Resizing the wubi partition in lucid

[durand]

Hi,

Is it possible to increase the size of an ubuntu partition installed via wubi? A friend of mine installed ubuntu this way but she needs more space. The method in the ubuntu wiki apparently doesn't work for 10.04. Is there an alternative?

Thanks!

[Mark Phelps]

See the instructions below, section 8.9:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide

[durand]

Yeah, that method doesn't work in 10.04.

[Mark Phelps]

Yeah, that method doesn't work in 10.04.

Sorry ... not a fan of Wubi; don't use it. Only trying to help.

Perhaps, if you (and other Wubi users) found a way to contact the Wubi providers, they would update their sadly-out-of-date documentation.

[durand]

Thats ok, I appreciate it. I don't use wubi either but I might have to install it to see what works.

Thanks.

[bcbc]

Thats ok, I appreciate it. I don't use wubi either but I might have to install it to see what works.

Thanks.

You can resize the root.disk. It's not strictly speaking a resize - you have to create a new bigger one and copy the data across (i.e. to make a 5GB disk 7GB, you need 7GB free space, not 2GB). It might be better to split the /home into a new virtual disk.

The problem with lvpm is that it requires grub-legacy due to the way the transfer to partition part works (or doesn't work anymore, to be precise). The resize part is fairly simple. I've just run a test on it and it works (I made my new.disk 5GB):

sudo -i
cd /host/ubuntu/disks
dd if=/dev/zero of=new.disk bs=1M count=5000
mkfs.ext4 -F new.disk  # use ext4 with new installs on 9.10 or later
mkdir /media/extra
mount -o loop,sync /host/ubuntu/disks/new.disk /media/extra
rsync -av --exclude '/sys/*' --exclude '/proc/*' --exclude '/host/*' --exclude '/mnt/*' --exclude '/media/*/*' --exclude '/tmp/*' --exclude '/home/*/.gvfs' --exclude '/root/.gvfs' / /media/extra
umount /media/extra
rmdir /media/extra
exit
#reboot to windows, rename root.disk to root.disk.old and new.disk to root.disk

Caution should be used getting someone to run commands as root or using dd and mkfs - but you could easily put it in a shell script.

[bodhi.zazen]

For the effort it takes to resize a wubi installation I suggest you go ahead and perform a standard installation, it is much easier to maintain and IMO wubi is for trial only.

[bcbc]

For the effort it takes to resize a wubi installation I suggest you go ahead and perform a standard installation, it is much easier to maintain and IMO wubi is for trial only.

The user can decide what they want to do. I don't think it's a large effort - maybe because it's not in a program or script, but it's a lot less 'real' effort (and risk) than resizing partitions.

[bodhi.zazen]

The user can decide what they want to do. I don't think it's a large effort - maybe because it's not in a program or script, but it's a lot less 'real' effort (and risk) than resizing partitions.

You are of course welcome to do as you wish. I think we will have to agree to disagree on this topic.

[bcbc]

You are of course welcome to do as you wish. I think we will have to agree to disagree on this topic.

I can do that

The way I see it, people chose wubi for a reason. They deserve help if they need it, the same as any other forum user. When they're ready, they can move on to a real install. I don't think that we need to force their hand whenever they have a problem - but sure it's a good idea to suggest it, especially if its simpler than the fix.