06:53

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

Growing partitions doesn't seem to be much of a problem but shrinking/moving partitions on the other hand sometimes isn't has pain free as one would expect sad

If you _can_ copy all data to another disk then:
- copy all important data to another disk, I would to a full disk backup
- reboot with a gparted live cd
- delete the /home partition
- resize /
- create /home
- copy all data from the backup to /home
- update fstab to point to the new /home (if you are using uuid)
- reboot and all should be working just fine.

If you _can't_ backup all data then:
- reboot with a gparted live cd
- resize the /home partition
- resize /
- reboot and pray that everything is working just fine.

Like tomk said it's not a bug, _you are responsible_ for creating big enough partitions when you install the OS and to manage the space usage.

To alleviate the problem of you can try clearing the pacman cache with pacman -Scc.


R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

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#4 2009-05-03 14:28:48

lumbar
Member
Registered: 2009-04-17
Posts: 8

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

Of course it is my responsibility!

On the other hand the handbook should suggest values that make sense for most systems [1] *or* suggest different values for different users. For example: The handbook could state that 7.5 is the suggested minimum while on new machines a usual setup might need 10 to 20 gigabyte.

Thats it, a small line in the handbook.

So my bugreport is a valid one: It points out a weakness in the handbook. Nothing more, nothing less. Even though I am an experienced linux-user I didn't know 7.5G might be too small so I guess many others don't know either.


[1] Whatever 'most' means. Why did the person who coded the installed pick 7.5G? I guess he did that on purpose, but perhaps that value is outdated? Perhaps a Archsystem with KDE 4.2, GNOME, OOo and other packages is not the 'regular Arch System'? If so I don't count as the regular Arch user, I guess.

Last edited by lumbar (2009-05-03 14:35:37)

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#5 2009-05-03 14:42:23

pseb
Member
From: Marburg, Germany
Registered: 2007-09-27
Posts: 85

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

have you tried to clear the pacman cache (pacman -Scc)? got me around 1Gb last time i did it ^^

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#6 2009-05-03 14:44:00

Duologic
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2007-11-11
Posts: 249

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

If it is the wiki beginners guide, you can edit it yourself...

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#7 2009-05-03 14:44:39

bangkok_manouel
Member
From: indicates a starting point
Registered: 2005-02-07
Posts: 1,556

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

are you sure you couldn't do some clean-up? things like pacman cache and logs. 7.5G should really be enough.

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#8 2009-05-03 14:52:36

lumbar
Member
Registered: 2009-04-17
Posts: 8

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

> are you sure you couldn't do some clean-up? things like pacman cache and logs. 7.5G should really be enough.

Yes, that removed 2.5 gigabyte and should be enough. I just cannot believe I am the first who ran into this... Am I?

> If it is the wiki beginners guide, you can edit it yourself...

As I am just starting to use Arch I won't edit those crutial documents now. I just don't know enough about Arch to do so. Otherwise I might by treated like in bug 14556 (I don't think I did blame anyone for anything).

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#9 2009-05-03 22:13:09

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

There is no such thing as a "regular Arch user", at least not in this context. Everyone is going to do different things with their system, with different packages installed, and hence differing amounts of disk space used. Your bug as submitted is definitely not a bug. At a stretch, you could submit a feature request for the Release Engineering project, asking for an increase in the root partition size when Auto-prepare is selected during install, but IMO the response would probably be the same. You could also submit a request under the Documentation category of the Arch project, suggesting some additional wording of your choice to accompany the 7.5G figure. However, I would recommend that you do as any experienced linux user would do i.e. create your partitions according to your own requirements, and then monitor your usage regularly so that you don't get caught out, as you apparently did here.

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#10 2009-05-03 23:15:43

fphillips
Member
From: Austin, TX
Registered: 2009-01-24
Posts: 202

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

Or, since you're an "experienced linux user", look into http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lvm and check out online resizing.

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#11 2009-05-04 00:55:49

hokasch
Member
Registered: 2007-09-23
Posts: 1,461

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

The problem is not 7,5 gig being an outdated amount of space for /, but that there are to many individual system layouts... so whatever value you set as default, it would never be right for all. especially for arch, making it fit for the "majority" seems quite difficult.
apart from that, ROOKIE put up a really constructive post concerning your issue.

and no offense, but I also do not think that it should be assumed as regular to have installed both KDE and Gnome. I am not assuming anyone else using 3 gb on / with fluxbox, OO, firefox, gimp etc either.

Last edited by hokasch (2009-05-04 01:03:30)

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#12 2009-05-04 11:40:18

lumbar
Member
Registered: 2009-04-17
Posts: 8

Re: Resizing / partition: How can I do this?

hokasch wrote:

apart from that, ROOKIE put up a really constructive post concerning your issue.

Jupp, he did!

hokasch wrote:

and no offense, but I also do not think that it should be assumed as regular to have installed both KDE and Gnome.

Well, on a system used by two persons where one prefers GNOME and the other KDE this is not exactly a strage thing :-) I guess pretty much every multiuser computer has both installed (schools, uni, ...)

smile

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