repartitioning question

[Nicias]

This isn't a quesion about a new install, but rather about using parted, so I thought it might belong here.

When I got my new laptop I but kubuntu on it, since I need it usefull immediately. In my sparetime I have been putting gentoo on it as well, since I prefer gentoo, but it takes longer to get up and running.

At this point I am ready to chuck my kubuntu install.

I want to reclaim the space I was using for kubuntu into my gentoo / partition. This is my current partition scheme:

/dev/sda1 64M /boot 64m
/dev/sda2 1G swap
/dev/sda3 31G /mnt/kubuntu/
/dev/sda4 44G /

Am I correct that parted cannot extend a partition back like that? So I would need to first copy everything over to sda3, and then expand sda3 to include the old sda4?

If so, what options should I pass to cp to do the copy properly? (or should I use dd or rsync?)

Thanks!

[mrybczyn]

cp -a should do the right thing. Don't copy your /proc or /sys directories, though, those are 'pseudo filesystems', not actual files. You don't have to combine the partitions. You could, for instance, keep your 40gig partition mounted as your /home after moving the rest of gentoo to your 30gig partition.

Make sure to update your /boot partition grub.conf to point the kernel at the new / partition of your gentoo system.

[NeddySeagoon]

Nicias,

If I was doing what you want to do, I would make /dev/sda3 /home and leave the partitions well alone.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[Nicias]

I thought about that, but then I have to decide where to put what, I actually plan on using quite a bit of this space, and I don't want to have to be careful about what goes where. I want a big bucket I can dump files in. If I do what you suggest, then I am wasting probably 20GB of storage space on / and I have to decide which 20gb of crap to put there.

[mrybczyn]

Aha, even better, don't move the system at all