Disk Partition Editing with GNU Parted and GParted [LWN.net]

Modification of functional disk partitions is a job that has traditionally been done with various Windows and DOS-based commercial applications. GNU Parted is an open-source, Linux-native application that can resolve that dependency.

GNU Parted is a program for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, copying data between hard disks and disk imaging.

GNU Parted supports these disk labels: raw access, MS-DOS, Intel GPT, MIPS, PC98, Sun, BSD and Macintosh. It can understand and modify (with some limitations) the following filesystem types: ext2, ext3, fat16, fat32, linux-swap, HFS, JFS, NTFS, ReiserFS, UFS, and XFS. Lastly, it works with these boot loaders: LILO, GRUB, DOS, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Quik, and Yaboot.

The available commands in GNU Parted include: check, cp, help, mklabel, mkfs, mkpart, move, name, print, quit, rescue, resize, rm, select, and set. These are explained in the online manual (somewhat ancient, dated 2002). GNU Parted will run from a stand-alone Linux boot diskette.

GParted, the Gnome Partition Editor, is a GUI frontend to GNU Parted that works on the GNOME desktop. The project's aim is to fully support all of the GNU Parted functions, that job is in progress. The screenshots page shows GParted in action. GParted goes a long way toward making GNU Parted as easy to use as the traditional commercial applications.

Version 0.6 of GParted was announced this week. It features newly added reiserfs support, faster startup, better GUI feedback, and more.

These two programs are a welcome addition to any system administrator's toolkit, they offer a nice open-source solution to partition management. Of course, any prudent administrator would be advised to make and verify their backups before running any software that modifies disk partitions.

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Disk Partition Editing with GNU Parted and GParted

Posted Oct 28, 2004 13:20 UTC (Thu) by kay (subscriber, #1362) [Link]

LVM is a good way to go with an Linux only system or with a whole disk fpr linux.

How do you create space for Linux without an additional disk and without destroing other OS/Data on your disk?

How do you rearrange Disks i.e. BSD. Windows, MacOS Disks without non GPL-Tools?

GNU Parted ist not a Linux tool only and its GPL.

Kay

LVM properties

Posted Oct 28, 2004 17:33 UTC (Thu) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link]

However, LVM has its own issues. Not all Linux distributions support LVM, combining LVM with RAID can be complex, using LVM complicates disaster recovery [from administrator error as well as hardware failure], LVM has a history of incompatible versions, and LVM is almost unknown in the non-Linux world with which some boxes eventually interact. Using LVM has a space and runtime cost that can be avoided for well-known workloads. Even for a new Linux-only Linux-forever system, it is wise to have a separate non-LVM boot partition.

LVM properties

Posted Oct 31, 2004 4:45 UTC (Sun) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

The space and runtime overhead of LVM(2) are negligible and are far overshadowed by the gain in functionality and convenience.

Running low on space in /home? You can add a few gigs of space with two shell commands as root without even having to unmount it. You can install a new physical disk and add its capacity to your existing volumes seamlessly and transparently. No more /mnt/disk2 hacks.

I consider LVM essential for desktop systems.

Disk Partition Editing with GNU Parted and GParted

Posted Nov 1, 2004 13:20 UTC (Mon) by mdekkers (guest, #85) [Link]

LVM -- or rather, SUSE's implementation of LVM -- just chewed up 4 250GB reiserfs disks, causing me no end of grief with getting my system back online. In a related incident, the reiser "fixit" tools thought a vmware file containing a linux image was actually a "lost" filesystem, and helpfully "restored" it back on to the disk, wiping out loads of data in the process.... Needless to say, I am no longer using LVM (a short-lived experience for me) and am using XFS and ext3 for my filesystems. did have a brief look at evms and thought "cool.....not again".

LVM is great - if you have faith in your tapes.....

Now the obvious question :

Posted Oct 29, 2004 14:29 UTC (Fri) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]

Probably, it's pretty small. But why limit yourself to a boot floppy - use a CD. GPartD is on the system rescue CD (http://www.sysresccd.org/).

Now the obvious question :

Posted Oct 29, 2004 14:31 UTC (Fri) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]

Clarification: GParted is a GUI app - it needs a frame buffer at a minimum, so it's probably pretty large.

GNU Parted is the corresponding command line util - it's fairly small.

Both make use of the parted library, which is where all the partitioning functionality is.