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Does Ubuntu 20.04 require the ext3 partition being shown in Gparted ? I feel it may have been created during Ubuntu 20.04 normal installation. I find that it is remains unmounted even though the system is on. Is it being used during booting (as there no boot flag to it) ? If Ubuntu does not require it, will be safe to delete that partition ? I have no other OS on the disk.

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A Raghuram
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    Pls update your question with a screenshot showing the partition you are talking about. – Soren A Aug 04 '20 at 10:50
  • So far this question is "should I delete something I don't understand for undisclosed reasons?". The only answer can be "No, no, a thousand times NO!" – waltinator Aug 04 '20 at 18:35
  • The reason is that I want to create a separate partition to hold the "Home" folder and I thought I could use this space too instead of lying unused. – A Raghuram Aug 04 '20 at 19:45
  • Screenshot provided. – A Raghuram Aug 04 '20 at 20:19
  • Please accept the answer below by clicking on the gray check mark ✔next to it and turn it green ✅. This will indicate that the answer is correct and help others with the same problem. You can also up-vote my answer to show your appreciation. – user68186 Aug 05 '20 at 12:50

1 Answers1

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No. Ubuntu 20.04 does not use ext3 partitions by default

The standard installation of Ubuntu 20.04 creates only one / partition formatted ext4. This seems to be /dev/sda4 in your case.

ext4 replaced ext3 as the default partition format of Ubuntu in the version 9.10. That is, in October 2009 release. In other words, ext3 has not been used as the default partition format for over a decade.

Since the ext3 partition is numbered /dev/sda2 my guess is it was created prior to the installation of Ubuntu 20.04.

We can see that it has some data, about 140 MB of it. I can't tell you what that data is, and if you need it or not.

Try mounting the /dev/sda2 partition using the Gnome-disks utility and see what files and folders it contains using Files. Then if needed, you can copy the contents of the partition in a spare USB flash drive.

Once you determine the data in the partition is either not useful, or is backed up elsewhere, you can delete the partition. However, to resize the Ubuntu system partition you will need to boot from a Live DVD/USB and select the option of Try Ubuntu without Installing. Ubuntu does not allow (unmounting and) resizing a running systems partition. See How to resize partitions? for details.

Hope this helps

user68186
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