*liveVoyager 12.04 User Guide - Partitioning

Partitioning

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The installation of any Linux system requires that the computer's hard disk is partitioned, in other words that be divided into sectors that incorporating components of the installed operating systems. Consequently also LiveVoyager required an already partitioned hard drive to be installed.

Ideally are enough/mandatory two partitions:
- Root partition, where the system will be installed, with its file system
- Swap Partition, as shared memory
However, you can proceed to a more efficient partitioning:
- Root Partition
- /home partition, which keep the configuration files and customization, as well the user's own files (documents, movies, music, pictures and more)
- Swap Partition
The first partitioning method is easiest to perform, but in the case of re-installation, it will be erase all data, and customizations files.
The second partitioning method is a bit more complex to do, but allows you to have, in a separate partition, all things that you don't want to redo/reinstall in the future.

Tools for partitioning

liveVoyager provides a very effective tool for hard drive partitioning: GParted.
It's a GUI tool that has the ability to manage disk partitions, being able to change the size, and the internal file system. It's an ideal tool for beginners.

Partitioning your hard drive using GParted

In liveVoyager Live session, GParted must be runned as Administrator, so run Terminal (Main Menu → Terminal) and type the command:

sudo gparted

GParted will show its graphical interface, and will scan for devices.

Menu Bar

  • 'GParted' Menu
    If you click the 'GParted' menu, you will see two options. You can click on "Scan for devices" to update the devices in the system.
    Or you can click on "Devices" to select the hard disk on which you want to modify partitions.
    This is useful if you have more than one hard disk, or if you want to partition the external hard drive as an USB stick.
    Beware to not make misidentification, because once activated, GParted can delete all hard disk contents, or in the partition incorrectly chosen.

    GParted interface
    Pic. 6 - GParted interface

  • Edit Menu
    The Edit menu has three functions that may be crucial:
    • Undo the last operation
    • Apply all operations
    • Erase all operations
  • View Menu
    In it there are some items
    • Device Information
      The panel "Device Info" displays details about the hard disk as a model, size, etc. (Pic.7) This panel is more useful in a system with different hard drivers where information is used to confirm that the hard disk that you are looking, is the right one.

      Device conditions
      Pic. 7 - Selected device conditions

    • Pending Operations
      In the status bar, at the bottom, you will see a list of pending operations. This information is useful as it provides an indication of the pending operations number.
  • Device menu
    The "Device" menu allows you to apply a label to the disk if the current is inappropriate.
  • Partition menu
    This menu is extremely important. Allows you to do multiple operations, some of which are dangerous:
    • Delete
      is selected if you want to delete a partition. To perform that, you must first select the partition.
    • Resize/Move
      allows you to resize partitions.

Create a new partition

On the toolbar, the New button allows you to create a new partition, if you have already selected an unallocated area (Pic. 8). In a new window you can choose the size you want, if the partition will be Primary, Extended or Logical, and finally the file-system type.

Create a new partition
Pic. 8 - Create a new partition

If you have made a mistake, you can use the 'Delete' button to delete the selected partition, or if you have not yet applied the operation, you can use the 'Cancel' button.

Resize/Move

When you want to resize a selected partition (Pic. 9), press the "Resize/Move" button, and a new window will appear immediately. Use the mouse to decrease (or increase) the partition size, or if you prefer, use the arrows.

Move and/or resize a partition
Pic. 9 - Move and/or resize a partition

After given the command "Resize", click "Apply" otherwise no operation is performed on the hard disk.
At this point, the operations start (Pic. 10) and in a new window will be displayed operations progress. The time necessary to the operation depends on the size of the new partition.

Operation in progress
Pic. 10 - Operation in progress

IMPORTANT!
After changing the partition table, reboot the system to allow liveVoyager to reread the new partition table.

Resizing NTFS partitions

Resizing an NTFS partition requires a reboot!
DO NOTHING ON THIS PARTITION before restart, or you will get errors.

  • After restarting in MS Windows®, the system will display a special screen and a message about drive consistency: 'Checking file system on c'.
  • Let the AUTOCHK run, as NT needs to control its own file system after the resize operation.
  • At the end of the process, computer will automatically restart for the second time. This ensures that things works perfectly.
  • After reboot, Windows XP will be fine, but wait for the system to finish booting, ie until the users authentication window!

Recommendations

Generally it is recommended to reserve to liveVoyager system 10 GB of disk space. This space will be occupied by the system itself, by new programs that will be installed by the user and the users personal files (documents, music, movies, etc..).

As for the SWAP space, you can refer to an old assumption, which states that the swap should be at least twice the available RAM. However, this was true when the available RAM was very limited (64/128 MB), but now RAM is very large, and we can say that the space reserved to the swap should not be more than 1 GB.

1. Complete documentation of GParted is located on the GParted website.

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