[gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
Fernando Meira
this is probably an old discussion, sorry for bring it up again.
When I joined Gentoo (a few months ago) I got the idea that I could control very well the space that gentoo would require. That would be great because of my 4.6G available to it. Then, not so long time ago I got very surprised with how much less space available I had when I didn't have (almost) anything installed. Now it's completely full and I'm the middle of an emerge :(
Well, tears apart, I would like to know if there's a good way to control the space usage of portage, since it is the reason for my problem.
My /usr/portage and /var/tmp/portage/ take 2.2G which is almost half of the partition.
What I have installed:
- some (split) ebuilds of kde 3.4.1
- e16
- e17
- firefox
- gimp
- acrobat reader 7
- xmms, amsn (and maybe a few more small packages)
What I've found until now:
- clear /usr/portage/distfiles and /var/tmp/portage after an emerge, or regularly (using tmpreaper)
- there are some users-made scripts (still buggy) that look for old ebuilds in portage tree and erases them (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-3011-highlight-portage+space+usage.html )
Any comments/ideas/scripts about this, or everyone has plenty space to spare...
Cheers,
Fernando
mo...@planet.nl
as well, since failed emerges leave the temporary work files there until the emerge is either correctly completed, or you delete the files
yourself).
The thing is, it now depends to some degree on just what you are emerging, because as you fill your disk with emerged programs, and
assuming that those programs don't reside on another disk (/usr, /var, /tmp, or /opt on another disk or partition than / ), you will lose
the ability to compile certain programs that naturally take up more space than you have available during the emerge process.
I'm thinking specifically of OpenOffice.org, which takes about 3GB just to emerge, but I suspect Mozilla and its ilk, and certain KDE
programs may not be much better. Not to mention X.org or glibc. But from what you've said, even if /usr/portage/distfiles
and /var/tmp/portage are empty, you wouldn't have enough space to emerge OO.o at this time, and possibly other high-end programs as well.
Of course, you could just use the openoffice-bin package for that case. But not for every case that this might occur, and frankly, it's a
losing proposition (either you have to be constantly on the ball as to how much space every program you want needs to emerge, or you have
to give up some stuff).
Less than 5GB is really not enough for a Gentoo install unless it's going to be *very* minimal. If I was you, I'd look around for an old 5
or 10 GB disk, slap it in the box and move /usr or /var (probably a better choice) to that, and then mount it to the / partition.
Just my 0.02
Holly
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Fernando Meira
The first one (distcleaner-0.0.2) returned a lot of errors. The second (distmaint.py) was too weird. Finally, (distclean.sh) seemed to be ok, and freed 255 MB. I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the emerge I end-up with 805Mb free.
As you say Holly, this is far from enough if I want to compile something big and also maybe for smaller apps. Which means that I have a problem.
In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I assumed that gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make some modifications, redo my partitions. What I would like was to clean once per all my windoz partition (9GB)... but from time to time I need it.. unless I find a replacement to all the things I need from there.
Anyway, thanks for the replies.
If someone has a nice script to maintain distfiles under control let me know. ;)
Cheers,
Fernando.
Francisco J. A. Ares
> Ok, so running through that forum I decided to try out some of the
> scripts to clean stale distfiles.
> The first one (distcleaner-0.0.2) returned a lot of errors. The second
> (distmaint.py) was too weird. Finally, (distclean.sh) seemed to be ok,
> and freed 255 MB. I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the
> emerge I end-up with 805Mb free.
>
> As you say Holly, this is far from enough if I want to compile
> something big and also maybe for smaller apps. Which means that I have
> a problem.
> In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I
> assumed that gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make
> some modifications, redo my partitions. What I would like was to clean
> once per all my windoz partition (9GB)... but from time to time I need
> it.. unless I find a replacement to all the things I need from there.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the replies.
> If someone has a nice script to maintain distfiles under control let
> me know. ;)
>
> Cheers,
> Fernando.
>
Not a script, but I have some machines with /usr/portage NFS'd to a
server (I'm thinking about doing the same with /var/tmp/portage/ also,
but don't know how to lock it to avoid colisions).
If you have a desktop, you can do the same, and also use distcc to
accelerate the builds.
Francisco
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Tero Grundström
> I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the emerge I end-up with
> 805Mb free.
>
> In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I assumed that
> gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make some modifications,
> redo my partitions.
805Mb is not much but re-partitioning might not be the only answer if most
of your system is installed already.
