My /usr partition is getting fairly full (86% use) and I wondered if there
was anything simple that I could do to extend its effective size before any
problems arise. I have plenty of space on other partitions, including one
that is unused.

Of course, I could re-install, or I could use LVM, but I was wondering
whether there was a simpler approach - e.g. by making a link (hard or soft?)
between /usr and a directory on the empty partition? Would the system see
that as just one larger /usr?

I'm not looking for the ideologically purest way of doing it - in the long
run I shall re-install and re-partition - just the simplest and quickest to
avoid any immediate problems while I get on with other stuff.

- Richard.
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Richard,

On 14/09/11 15:00, R Kimber wrote:
> My /usr partition is getting fairly full (86% use) and I wondered if there
> was anything simple that I could do to extend its effective size before any
> problems arise. I have plenty of space on other partitions, including one
> that is unused.
>
> Of course, I could re-install, or I could use LVM, but I was wondering
> whether there was a simpler approach - e.g. by making a link (hard or soft?)
> between /usr and a directory on the empty partition? Would the system see
> that as just one larger /usr?
>
> I'm not looking for the ideologically purest way of doing it - in the long
> run I shall re-install and re-partition - just the simplest and quickest to
> avoid any immediate problems while I get on with other stuff.

You may be able to juggle things around using gparted from a booted
Ubuntu live CD. If you can make space just above the /usr partition,
gparted can extend the partition into this space.

If there is a partition in use next to the /usr partition, then you may
be able to shrink it, move it up and then extend the /usr partition into
the free space created.

Regards,
Tony.
>
> - Richard.


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On 09/14/2011 10:00 AM, R Kimber wrote:

My /usr partition is getting fairly full (86% use) and I wondered if there
was anything simple that I could do to extend its effective size before any
problems arise. I have plenty of space on other partitions, including one
that is unused.

Of course, I could re-install, or I could use LVM, but I was wondering
whether there was a simpler approach - e.g. by making a link (hard or soft?)
between /usr and a directory on the empty partition? Would the system see
that as just one larger /usr?

I'm not looking for the ideologically purest way of doing it - in the long
run I shall re-install and re-partition - just the simplest and quickest to
avoid any immediate problems while I get on with other stuff.

- Richard.


Making a soft link if a directory in /usr to a space in another
partition should work jut fine.


In theory, /sbin should have everything you need to have a working shell
you can use to recover if something goes wrong with the link. In
practice, you might find yourself using a live distro to fix any
oopses. You'll probably want to use the live boot system to move/link
the directory in the first place.






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On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:57:10 +0100
Tony Arnold wrote:

> You may be able to juggle things around using gparted from a booted
> Ubuntu live CD. If you can make space just above the /usr partition,
> gparted can extend the partition into this space.
>
> If there is a partition in use next to the /usr partition, then you may
> be able to shrink it, move it up and then extend the /usr partition into
> the free space created.

Thanks. I thought about using gparted, but wondered if making changes at
that level would screw up the UUIDs and thus the mounting.

Basically, I have (don't ask me why!):-

sda5: empty
sda6: /var, which is only 30% used
sda7: /usr

The ideal would be to delete sda5 and to use the space to extend sda7
but can this sort of thing be done on an existing system? Wouldn't that just
screw everything up? Or could I work out the new UUIDs and simply edit
fstab and live happily ever after? Presumably I would need to do this from
the live CD.

- Richard.
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On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:57:23 -0400
Rashkae wrote:

> Making a soft link if a directory in /usr to a space in another
> partition should work jut fine.

Perhaps moving /usr/share (which is nearly 4GB) to the empty partition
(with rsync -a, perhaps) and making a link from /usr would be a simple way
to go.

- Richard.
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Richard,

On 14/09/11 17:24, R Kimber wrote:

> Thanks. I thought about using gparted, but wondered if making changes at
> that level would screw up the UUIDs and thus the mounting.
>
> Basically, I have (don't ask me why!):-
>
> sda5: empty
> sda6: /var, which is only 30% used
> sda7: /usr
>
> The ideal would be to delete sda5 and to use the space to extend sda7
> but can this sort of thing be done on an existing system? Wouldn't that just
> screw everything up? Or could I work out the new UUIDs and simply edit
> fstab and live happily ever after? Presumably I would need to do this from
> the live CD.

Hmm, not sure what it would do to the UUIDs but as you say, you can fix
that afterwards. A simple fix would be to put the paritition names back
into fstab before you start moving them and only put the UUIDs back when
you've completed everything.

Assuming the order of the partitions is as you typed them above, then I
would be tempted to delete sda5 and then move sda6 and sda7 down and
then extend sda7 to the size you need.

I would be quite cautious and do one thing at a time, delete sda5,
reboot and check, move sda6, reboot and check etc. You no doubt get the
idea.

Oh, and make sure you have complete backups before you start!

Regards,
Tony.
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R Kimber wrote:

On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:57:10 +0100
Tony Arnold wrote:


You may be able to juggle things around using gparted from a booted
Ubuntu live CD. If you can make space just above the /usr partition,
gparted can extend the partition into this space.

If there is a partition in use next to the /usr partition, then you may
be able to shrink it, move it up and then extend the /usr partition into
the free space created.


Thanks. I thought about using gparted, but wondered if making changes at
that level would screw up the UUIDs and thus the mounting.

Basically, I have (don't ask me why!):-

sda5: empty
sda6: /var, which is only 30% used
sda7: /usr

The ideal would be to delete sda5 and to use the space to extend sda7
but can this sort of thing be done on an existing system? Wouldn't that just
screw everything up? Or could I work out the new UUIDs and simply edit
fstab and live happily ever after? Presumably I would need to do this from
the live CD.

- Richard.


'Course, you could boot off the live CD, then use gparted to just
shrink sda5 to near-nothing, move sda6 over & shrink if you choose. Then
you should end up with space to grow sda7...
Since no partitions were deleted, no changes to fstab (or anything else
hard-coded to a specific sda device) need be done....


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On Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:35:30 -0400
Dave Woyciesjes wrote:

> 'Course, you could boot off the live CD, then use gparted to just
> shrink sda5 to near-nothing, move sda6 over & shrink if you choose. Then
> you should end up with space to grow sda7...
> Since no partitions were deleted, no changes to fstab (or
> anything else hard-coded to a specific sda device) need be done....

That sounds like a reasonable option for me. I'll try that.

Thanks for all the suggestions.
- Richard.
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Political Science Resources
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On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:12:45 +0100
R Kimber wrote:

> > 'Course, you could boot off the live CD, then use gparted to
> > just shrink sda5 to near-nothing, move sda6 over & shrink if you
> > choose. Then you should end up with space to grow sda7...
> > Since no partitions were deleted, no changes to fstab (or
> > anything else hard-coded to a specific sda device) need be done....
>
> That sounds like a reasonable option for me. I'll try that.

Just to report that I used the live gparted CD that I happened to have, and
that there were no problems (apart from the screen blanking alarmingly
during an operation - I hadn't expected there would be a screen saver!)

- Richard.
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Political Science Resources
http://www.PoliticsResources.net/

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R Kimber wrote:

> My /usr partition is getting fairly full (86% use) and I wondered if
> there was anything simple that I could do to extend its effective
> size before any problems arise. I have plenty of space on other
> partitions, including one that is unused.

In short, pick a big directory, move it to another partition and
symlink to it is generally the most pain-free way to do it, but is
probably not the ideologically purest way of doing it

It's safest to boot into single-user when you do it, though, to make
sure you'll not be annoying anything by pulling /usr out from
underneath it.


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