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Topic: Can I use GParted to fix my Ubuntu 18.04 Installation?

Installed XUbuntu 18.04 64-bit on laptop with 2 drives but installation did not go as planned. Laptop is also duel boot with Windows-10.   Xubuntu is the same as regular Ubuntu but uses the XFCE Desktop rather than Gnome.   While I did make an empty 169 GB partition on my 2nd drive, Ubuntu didn't use it and stuffed everything: including all data onto the little bitty boot drive.  Both OS's (Windows & Ubuntu) were working fine until I discovered Ubuntu was "out of room" to install a necessary application.


System drive specs are:
    drive 1 (boot) a 128 GB flash card which also boots Win-10 using 91.08 GB
           Xubuntu 18.04 {same as Ubuntu but XFCE Desktop}
                      using 27.34 GB,    mount point " /"
    drive 2 (Also a SSD) Samsung 860 Evo 1TB  with a 762 GB partition for Windows stuff
                and a 168.95  "unallocated block" I believe I made for Ubuntu to use ext4

The following screen shots are from "GParted" under which I booted my computer (with a CD).  I would like to format the 168.95 GB "unallocated block" to ext4 and add it to Ubuntu which is out of room to run programs.  While it would be wonderful to have a separate data partition for Ubuntu to use, I don't know how I can do that.

https://coinsandhistory.com/pix_shared/pix_website/GParted_both-drives.jpg

I guess if I simply format the 168.95 GB block ext4 and add it to Ubuntu under the mount point / then Ubuntu will simply see a lot more room in which to install & run programs? 

How can I do that **without** erasing my Windows or my Ubuntu installations?  I do not want to do a new install if possible as I've some complex engineering programs running on Ubuntu.

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Re: Can I use GParted to fix my Ubuntu 18.04 Installation?

If your systems are working fine, you can simply make a new partition /dev/sdb2 in the unallocated space, and then make a new ext4 filesystem within /dev/sdb2. You can do it from GParted Live or from your working Ubuntu. You have to use the default MiB alignment. To mount the new filesystem to Ubuntu, you have to edit fstab. The new filesystem will not be detected by ms windows, unless you have special drivers installed for this.
Creating the new partition and filesystem will be fast. Nevertheless, such partition operations are always a nice opportunity to make a backup of our data, as we often think about only after a fatal failure. wink

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

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Re: Can I use GParted to fix my Ubuntu 18.04 Installation?

class413 wrote:

If your systems are working fine, you can simply make a new partition /dev/sdb2 in the unallocated space, and then make a new ext4 filesystem within /dev/sdb2. You can do it from GParted Live ...

Great, thanks.  I really don't care if Windows can see my Linux or not.  Ubuntu can read the Windows NTFS disks but really when I need Windows apps, I boot into Windows.

My main concern is that I've some engineering Linux applications which were installed to directories under my $HOME directory.  If I create another partition like $Home_number_2 will those apps still work?  They've run short of room and can't write out their data files where they are now.  I thought Linux used some fancy LVM system which created a space that spanned multiple drives somehow?

This system may have some vulnerablities in that if the 2nd hard drive fails, I may not be able to boot Linux.  However since it's a new SSD (1TB) I'm willing to take that chance.  I really need to get my Linux apps working.

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Re: Can I use GParted to fix my Ubuntu 18.04 Installation?

There are some other Linux distributions that use LVM by default, however the ms windows + Ubuntu dual boot setup complicates it even more. LVM layer is working in a deeper level than the operating system, between the operating system and the hard drive hardware.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***