Look for PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR in your /etc/make.conf. Point them
to directories that are on a different partition. You can do the same for
your PORTDIR (resync and delete the old tree after this).
app-admin/localepurge can also save you some space.
HTH
--
T.G.
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Tero Grundström
> Hi Tero,
> what I meant with "redo my partitions" was in the way that I will expand
> my gentoo partition (or try to).
> I have:
> # df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
^^ *might* be enough for a minimal system, but not for your compiles or
distfiles.
> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste. Especially
with that size.
> /dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
^^ You'll *never* need that much space in here. Do not have this on a
separate partition. Maybe you could make this partition your /home ?
> /dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
^^ Complete waste ;)
> none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
>
> Options:
> - erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
> - somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a part
> to hda4.
It is up to you how to rearrange them but I suggest that you have only
these partitions for Gentoo:
/boot
/
/home (optional but recommended)
(+swap)
>
> what are the advantages of pointing PORTAGE_TMPDIR and DISTDIR to other
> partitions?
The idea is, ofcourse, to give your compiles and distfiles more room.
This in turn would free up space for your system.
>
> thanks for the localepurge tip:
> - Total disk space freed by localepurge: 48448K (not bad ;)
Yeah, it's great. BTW, check out the 'userlocales' USE flag for glibc too.
It will speed up the compilation and save some space.
Neil Bothwick
> Not a script, but I have some machines with /usr/portage NFS'd to a
> server (I'm thinking about doing the same with /var/tmp/portage/ also,
> but don't know how to lock it to avoid colisions).
Putting PORTAGE_TMPDIR on an NFS partition would slow merging down
horribly.
--
Neil Bothwick
Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
W.Kenworthy
as well seeming to take forever. My success rate for OO is under 50% of
attempts when I was using NFS for the tmpdir. Did work fine for smaller
builds tho.
BillK
On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 09:03 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 19:04:32 -0300, Francisco J. A. Ares wrote:
>
> > Not a script, but I have some machines with /usr/portage NFS'd to a
> > server (I'm thinking about doing the same with /var/tmp/portage/ also,
> > but don't know how to lock it to avoid colisions).
>
> Putting PORTAGE_TMPDIR on an NFS partition would slow merging down
> horribly.
>
>
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Neil Bothwick
> > udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
> ^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste.
> Especially with that size.
udev is a virtual filesystem, it's using 808K of memory, not 252M of disk
space. udev appears to allocate half the available RAM as the maximum size
for /dev.
--
Neil Bothwick
But there, everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his
mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.
-- Jerome K. Jerome
Tero Grundström
> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:45:36 +0300 (EEST), Tero Grundstr_m wrote:
>
>>> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
>> ^^ Why a separate partition for /dev? This is complete waste.
>> Especially with that size.
>
> udev is a virtual filesystem, it's using 808K of memory, not 252M of disk
> space. udev appears to allocate half the available RAM as the maximum size
> for /dev.
Your right. It's correct. Maybe I got distracted because of the 23Gb
/mnt/share partition and spoke too early...
Michael Kintzios
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:te...@vuosaari.hai.fi]
> Sent: 08 August 2005 08:46
> To: gento...@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
>
>
> On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Fernando Meira wrote:
>
> It is up to you how to rearrange them but I suggest that you
> have only
> these partitions for Gentoo:
>
> /boot
> /
> /home (optional but recommended)
> (+swap)
You could have a separate /usr or /usr/portage partition so that when/if
it runs out of space, your system continues to run despite the emerge
coming to a halt.
--
Regards,
Mick
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Tero Grundström
I don't don't know if this is very practical, atleast without a volume
manager.
Besides, isn't this taken care of by the filesystem already? I know that
ext2/3 preserve a persentage of the partition size for root especially for
these cases.
Sean Reiser
> Hi Tero,
> what I meant with "redo my partitions" was in the way that I will
> expand my gentoo partition (or try to).
> I have:
> # df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
> /dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
> /dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
> none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
>
> Options:
> - erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
> - somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a
> part to hda4.
The question is...can you live without the windows partition? if you
don't need it I would look at this:
1) Merge hda1 and hda4. Assuming this is desktop box that should be
plenty of space for the system and applications
2) Create a /boot partition (assuming you don't currently have one on
your box that wasn't mounted when you did the df). This way if your
system crashes at least /boot will not be corrupted.
3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of choice. Mount
it as /home.
4) Consider creating a swap partition. Even if you have plenty of RAM,
in my experience Linux just runs better with a swap partition mounted.
