creating a separate partition

[gwenn-ha-du]

hi,

i would like to create a separate partition for /home.
1) can i do this post install?
2) how should i go about this given the info below. i can't really make sense of the data below. for example where does #3 come from?

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 41.1MB 41.1MB primary fat16
2 41.9MB 32.1GB 32.0GB primary ntfs boot
3 32.1GB 32.2GB 98.7MB primary ext3
4 32.2GB 160GB 128GB extended
5 32.2GB 160GB 128GB logical lvm

]# mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda3 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)

[jdeslip]

I don't have the answer, but I also want to know how to do this (if you can) and want to be emailed when the answer arrives.

[aragorn_246]

1. Yes - it's not trivial but you can move /home.
2. Unfortunately, assuming it's a 160Gb drive, you don't have any free space to do it.
As it stands, you have a 40Mb initial partition, 32Gb for Windows, 100Mb for /boot and the rest in a Fedora LVM volume, probably split 500Mb swap and 127Gb / filesystem.
You could make /home part of the LVM volume group (by shrinking /), but it wouldn't really add much value.
HTH

[gwenn-ha-du]

thanks, very helpful.

so then my best bet would be to re-install with a custom layout. could you possibly clarify which steps i should take?

[aragorn_246]

Personally, I have dropped LVM on my main system - I'm not likely to add a second drive so the flexibility of LVM does not add much and I did have some LVM problems prior to a reinstall.

When you install FC, instead of accepting FC's default disk layout, select a custom layout.

I would probably leave the 100Mb /boot where it is (as well as the Fat partition and NTFS).
For the 128Gb Extended partition you could split it into a /home ext3 partition (30Gb?) and / ext3 partition. (option here to create a /var and /tmp partition if you want). Diskdruid should guide you through these changes. (This RH diskdruid guide should help- http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/e...titioning.html)
After that it should follow the normal installation and will automatically mount the partitions in the correct place.

[gwenn-ha-du]

excellent, thanks!

the fc install guide advises to leave xs capacity unallocated. so as time goes by and say /home reaches capacity, i could transfer some of the free space into it. is that it?

[aragorn_246]

excellent, thanks!

the fc install guide advises to leave xs capacity unallocated. so as time goes by and say /home reaches capacity, i could transfer some of the free space into it. is that it?

With LVM you can expand space fairly easily.
With a plain ext3 partition, if it is the last partition on the disk you could extend it (not easy) and then extend the file system.
More easily, your free space can be mounted elsewhere and linked into /home, eg have a /videos mount point and then a link to /home/steve/videos.

[gwenn-ha-du]

thanks! i actually started a separate thread for this, so i'll copy paste your reply there.