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exXPusr
January 27th, 2009, 03:20 AM
I know this probably has been covered, but I still cant seem to get a grip on it. I have intrepid installed as dual boot w/XP I have found with VM I no longer need the XP partition. I used Partition manager to delete the NTFS partition.

The question...Is it possible to expand the Linux partition to back-fill the space without messing up my install? I know what ever I do I will backup first but I reallly don't want to have to reinstall all my apps that I painstakingly worked to get migrated over from XP.

caljohnsmith
January 27th, 2009, 03:44 AM
It really depends on how your partitions are physically laid out on the drive as to whether you can give the newly created space to your Ubuntu partition. How about posting:

sudo fdisk -lu
So I can get an idea what your present set up looks like.

exXPusr
January 27th, 2009, 03:48 AM
Thanks for the response....as requested

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe79171eb

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda2 315066780 490223474 87578347+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 315066843 483010289 83971723+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 483010353 490223474 3606561 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00008c0a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 490223474 245111706 83 Linux

caljohnsmith
January 27th, 2009, 03:55 AM
OK, great, looks like you're in luck. :) How about booting your Live CD, open gparted (System > Admin > Partition Editor), right-click the sda6 swap partition and select "swapoff", and then you should be able to resize the sda2 extended partition by moving its starting point to the beginning of the drive. After that, click your sda5 linux partition, and you should be able to move its starting point to the front of the drive also. Once gparted is done with the resizing, you should be all set (but please don't forget to back up everything important before using gparted).

Another idea though would be to make a data partition with all that space that Windows left, because then you could keep your personal files separate from your Ubuntu install. That's probably what I would do, but it's up to you. Good luck and let me know how it goes.

exXPusr
January 27th, 2009, 04:01 AM
Cool Thanks!:D I'm giving it a go.

exXPusr
January 27th, 2009, 09:44 PM
Kudos to Cal! The fact that i am sending this is testament that it worked!
I an really impressed with Ubuntu. I am now completely off the M$ train with the exception of a VM session running XP for run some proprietary Spice-Sim software.

caljohnsmith
January 27th, 2009, 09:48 PM
Glad to hear your partition changes went smoothly and you're back in your Ubuntu install; just curious, but when you say spice simulations, are you doing circuit simulations? Are you an electrical engineer or student?

exXPusr
January 27th, 2009, 10:33 PM
While I am not a degreed EE, I Been doing electronics for the past 30+ years. I have a small company FXengineering FXENG.COM (http://www.fxeng.com). We design and build high quality guitar effects pedals. I use CircuitMaker 2000 to develop the concepts. Unfortunately CM was purchased by Oracad a few years back...Big$$ to upgrade.