I would strongly suggest that you do a full backup before doing any of
this. I know there are partition resizing and reformatting utilities
but they I wouldn't trust them without a backup.
HTH
--
spr
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Michael Kintzios
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:te...@vuosaari.hai.fi]
> Sent: 08 August 2005 11:21
> To: gento...@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: RE: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
>
> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005, Michael Kintzios wrote:
>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Tero Grundstrm [mailto:te...@vuosaari.hai.fi]
> >> Sent: 08 August 2005 08:46
> >> To: gento...@lists.gentoo.org
> >> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] how to control portage space usage
> >>
[snip]
> > You could have a separate /usr or /usr/portage partition so
> that when/if
> > it runs out of space, your system continues to run despite
> the emerge
> > coming to a halt.
>
> I don't don't know if this is very practical, atleast without
> a volume
> manager.
>
> Besides, isn't this taken care of by the filesystem already?
> I know that
> ext2/3 preserve a persentage of the partition size for root
> especially for
> these cases.
Well, it has been practical enough for *my* needs. For a while I was
running Gentoo on a small partition and having run aground on a couple
of cases with a seized system during some mammoth emerge, I decided to
set up a separate /usr partition. Thereafter, I was able to recover
future incidents without having to boot the LiveCD. As you say, if
someone is going to alter partition sizes often then LVM is the way to
go. On the other hand if you have a good idea on how big your
/usr/portage is or needs to be then my suggestion is a simple enough
solution.
Neil Bothwick
> Well, it has been practical enough for *my* needs. For a while I was
> running Gentoo on a small partition and having run aground on a couple
> of cases with a seized system during some mammoth emerge, I decided to
> set up a separate /usr partition.
You don't need to add partitions, because portage isn't hard coded to use
any particular partitions. If you run out of space during emerges, you
only have to change $PORTAGE_TMPDIR to somewhere with more space
than /var. Equally, you can change $DISTDIR to reduce the amount of space
used in /usr/portage, you could even change it to a FAT32 partition of
your Windows installation has more free space than Gentoo.
--
Neil Bothwick
I am NOT Paranoid! And why are you always watching me??
Richard Fish
> Ok, so running through that forum I decided to try out some of the
> scripts to clean stale distfiles.
> The first one (distcleaner-0.0.2) returned a lot of errors. The second
> (distmaint.py) was too weird. Finally, (distclean.sh) seemed to be ok,
> and freed 255 MB. I could then end my emerge (eclipse). After the
> emerge I end-up with 805Mb free.
>
> As you say Holly, this is far from enough if I want to compile
> something big and also maybe for smaller apps. Which means that I have
> a problem.
> In fact, I have a 38GB disk on my laptop. My mistake was that I
> assumed that gentoo was not so space-consuming. Now I'll have to make
> some modifications, redo my partitions. What I would like was to clean
> once per all my windoz partition (9GB)... but from time to time I need
> it.. unless I find a replacement to all the things I need from there.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the replies.
> If someone has a nice script to maintain distfiles under control let
> me know. ;)
My preference, since I normally mount with noatime, is:
mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,atime (yes, I keep distfiles on a
separate LVM volume!)
emerge --deep --emptytree --fetchonly world (updates atimes)
mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,noatime
find /u/p/distfiles -amin +60 -exec rm -v {} \;
The above commands will remove all distfiles not needed anymore, either
due to updates or unmerge packages.
-Richard
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Fernando Meira
Fernando Meira wrote:
> I have:
> # df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda4 4.6G 3.8G 803M 83% /
> udev 252M 808K 252M 1% /dev
> /dev/hda5 23G 20G 3.3G 86% /mnt/share
> /dev/hda1 9.8G 8.0G 1.8G 82% /mnt/windows
> none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
>
> Options:
> - erase hda1 (win$) and merge with with hda4.
> - somehow rearrange hda5 (which is FAT) and split it 2, and merge a
> part to hda4.
The question is...can you live without the windows partition?
if you don't need it I would look at this:
1) Merge hda1 and hda4. Assuming this is desktop box that should be
plenty of space for the system and applications
Yes, that would be the best I could do. But, assuming that I can't remove entirely windows from my laptop, what about reduce it to it's minimum (windows + apps that I really need) and run it by VMware, always under Gentoo? The spare space from unused apps would merge it with gentoo's partition.. I estimate it of about 4Gb. What do you say about this?
2) Create a /boot partition (assuming you don't currently have one on
your box that wasn't mounted when you did the df). This way if your
system crashes at least /boot will not be corrupted.
