Splitting existing drive into 2 partitions

[robt800]

I've recently installed ubuntu onto a 120GB SSD.

Upon a little reading it has been advised to me to store larger files/ folders not in the home directory, but on a separate partition.

Hence I'd like to create a 60GB split (or potentially more say 30GB OS, 90GB data).

I've read this needs to be done using a live CD & gparted.

I booted up, unmounted the drive in question simply using the files application. Went into gparted and still have the option to 'deactivate'. Did that as well. However Gparted will not let me shrink the existing volume. The minimum size is set 28mb less than the current size - hence I can only shrink by 28mb...

Any insights much appreciated,

Thanks
Rob

[Dennis N]

You may have an LVM setup which has to be handled differently. Post output from terminal of the command df -h to confirm this.

[robt800]

I think you are right - saw LVM in Gparted. the output from df -h is:
```

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs 374M 1.6M 373M 1% /run
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root 109G 8.4G 95G 9% /
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0 15M 15M 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/45
/dev/loop1 1.0M 1.0M 0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/81
/dev/loop2 15M 15M 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/317
/dev/loop3 55M 55M 0 100% /snap/core18/1192
/dev/loop4 4.3M 4.3M 0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/501
/dev/loop5 3.8M 3.8M 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/100
/dev/loop6 91M 91M 0 100% /snap/core/6350
/dev/loop9 43M 43M 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1313
/dev/loop7 150M 150M 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/71
/dev/loop10 13M 13M 0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/139
/dev/loop8 141M 141M 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/74
/dev/loop11 2.3M 2.3M 0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/260
/dev/loop12 35M 35M 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/818
/dev/loop13 90M 90M 0 100% /snap/core/7713
/dev/loop14 3.8M 3.8M 0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/57
/dev/loop15 141M 141M 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/92
tmpfs 374M 24K 374M 1% /run/user/1000
```

Thank

[TheFu]

Yep, you are using LVM. These would help:

lsblk -o name,size,type,fstype,mountpoint
sudo pvs
sudo vgs
sudo lvs

The good news is that dealing with LVM is easier than partitioning, just different. But you should think about storage a little differently. Think about what you need to allocate today, not what you might need in a year. With LVM+ext4, growing an LV is trivial, while the system is running and being used. Shrinking is a little harder and does need to be performed from alternative boot. Also, LVM doesn't have any GUI management, so everything is handled using shell commands.

You'll need to use lvreduce (with some options) but first you'll need to activate the VG from that alternative boot media, sudo vgchange -ay is how that gets done. In the Live environment, it might be necessary to install the lvm tools. sudo apt install lvm2

That should be enough hints to get you through this. I'd do smaller than 30G for the OS, BTW. Shrinking is harder than growing.

[robt800]

Managed to sort with your hints!

Thanks!

[TheFu]

This is the way these forums are supposed to work!
Any chance you could post the commands used, in order, to help out others?