How do I resize my partitions?

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1

I was trying to do a huge update and I can’t do it all at once because I’m 6gb short, how do I take a bit from my secondary partition’s size (which I never use fully) and give it to the main partition where all the updates get done. Is gparted useful here?

2

Generally yes, but you have to be careful what type of partition you resize, and if you make it smaller or larger.
The partitions should not be mounted while resizing, so do it in live iso. The next thing to know is if you are moving the beginning or the end of a partition. The beginning is critical. UUID can change too, then you have to edit fstab and probably grub.

I recommend reading some more and making a backup.
I actually just yesterday resized my root to make it bigger, but i had it easy - i had unpartitioned space after the end of the partition…if you move the beginning it is another story.

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3

Yes.
There is always a tiny risk involved in moving partitions so if you can make a backup (not Timeshift), do that first.
Do not put the backup on the drive containing the partitions you are trying to move.

I have done it multiple times without problems, but there IS always a risk.
Do it in a live environment, the partitions needs to be unmounted.

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4

But I think I’m not interested in the beginnings, can’t I do it all at the ends?

5

you have to move the beginning of the at least ONE partition for this. (if they are next to eachother)

Edit
And I haven’t heard of gparted changing the uuid if you move the beginning in a long time.
I also got warned about this a while ago and did some research and could only find VERY old reports of that actually happening, but there are plenty of posts WARNING about it.
So I guess it’s good to know about and keep in mind ofc.

6

How do I backup my system?

7

Use clonezilla or rescuezilla.

Check tutorials first.

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8

Have you first looked at pacman cache ? It may be quite big ! Try :
du -BM /var/cache/pacman/pkg/
You can partially empty it with
sudo pacman -Sc
or totally with :
sudo pacman -Scc

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9

Thanks, but I’m still 6gb short

10

Another thing that can free a lot of space is the journal. By default is 4 GB.

journalctl --disk-usage
journalctl --vacuum-size=50M
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11

Ok great, I freed 3gb. Thanks but I’m still short.

12

If you like to live dangerously:

You could install packages in batches with pacman -S.
Beware, that between batches, you’ll be in a very unsupported partial upgrade state, so do not reboot.

However, the safer way might be to remove large unnecessary programs (libreoffice, texlive, etc.), then do the update, and reinstall the packages you want.

Or, a fancy new idea, depending how much memory you have, you could (temporarily) mount the download location as tmpfs, and do the update from there.

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13

Yeah, I was thinking that (deleting programs), since resizing is too complicated and risky as it seems. I will go on on my update now. I have enough space.

14

Make absolutely sure your mirrors are synced too. I’m still waiting to update for Manjaro to iron out all the kinks.
I’m constantly checking https://repo.manjaro.org/ and they have been turning red over and over a few times since I started checking about 10 hours ago.

Just be careful. :hearts:

pacman-mirrors

15

yes, I update with pacman -Syyu

16

Well, if you did that I REALLY hope your mirrors were synced.
Ie, if you by that comment meant you did an update or checked the state of your mirrors before and got a green light, then it’s most likely fine. :hearts:

17

i would clonezilla to backup as others told here,
then boot a live linux with gparted in it,
and resize the partition.