My /boot is inside gentoo's partition. I understand the point of having it outside.. I should think of changing it!! Good point!
3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of choice. Mount
it as /home.
The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With windows away, I could do that.
From this partition (hda5) I may be able to free some space and "move" it to gentoo's partition.
4) Consider creating a swap partition. Even if you have plenty of RAM,
in my experience Linux just runs better with a swap partition mounted.
I have. 512mb swap. df shows it slitted into 2 other: udev and none....
I would strongly suggest that you do a full backup before doing any of
this. I know there are partition resizing and reformatting utilities
but they I wouldn't trust them without a backup.
Yes, of course!
Thanks for suggestions.
Fernando.
Fernando Meira
So I can point them both to the FAT32 partition and get 1Gb back (when not emerging) to gentoo's system.. that's interesting! That could help me until I find a real solution to the mess on my pc... :)
Fernando Meira
My preference, since I normally mount with noatime, is:
mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,atime (yes, I keep distfiles on a
separate LVM volume!)
emerge --deep --emptytree --fetchonly world (updates atimes)
mount /u/p/distfiles -o remount,noatime
find /u/p/distfiles -amin +60 -exec rm -v {} \;
The above commands will remove all distfiles not needed anymore, either
due to updates or unmerge packages.
This looks to be a very nice way to do it. It works in another way than the scripts I been looking to. Instead of searching what "should" be deprecated, it verifies that after an emerge world.. nice and simple!! However, in this way you'll erase all other packages that you may need in case you want to recompile them.. but maybe in this case, it's better to download them again than keep ALL of them wasting your disk space.
Other thing: I was not aware of LVM volumes, what are the advantages of using it to keep distfiles? And, how big is your volume?
Cheers,
Fernando
Sean Reiser
> The question is...can you live without the windows partition?
>
>
> Well, maybe. The problem is that sometimes I need to use something
> that works only under windows (or better under windows). Besides that
> I only use windows for video-conference (I haven't found the time to
> look for a linux replacement, assuming that my webcam works under linux).
mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have
much expirience with either, sorry to say. As far as the other software
is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine (assuming
that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software
such as vmare.
>
> if you don't need it I would look at this:
>
> 1) Merge hda1 and hda4. Assuming this is desktop box that should be
> plenty of space for the system and applications
>
>
> Yes, that would be the best I could do. But, assuming that I can't
> remove entirely windows from my laptop, what about reduce it to it's
> minimum (windows + apps that I really need) and run it by VMware,
> always under Gentoo? The spare space from unused apps would merge it
> with gentoo's partition.. I estimate it of about 4Gb. What do you say
> about this?
With VMWare you create a virtual disk, which can be expanded as needed.
This is one way to go. As mentioned Wine is the other.
> 3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of
> choice. Mount
> it as /home.
>
>
> The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With
> windows away, I could do that.
Right. Keep in mind that with VMWare you can mount your linux home
directory as a SMB share.
Another advantage of a seperate /home is that you can reinstall the OS
without effecting your important personal data and settings. I realize
on your current system /mnt/share really handled some of that but
thought I'd mention it as well.
> 4) Consider creating a swap partition. Even if you have plenty of
> RAM,
> in my experience Linux just runs better with a swap partition
> mounted.
>
>
> I have. 512mb swap. df shows it slitted into 2 other: udev and none....
OK... blury vision... that email was part of an allnighter.
Luke Albers
> Fernando Meira wrote:
>
> > The question is...can you live without the windows partition?
> >
> >
> > Well, maybe. The problem is that sometimes I need to use something
> > that works only under windows (or better under windows). Besides that
> > I only use windows for video-conference (I haven't found the time to
> > look for a linux replacement, assuming that my webcam works under linux).
>
> mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have
> much expirience with either, sorry to say. As far as the other software
> is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine (assuming
> that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software
> such as vmare.
>
> >
I don't have any experience with it, but gnomemeeting might be something
you would be interested in
--
gento...@gentoo.org mailing list
Neil Bothwick
> > You don't need to add partitions, because portage isn't hard coded to
> > use any particular partitions. If you run out of space during
> > emerges, you only have to change $PORTAGE_TMPDIR to somewhere with
> > more space than /var. Equally, you can change $DISTDIR to reduce the
> > amount of space used in /usr/portage, you could even change it to a
> > FAT32 partition of your Windows installation has more free space than
> > Gentoo.
