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I have been using win 7 but recently i had this desire of installing Ubuntu, so I tried installing it alongside Windows but due to having dynamic volumes I was unable to install it. Therefore, I formatted the whole system and installed Ubuntu 13.04.

Now the problem is when I was installing Ubuntu , it didn't ask for disk partitioning and just installed. So now when I installed GParted in Ubuntu, I got this result.

enter image description here

So now firstly I need to know what this means?? Please answer comparing with Windows because I am new to Ubuntu.

And secondly, can I partition this space into volumes like we have in Windows?

Sorry if I have been not clear....

Would be thankful for any views...

Thanks a lot in advance.

Mitch
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chief
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  • You used full disk encryption which uses LVM. LVM is a different type of logical partitioning over the top of the physical partitions. It adds a level of complexity but offers some advantages if you want to move partitions around a lot or you use encryption. You cannot use gparted with LVM. (Very newest gparted from gparted web site may, now work with LVM). – oldfred Jul 29 '13 at 17:33

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Okay, so here's my mini-guide to disk referencing in Linux.

This is a simple partition table, and allows me to work easily explaining what it all means. You have two primary partitions here: /dev/sda1/ and /dev/sda2/.

/dev is short for 'device'. It is the special filesystem which contains nodes describing devices found and recognized by the system. For example, sda is your hard disk, /dev/sr0 refers to CD-ROM and /dev/psaux to mouse. sda1 and sda2 are both primary partitions.

  • sda1 is where GRUB files are stored and is the partition that your system boots into.
  • sda2 is an extended partition. An extended partition is a type of logical partition that has the ability to split itself up into numerous partitions. You may ask, 'Why would you need this when you create other partitions?'. Well, because the MBR partition table only allows up to four primary partitions, extended partitions allow you more; extended partitions also make it a lot easier to manage dual booting systems. sda2 is an extended partition that may contain multiple partitions within itself, but it must be primary partition.
  • sda5 is the Ubuntu OS and all of it's storage. When you click on 'file system' in Ubuntu, you're looking at the data in sda5.

To answer your question about being able to partition this space into volumes: yes you can. For example if you want to create a separate partition for storage, you would remove some space from /dev/sda5, and create a new volume — logical partition under /dev/sda2, your extended partition. Refer to this instruction for more details.

Summary: /dev/sda is where GRUB is stored, /dev/sda1/ is where GRUB files are stored. /dev/sda2/ is extended partition and /dev/sda5 is where your OS and storage are. Yes, you can partition this space into volumes, not like you can in Windows, but it is possible.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Sorry if I've left anything unclear.

Community
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Wyatt G. M.
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  • Thanx to u both for providing me this info.... now if you could please help me out with this gparted software i.e how to use it??? would be grateful... :) @Danatela – chief Jul 29 '13 at 04:03
  • @Danatela Done bt plz if u could answer my question??? – chief Jul 29 '13 at 04:20
  • Wyatt, this was good attempt to provide good answer, but amount of editing needed witnesses that you need to learn many aspects of Ubuntu. I suggest you to mark your post as community wiki. – Danatela Jul 29 '13 at 05:50
  • @Danatela That's k but does it mean that sda5 is a sub volume of sda2 because graphically it seems so.... and I have another doubt also i.e while using gparted to resize my partition, according to many a tutorial it should display a swap sort of something but it is not, so any views abt it..... and sry if i am irritaing you... :) Thanx – chief Jul 29 '13 at 12:19
  • @chief, oldfred explained why don't you see swap under your post. And your suggestions about sda5 are right. – Danatela Jul 30 '13 at 01:44