> So I can point them both to the FAT32 partition and get 1Gb back (when
> not emerging) to gentoo's system.. that's interesting! That could help
> me until I find a real solution to the mess on my pc... :)
I'm not sure whether $PORTAGE_TMPDIR would work on a FAT32 partition,
because of the lack of permissions.
--
Neil Bothwick
-Come, come, why they couldn't hit an elephant from this dist-
Fernando Meira
thanks for answering (as well the others :))
more questions:
mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have
much expirience with either, sorry to say. As far as the other software
is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine (assuming
that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software
such as vmare.
Yes, that might be the best I can do now.
I been looking for VMWare and Wine and from what I read, I prefer Wine, but does it run everything, most of it or almost nothing?
I read it is must harder to install/configure, but I'll give it a try. Or is there anyone to convince me that VMWare is better?
I'll erase my windows partition and merge it with gentoo's one. I'll end up with ~15Gb for gentoo... which seems to be fairly acceptable. In a future stage, I might convert my "share" partition from FAT32 to a linux like. By the way, I use reiserfs on my gentoo's partition. Will I have problems to resize it?
About the videoconference, I checked the forum and got aware of the cvs version of amsn which already supports it. :)
> 3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of
> choice. Mount
> it as /home.
>
>
> The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With
> windows away, I could do that.
Right. Keep in mind that with VMWare you can mount your linux home
directory as a SMB share.
Another advantage of a seperate /home is that you can reinstall the OS
without effecting your important personal data and settings. I realize
on your current system /mnt/share really handled some of that but
thought I'd mention it as well.
Yes, that was the main reason to have my personal files on other partition.
As I said, converting this partition will be the next step after removing windows and installing wine.
Cheers,
Fernando
Sean Reiser
> On 8/8/05, *Sean Reiser* <se...@seanreiser.com
>
> mmhmm... the webcam / video-conference stuff is not something I have
> much expirience with either, sorry to say. As far as the other
> software
> is concerned I would look at the crossover office fork of wine
> (assuming
> that wine itself won't run it) or maybe some virtualization software
> such as vmare.
>
>
> Yes, that might be the best I can do now.
> I been looking for VMWare and Wine and from what I read, I prefer
> Wine, but does it run everything, most of it or almost nothing?
heh... that's exactly right. :) .... It really depends on who you are
and what you are doing. I think I mentioned that I'm using the
codeweaver crossover office port (http://www.codeweavers.com/). Take a
look both the wine site and their site to see if the applications you
are looking to run will run.
> I read it is must harder to install/configure, but I'll give it a try.
> Or is there anyone to convince me that VMWare is better?
They are entirely different products (I use both). WINE is an api layer
where VMWareis a true VM. You'll get better better compatibility at the
cost of RAM and performance. I tend to use VMWare for a testing
environment and WINE for running applications.
> I'll erase my windows partition and merge it with gentoo's one. I'll
> end up with ~15Gb for gentoo... which seems to be fairly acceptable.
> In a future stage, I might convert my "share" partition from FAT32 to
> a linux like. By the way, I use reiserfs on my gentoo's partition.
> Will I have problems to resize it?
Even though reiserfs lets you do it I wouldn't resize the volume with it
mounted (seems far too risky for my gut). As I mentioned I would do a
backup first (can't stress that enough). Any time I've done this type
of work I have booted from a live CD, backed up (and verified), scrogged
and repartitioned, and then restored.
FileSystem Caveat: Although my last name is Reiser, I am not related or
associated with reiserfs (or to Hans himself). Do not believe that I
know more about reiserfs based on the strength of my last name.
> > 3) Convert hda5 to ext3|reiserfs|jfs|mature non-fat fs of
> > choice. Mount
> > it as /home.
> >
> >
> > The reason it is FAT32 is to windows be able to access it. With
> > windows away, I could do that.
>
> Right. Keep in mind that with VMWare you can mount your linux home
> directory as a SMB share.
>
> Another advantage of a seperate /home is that you can reinstall
> the OS
> without effecting your important personal data and settings. I
> realize
> on your current system /mnt/share really handled some of that but
> thought I'd mention it as well.
>
>
> Yes, that was the main reason to have my personal files on other
> partition.
> As I said, converting this partition will be the next step after
> removing windows and installing wine.
Sounds like a good direction.
Good Luck.
Fernando Meira
> I'll erase my windows partition and merge it with gentoo's one. I'll
> end up with ~15Gb for gentoo... which seems to be fairly acceptable.
> In a future stage, I might convert my "share" partition from FAT32 to
> a linux like. By the way, I use reiserfs on my gentoo's partition.
> Will I have problems to resize it?
Even though reiserfs lets you do it I wouldn't resize the volume with it
mounted (seems far too risky for my gut). As I mentioned I would do a
backup first (can't stress that enough). Any time I've done this type
of work I have booted from a live CD, backed up (and verified), scrogged
and repartitioned, and then restored.
I've been looking for comments about this process... and I got a little bit scared.
In my case, i have (in order):
- /dev/hda1 - 9.8G windows
- /dev/hda2 - EXTENDED
- /dev/hda5 - 23G share
- /dev/hda3 - 512Mb swap
- /dev/hda4 - 4.6G gentoo
So, am I wrong or is it impossible to merge hda1 and hda4 with hda5 in between?
I could rearrange swap and even create /boot, but I wont be able to move (at least at the time being) my share partition.
If I'm right, then what are my choices?
Could I:
- backup up gentoo's partition (maybe using SysRescueCD: http://www.sysresccd.org/
- format windows partition, create /boot at the beginning of the hd, use the rest for gentoo system
- use the actual gentoo partition for /home (or would it be better to other like /usr ??)
- restore gentoo system on the 1rst partition and fix boot.
Is there any better idea?
Maybe after a month or so, I may be able to move my SHARE and arrange this better...
FileSystem Caveat: Although my last name is Reiser, I am not related or
associated with reiserfs (or to Hans himself). Do not believe that I
know more about reiserfs based on the strength of my last name.
eheheh.. :)
Good Luck.
Thanks, I'll need it.
Fernando.
Holly Bostick
> I've been looking for comments about this process... and I got a little
> bit scared.
> In my case, i have (in order):
> - /dev/hda1 - 9.8G windows
> - /dev/hda2 - EXTENDED
> - /dev/hda5 - 23G share
> - /dev/hda3 - 512Mb swap
> - /dev/hda4 - 4.6G gentoo
>
> So, am I wrong or is it impossible to merge hda1 and hda4 with hda5 in
> between?
> I could rearrange swap and even create /boot, but I wont be able to move
> (at least at the time being) my share partition.
> If I'm right, then what are my choices?
Honestly, I'm not quite sure why you feel the driving need to merge
anything.
*You are a Linux user. You can mount partitions wherever you want.*
I don't think you can "merge" hda1 and hda4 without setting up LVM, but
there's no reason that you can't boot from a LiveCD, mount the
newly-empty hda1 to /mnt/temp, rsync the contents of /usr (or /var, or
whatever) to that partition, rename the current /var (or /usr, or
whatever) folder to var(usr).tmp, then edit your fstab to mount hda1 to
/var.
If it all works properly, erase /var(usr).tmp, and the space is free.
That's how most of us get extra space "on the fly" when there's no other
choice and it has to be done relatively quickly and with minimal
disturbance (as opposed to major repartitioning that might be necessary
for something like setting up LVM).
HTH,
Fernando Meira
Fernando Meira schreef:
> I've been looking for comments about this process... and I got a little
> bit scared.
> In my case, i have (in order):
> - /dev/hda1 - 9.8G windows
> - /dev/hda2 - EXTENDED
> - /dev/hda5 - 23G share
> - /dev/hda3 - 512Mb swap
> - /dev/hda4 - 4.6G gentoo
>
> So, am I wrong or is it impossible to merge hda1 and hda4 with hda5 in
> between?
> I could rearrange swap and even create /boot, but I wont be able to move
> (at least at the time being) my share partition.
> If I'm right, then what are my choices?
Honestly, I'm not quite sure why you feel the driving need to merge
anything.
*You are a Linux user. You can mount partitions wherever you want.*
Of course... so obvious and I realize it before...
I don't think you can "merge" hda1 and hda4 without setting up LVM, but
there's no reason that you can't boot from a LiveCD, mount the
newly-empty hda1 to /mnt/temp, rsync the contents of /usr (or /var, or
whatever) to that partition, rename the current /var (or /usr, or
whatever) folder to var(usr).tmp, then edit your fstab to mount hda1 to
/var.
Ok, so what would be the best way? Since the current partition is quite limited (4.6G), I would need to "move" (mount) there something that worth the 10G. Mounting /home and pointing $PORTAGE_TMPDIR and $DISTDIR to that partition would be a good idea? Or split it into 2 (or 3) smaller parts and mount there /usr and /var (and /home or other)... this now is just to find a better way to use the available space.
Thanks for the help.
Fernando.